Karlos Gauna Schmieder

Karlos Gauna Schmieder is a community organizer and communications strategist from Albuquerque, NM. For nearly a decade, Karlos worked as a community and communications organizer with SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP). He is the former editor of Voces Unidas. He now works as communications strategist for Center for Media Justice, based in Oakland, CA.

As co-chair of Communications for the US Social Forum, Karlos coordinated media strategy for the groundbreaking forum.

He is also a former steering committee member of Grassroots Global Justice, and is a resource ally with the Right the City alliance. Karlos is currently on the leadership council of Progressive Communicators Network. Karlos has trained hundreds of community organizers, activists and everyday people in strategic communications.

Karlos' recent work includes coordinating a community communications strategy to support the defeat of Proposition 6, the first piece of a type of hate legislation (framed as a "tough of crime" bills, like 3 strikes) aimed at young people of color to be defeated in the state of California.

Along with Mervyn Marcano, he also supported the communications strategy for a coalition of community groups around the Oscar Grant shooting by a BART police officer that inserted community voices and changed the story from a "bad apple" story to one about a "bad system," and led to increased accountability for BART and Oakland Police and the first murder charge for a police officer in the line of duty anyone can remember.  

He has appeared on affiliates of ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, ClearChannel News, as well as CounterSpin, NPR, Laura Flanders Show, Dallas Morning News, Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque Tribune, East Bay Express, Grassroots Fundraising Journal, Wiretap, Youth Today, YES Magazine and more.

His media strategy work has lead to grassroots voices and spokespeople appearing in CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, BBC, CBC, PBS, USA Today, The New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, The Times Picayune, The Oakland Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, Telesur and most major and progressive news outlets from all over the world.