Description

Missed the event? 

Catch up on insights from Christina Bellantoni, Henry “CJ” Jackson, and Frank Mottek.

Watch the full session HERE.

Speaker Bios:

Christina Bellantoni

Christina Bellantoni is a professor of professional practice, the director of USC Annenberg’s Media Center, and a columnist for the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. Bellantoni also serves as an Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy faculty fellow. She is a member of the board of directors for two news nonprofits: the Riverside Record and the Hunter Index.

She has freelanced as a digital strategy consultant with the Outlook News Group based in La Cañada and as a contributing editor at The 19th News, a nonprofit newsroom. She served as a journalist advisory board member of the AI startup Seekr. Bellantoni has worked as a reporter and editor, as a producer and as an analyst on national television. She has covered local, state, and federal government, including four presidential campaigns and the White House.

At the LA Times, Bellantoni was an assistant managing editor focused on politics. Under her leadership, the California politics team earned statewide recognition for innovative coverage of politics. She joined the Times after spending 12 years as a journalist in Washington, D.C., serving as editor-in-chief of Roll Call until moving to Los Angeles in 2015.

Before Roll Call, Bellantoni was the political editor and an on-air analyst at the PBS NewsHour. Bellantoni began her stint in Washington in 2003 as a Metro reporter at the Washington Times and became a senior reporter for Talking Points Memo in 2009. Bellantoni was a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics in 2011, and is a former vice president of the Washington Press Club Foundation. She frequently appears on television and radio, including Spectrum News 1, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher. Find highlights from her reel here.

Awards and Honors:

Pulitzer Prize/Breaking News (team award) (2015)
1st Place from Maryland Delaware DC Press Association (2014)
National breaking news award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (2000)

Henry "C.J." Jackson

Henry “C.J.” Jackson is a veteran writer, editor, and communications expert who has taught classes at USC Annenberg since 2016 and served as a writing coach in USC Annenberg’s Media Center. Until October 2019, he served as director of editorial events at the Los Angeles Times. Previously, Jackson served as a staff editor at Politico, a leading political news site, during the 2016 campaign and the first two years of the Trump administration. 

Before that, Jackson spent nearly a decade as a national writer at The Associated Press in Washington, D.C., and Des Moines, Iowa — covering two presidential campaigns, Congress, and numerous high-profile public policy debates, conducting sit-down interviews with then Sens. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain as well as former Governor Mitt Romney. His reporting also helped change public records policy in Iowa. Jackson began his career as a city reporter for the Kansas City Star. 

He is a graduate of the University of Kansas, where he also served as a Dole Fellow at the Dole Institute of Politics.

Moderator: Frank Mottek

Event Recap:

What a wonderful high school program we had on Friday, December 5th, covering the topic of the First Amendment with our amazing panel: Professor Christina Bellantoni, Henry "C.J." Jackson, and our excellent moderator, Frank Mottek! The discussion explored how free speech and press freedoms are protected under the Constitution and the modern challenges those rights face. Panelists discussed media credibility, political polarization, social media, and the growing role of technology and AI in journalism, emphasizing the importance of critical thinking and media literacy. The conversation also highlighted the vital role of student journalists in upholding democratic values and holding institutions accountable.

Tremendous thanks to our high school program sponsors, Nick Boone and the Boone Foundation, as well as the Steinmetz Foundation, for supporting our youth education initiatives and making it possible for Los Angeles County high school students to learn and engage with timely issues that affect them and their peers. 

The video recording of the event can be found here: LAWAC High School Program: The Future of the First Amendment