Christi Parsons, 57, flew home to Tuscaloosa in anticipation of her induction into the College of Communication & Information Sciences’ Hall of Fame at The University of Alabama on Oct. 10.
The College honored four professionals with exceptional careers that inspired the campus and the community. Alongside Parsons were three other notable alumni. The College honored the professionals for exemplifying commitment, dedication, and excellence in all they do.
Parsons and her family moved to Silver Spring in 2007 when she received a job offer to cover Congress. Parsons and her husband were drawn to the homey nature of the area and especially loved Rolling Terrace Elementary School upon touring it.
Parsons was born and raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and always knew she wanted to be a journalist. Although her career eventually led her to Washington D.C., she held onto her southern roots.
“I started practicing journalism when I was in elementary school,” Parsons said. “My mom was a journalist, my granddad was a newspaperman, so I was just always kind of a journalist.”
According to The Center for Public Television, Parsons’ mother Marie was a dedicated journalist who concluded her career as a professor of Journalism at The University of Alabama. Parsons added that her grandfather, Otto Volkert was a linotype operator.
“He liked to read the newspaper and circle the mistakes and correct the grammar,” Parsons said. “I just kind of grew up around it.”
Parsons said it wasn’t only growing up around fellow journalists and media people that made her want to be a journalist, but also the active discussion of news in her family. She described how these discussions were a key part of her upbringing. Even the people who weren’t involved in journalism in her family were very involved in pursuing knowledge.
“I come from a family of observers,” Parsons said.
Parsons earned her bachelor’s degree in news editorial from The University of Alabama in 1989. She would later go on to get her Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School. Parsons said she wanted to obtain a master’s degree in law to become a more well-rounded journalist. Parsons was covering politics and felt that law school would give her a better understanding of the world she was reporting on.
During her four years in Tuscaloosa, she interned for multiple news outlets, including The Tuscaloosa News, the Birmingham News, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, according to The Center for Public Television.
Parsons’ first job out of college was as a reporter at The Chicago Tribune. She would go on to work for numerous news outlets such as The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, and the Cable News Network.
During her time at the Tribune in Springfield, Illinois, she covered former President Barack Obama when he was a state senator; and as Obama rose in popularity and his career grew, so did Parsons’.
Sporting the iconic Alabama crimson red, Parsons recounted the many years she spent reporting on Obama.
“It was important because it was very organic,” said Parsons when referring to her reporter-source relationship with Obama.
According to Parsons, Obama was an excellent source for her in Springfield. Michael Tackett, the Deputy Washington Bureau Chief for the Associated Press, recounted that Obama had a great deal of respect for Parsons’ reporting, and the integrity of her reporting. Parsons’ knowledge of Obama, his family, and his work came naturally over the years. This knowledge gave her an advantage once she arrived in Washington.
“She’s got this ability to connect with people, and I think that makes a really good reporter,” said Marty Kaiser, the managing director of Capital News Service at The University of Maryland’s College of Journalism.
In 2007 Parsons moved to Washington after Obama took his seat in the U.S. Senate. She continued to follow Obama’s career, and in 2008 she became a White House correspondent for The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune. She held this position until the end of the Obama administration.
Michael Collins, a White House correspondent for USA Today, met Parsons in Washington when he worked for Scripps Howard News Service and she was with the Tribune. They worked in the same office.
“One of the things I remember specifically was that Christi came over to Scripps and went around to everybody and introduced herself,” Collins said. “And I may be wrong about this, but I don’t remember anyone else doing that, but she did.”
In 2015, Parsons was elected President of The White House Correspondents Association. Parsons stated that in this role you are an advocate for the press corps and the free press.
“The President of The White House Correspondents Association is a watchdog,” Parsons said.
One of her key responsibilities as President was organizing the annual White House Correspondents dinner, according to The Center for Public Television.
“That was probably the most intense and busy year of my life,” Parsons said. “I just never slept,” she said with a soft laugh and a gentle southern drawl.
Following her role as President of the Association, she worked for The Atlantic as the Director of The Atlantic’s talent lab from 2017 to 2020, and at CNN from 2020 to 2024.
Parsons took on a new challenge and she entered the world of academia in 2024. She became a faculty member and the Director of the Capital News Service’s Annapolis Bureau at The University of Maryland’s College of Journalism.
“I first met her in the interview process for the Annapolis job, and was just incredibly impressed with her as a person, as a journalist, and her background,” said Kaiser. “So that was really impressive, her enthusiasm to work for students and people.”
Parsons said that this particular job, working as the Director for the Annapolis Bureau of the Capital News Service, made her want to enter the academic field.
“I love to mentor people,” Parsons said. “My favorite thing in any newsroom is working with younger journalists to help them get started, and that’s what made me the happiest at The Atlantic, CNN, the LA Times, and the Tribune.”
Parson shared that her journalism philosophy is to stay curious. She described how if you think you know everything, it’s time to try something new; and that’s exactly what she did.
“I think the thing that makes great journalists is curiosity, that we don’t know everything,” said Kaiser. “We are open to learning and doing better, and that’s what came across to me about Christi.”
Parsons said she hopes to be remembered as someone who contributed to the future generation of journalists. She hopes that she can help students learn to be intellectually confident and to judge facts and opinions for themselves; and that they become intellectually confident enough to be curious about the world around them.
“I hope that some people can say that they got better from working with me,” Parsons said. “I get to work with somebody really intensely for three full months, and then I see them go from what they’re capable of then to what they’re capable of now. That feels amazing.”