JPR Day 2025: Constitutional Chaos, Natural Disasters and JPR
JPR DAY 2025
Constitutional Chaos, Natural Disasters and JPR
Wednesday, April 23
USU Ballrooms
See panel schedule below and on the JPR Day website
News and public relations cycles have been in overdrive this year. Journalists and strategic communication professionals have had to keep up with fires, plane crashes and an onslaught of executive orders. They’ve also been buried in avalanches of mis- and dis-information. And, now, they’re battling challenges to judicial independence in courts, to editorial independence in newsrooms, to press access in the White House—and to free speech everywhere. Our JPR Day 2025 speakers will address these and other timely topics in journalism and public relations.
9:30-10:30 a.m. PANEL
“Pressure on the Press: Free Speech, Press Access and Owner Interference”
Jordyn Ostroff, Constitutional Attorney, Jassy|Vick|Carolan
Robert Green, Former Los Angeles Times Editorial Writer
Jessica Gonzalez, Co-CEO, Free Press
Moderated by professor Gwen Shaffer
11 a.m.-noon PANEL
Cultivating Sources and Finding Accurate Information during Disasters
Sid Garcia, Reporter, ABC-7
Jake Heflin, Public Information Officer, Long Beach Fire Department
Loren Simpson, Communications Director, Office of Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson
Ethan Swope, Photojournalist
Moderated by assistant professor Teresa Puente
The department’s annual Networking Fair will run alongside the JPR Day panels. During the fair, close to 100 students will meet one on one with professionals working in a variety of communications roles including but not limed to JPR alumni Elita Fielder Adjei, Vice President of Communication at CBS Stations, Robert Meeks, Directory of Video Strategy at Cal Matters, Sid Garcia, Reporter at ABC-7, and Yunsun Wee, Senior Director of Communications at Microsoft.
JPR Day will conclude with the department’s annual awards ceremony.
Many thanks to Ros Ithiratanasoonthorn and Gerry Wachovsky from the CLA and to Gwen Shaffer, Teresa Puente, Tina Chanthapan, Robin Jones, Todd Henneman and Nesha Saucier from the JPR department for their assistance with JPR Day.
