Christi Parsons

Christi Parsons became a faculty member and the director of Capital News Service’s Annapolis bureau in January 2024. She had been an enterprise editor and assistant managing editor at CNN. 

Parsons directs Merrill College students in their daily coverage of the Maryland State House, and of issues important to Marylanders.

Parsons has been a journalist for more than 30 years, reporting all over the U.S. and from 32 countries around the world. She previously was a senior editor at The Atlantic; a White House correspondent for the Los Angeles Times; a national political writer, state and local reporter for The Chicago Tribune; and a local reporter for several newspapers around the South. She has covered presidential campaigns since the 1990s, and was one of the longest-serving chroniclers of the rise and presidency of Barack Obama, covering him from the beginning of his term in the Illinois Senate and throughout his time in the White House.  

In 2015, Parsons was president of the White House Correspondents' Association. She serves on the board of MASTHEAD, an alumni organization that supports student journalists of color at the University of Alabama. 

She holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama and a master's from Yale Law School. Parsons is known for helping fellow journalists develop strong source networks and dig deep in reporting, as well as for her attention to lovely writing.