Jason M. Shepard, Ph.D., is a media law scholar, professor and interim dean of the College of Communications at  California State University, Fullerton , one of the largest mass communications programs in the United States. His research examines the role of the First Amendment in American democracy, journalism and culture, and his teaching expertise is in journalism and media law, history and ethics. Before academia, Shepard worked as an award-winning journalist in Madison, Wis., and a Teach For America corps member in New York City.

Shepard’s record of academic scholarship includes more than 120 publications and presentations. He is co-author of the textbook   Major Principles of Media Law , now its 30th edition published by Cengage. He writes  "Online Legalities,"  a regular column in  California Publisher , the publication of the  California News Publishers Association . Shepard’s first book,  Privileging the Press: Confidential Sources, Journalism Ethics and the First Amendment , explored the history and ethics of journalists' protection of confidential sources. In  Ethical Issues in Communication Professions: New Agendas in Communications , published by Routledge, Shepard proposed a new agenda for scholars of press freedom and responsibility in the digital era. In  Ethics for a Digital Age,  published by Peter Lang, Shepard critiqued the emerging uses of journalism ethical principles in First Amendment analysis. Shepard has also published research in  Yale Journal of Law and Technology ,  Communication Law and Policy ,  Journal of Media Law & Ethics ,  Journalism Practice ,  San Diego Law Review ,  Nevada Law Journal ,  William & Mary Law Journal of Race, Gender and Social Justice ,  Nexus Journal of Law and Policy , and  Drake Law Review . Shepard’s research has been  cited widely , including by a  federal appellate court  and in the  New York Times . 

At Cal State Fullerton, Shepard primarily teaches Communications Law. He has also taught courses in journalism, multimedia news production, journalism innovations and media history. He has also served as adviser of the  Daily Titan  student newspaper and website, during which his students won dozens of state and national journalism awards. In his role as department chair, he serves as publisher of the  Daily Titan . 

Shepard has been elected four times since 2014 as chair of the Department of Communications, which serves more than 1,500 majors with undergraduate concentrations in journalism, public relations, advertising and entertainment/tourism and graduate concentrations in professional communications, mass communications research and theory, and communications in tourism and entertainment. Shepard has twice successfully overseen his Department’s reaccreditation from the  Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications  (ACEJMC) and recertification from the  Certification in Education for Public Relations  (CEPR) from the  Public Relations Society of America  (PRSA), in 2015 and 2022.

Shepard’s leadership has been recognized by several university-wide awards. He received Cal State Fullerton's University Leadership Award in 2015. In 2016, Shepard was recognized with the Academic Senate’s  Faculty Leadership in Collegial Governance Award . In 2017, he was part of a team that won the University's  Teamwork and Collaboration Award  for a partnership with Univision and the Latino Communications Initiative. In 2022, the Department received the  Equity and Diversity Award  from Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). 

Shepard serves in several faculty leadership roles at Cal State Fullerton and in the CSU System. He is an elected representative to the state-wide  Academic Senate of the California State University  (ASCSU) and serves as Vice Chair of the ASCSU’s Academic Affairs Committee. He is also a senator, Vice Chair and member of the Executive Committee of the  Academic Senate of Cal State Fullerton .

​Nationally, Shepard is an elected member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (ASJMC). He also serves on the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC). He has been active for nearly 20 years in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication  (AEJMC), especially in the Law and Policy Division and LGBTQ Interest Group, including as former head. He served on the Elected Standing Committee on Professional Freedom and Responsibility (PF&R) and chaired AEJMC’s First Amendment Award from 2020-2023.

Shepard has a Ph.D. in mass communications, with a Ph.D. minor in law from the  University of Wisconsin-Madison . He was recognized with the inaugural  Sharon Dunwoody Early Career Award  from the  UW-Madison's School of Journalism and Mass Communication  in 2019, awarded to a Ph.D. graduate for excellence in research, teaching and service within ten years of graduation. Shepard has two master’s degrees, in education ( Pace University ) and in journalism and mass communication (UW-Madison), and a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science (UW-Madison). Before graduate school, Shepard taught seventh and eighth grade English and U.S. history in the South Bronx of New York City, beginning as a corps member of  Teach For America .

​As a journalist for 10 years covering crime, courts, politics, education and the media, Shepard won awards for investigative reporting, explanatory reporting, legal reporting, spot news reporting and feature reporting. Shepard wrote for Isthmus  newspaper, an award-winning alternative weekly, from 2004 to 2009, and  The Capital Times , the feistier of two local dailies, from 1996 to 2001. As an undergraduate at UW-Madison, he worked as a reporter and editor for  The Badger Herald  student newspaper. Shepard began his journalism career at age 16 as the school board reporter for the two local newspapers in his hometown of Wisconsin Dells, Wis. (population 2,808), the  Wisconsin Dells Events  and the Dells/Delton Daily .

Select Publications

Books

Major Principles of Media Law, Boston, MA: Cengage Learning (2023).

Privileging the Press: Confidential Sources, Journalism Ethics and the First Amendment, New York: NY: LFB Scholarly Publishers (2013).

Book Chapters

The Emerging Uses of Ethics in Journalist’s Privilege Law, in Bastiaan Vanacker (editor), Ethics for a Digital Age, New York, NY: Peter Lang (2015).

Freedom of the Press and Journalism Ethics in the Internet Era, in Minette E. Drumright (editor), New Agendas in Communication: Ethics in Communications Professions, New York, NY: Routledge (2013).

Journal Articles

The First Amendment and Mandatory Condom Laws: Rethinking the “Porn Exception” in Strict Scrutiny, Content Neutrality and Secondary Effects Analysis, Nevada Law Journal, Vol. 19 (2019).

Culture Wars on Campus: Academic Freedom, the First Amendment and Partisan Outrage in Polarized Times, San Diego Law Review,55: 87-158 (2018).

Anonymity, Disclosure and First Amendment Balancing in the Internet Era: Developments in Libel, Copyright and Election Speech, Yale Journal of Law and Technology, 15: 92-138 (2012).

Campaigning as the Press: Citizens United and the Problems of Press Exemption in Law, Nexus: Chapman’s Journal of Law and Policy, 16: 137-152 (2011).

Speaking From the Bench, Judicial Campaigns, Judges’ Speech and the First Amendment, Drake Law Review, 58(3): 709-736 (2010).

Bloggers After the Shield: Defining Journalism in Privilege Law, Journal of Media Law & Ethics, 1(3/4): 186-216 (2009).

After the First Amendment Fails: The Newsmen’s Privilege Hearings of the 1970s, Communication Law and Policy, 14(3): 373-410 (2009).