Anya Schiffrin

Anya Schiffrin, 2022

Anya Schiffrin (born December 6, 1962) is the director of the Technology, Media, and Communications (TMaC) specialization at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), and a senior lecturer at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Biography

Dr. Schiffrin is an American former business journalist. Previously, she freelanced and worked as an editor in Istanbul, a stringer for Reuters in Barcelona, a senior financial writer at The Industry Standard in New York, bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswires in Amsterdam and Hanoi and a writer for many other publications. She was a former Knight-Bagehot academic fellow in business journalism at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. Schiffrin is an alumna of Reed College, Columbia University School of Journalism, and University of Navarra, Spain where she achieved a Ph.D. with honors.

As well as her role in the School of International and Public Affairs, Dr. Schiffrin holds multiple influential roles across various organizations in international journalism and media governance. She is the Co-chair of the OSCE Working Group tasked with producing recommendations for governments on press freedom[1] [2], a director on the U.S. Board of Directors of the Thomson Reuters Foundation[3], and a member of the Working Group "Information as a Public Good in the Age of Datafication and Artificial Intelligence" for the International Panel on Social Progress (appointed September 2024).

She chairs the board of directors for The New Humanitarian and serves on boards of Reporters Without Borders USA,[4], The GroundTruth Project[5], Global Board and the advisory board of the Natural Resource Governance Institute (formerly named Revenue Watch Institute).[6], the Global Reporting Centre of the University of British Columbia[7], and Ethosfera.org.

Dr. Schiffrin also advises the American Journalism Project and Columbia University Press, while contributing to the Forum on Information and Democracy’s Infodemics Working Group[8]. Additionally, she has contributed to the AI Charter in Media initiative by Reporters Without Borders as a committee member since 2023[9].

Previously, Dr. Schiffrin served on the Open Society Foundations' journalism program (2016–2023), the Center for Media, Data and Society of Central European University (2013-2019)[10], the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Forum Alpbach (2018–2023), the board of the American Assembly (2016–2019), and the Steering Committee of the Center on Global Energy Policy (2016–2018). She also served on the Advisory Board of Transparentem (2015–2017) and the board of the African journalism NGO, African Sentinel (2013–2015).

In addition, she has been a visiting fellow at the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford[11] and an expert witness on media freedom issues.

She writes extensively on topics including journalism and development, the impact of technology on journalism, platform regulations and remuneration, media in Africa, and the extractive sector, among other areas. In recent years, her research work with economist Haaris Mateen on why tech giants owe publishers billions of dollars[12] [13]garnered significant attention and recognition[14].

She is a leading thinker and commentator on AI and publishing, media sustainability as well as mis/disinformation [15] and media impact. Her most recent work includes AI and the future of journalism: An issue brief for stakeholders, part of the UNESCO series World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development, The role of journalism promoting democracy and political accountability and sustainable development, co-authored with Joseph E. Stiglitz and Dylan Groves, and Creating National Funds to Support Journalism and Public-Interest Media, co-authored with Brigitte Alfter.

She has edited several notable publications on journalism and media, including Women in the Digital World (Routledge, 2023), Media Capture: How Money, Digital Platforms, and Governments Control the News (Columbia University Press, 2021), African Muckraking: 75 Years of Investigative Journalism from Africa (Jacana Press, 2017), In the Service of Power: Media Capture and the Threat to Democracy (Center for International Media Assistance, 2017), and Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Reporting from Around the World (New Press 2014).

She is the daughter of the author and publisher André Schiffrin and the sister-in-law of the lawyer Philippe Sands. She was married[16] on October 29, 2004, to Nobel Prize-winning economist and author Joseph E. Stiglitz, who also teaches at Columbia University in New York City.

In 2011, her Reuters columns about the gender balance at Davos attracted international attention.[17][18]

Books

• Women in the Digital World. (2023) (Editor) ISBN 9781032452142
• Media Capture: How Money, Digital Platforms, and Governments Control the News. (2021) (Editor) ISBN 9780231188838
• African Muckraking: 75 Years of Investigative Journalism from Africa. (2017) (Co-Editor with George William Lugalambi) ISBN 978-1431425860
• Media in the Service of Power: Media Capture and the Threat to Democracy. (2017) (Editor) ISBN 978-0-9818254-2-7
• Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Journalism from Around the World (2014) (Editor) ISBN 978-1-595589-73-6
• From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices from the Global Spring (2012) (Co-editor with Eamon Kircher-Allen) ISBN 978-1-595588-27-2
• Bad News: How America's Business Press Missed the Story of the Century (2011) (Editor) ISBN 978-1-595585-49-3
• Covering Labor: A Reporter's Guide to Worker's Rights in a Global Economy (2006) (Co-editor with Liza Featherstone) ISBN 978-0-977852-30-7
• Covering Oil: A Reporter's Guide to Energy and Development (2005) (Co-editor with Svetlana Tsalik) ISBN 978-1-891385-45-2
• Business and Economic Reporting: Covering Companies, Financial Markets and the Broader Economy (2005) (Co-author with Margie Freaney and Jane M. Folpe)
• Covering Globalization: A Handbook for Reporters (2004) (Co-editor with Amer Bisat) ISBN 978-0-231131-75-9

References

1. "Media and Big Tech Initiative".
2. "Media & Big Tech - OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and the Forum for Information and Democracy are developing new policy guidance". 2 December 2024.
3. https://www.trust.org/about-us/our-people/?category=us-board-of-directors
4. "Five new members join RSF USA Board of Advisors | RSF". 29 May 2024.
5. "The GroundTruth Project welcomes prominent journalism academics to its board of directors". 30 May 2024.
6. "Anya Schiffrin | Columbia | SIPA". sipa.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2015-09-21.
7. "Board".
8. https://informationdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ForumID_Report-on-infodemics_101120.pdf
9. "AI Charter in Media: 10 individuals and 6 additional partner organisations join with RSF before the first working session. | RSF". 21 August 2023.
10. "Anya Schiffrin | CMDS".
11. "Three media experts join the Institute as Visiting Fellows from April to June 2023 | Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism".
12. "Why Google and Meta 'owe' news publishers". February 2024.
13. "Google and Meta Owe US Publishers $14 Billion a Year | TechPolicy.Press". 12 November 2023.
14. "Would a tech tax be a fair way to make Google and Meta pay for the news they distribute and profit from?". 29 August 2024.
15. https://igp.sipa.columbia.edu/sites/igp/files/2023-12/IGP_Anya_Schiffrin_The_Pursuit_of_Truth-Fixes_for_the_Spread_of_Online_Mis_Disinformation.pdf
16. "Anya Schiffrin, Joseph Stiglitz". The New York Times. 31 October 2004.
17. "Davos and the gender quota". The Guardian. January 25, 2011.
18. Schiffrin, Anya (February 12, 2014). "The French way of cancer treatment". Reuters Blogs. Archived from the original on February 15, 2014.