Anya Schiffrin


Anya Schiffrin is the co-director of at Columbia University's School of [International and Public Affairs, Columbia University|School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA)], and a senior lecturer at the School of International and Public Affairs. Previously, she served as the director of the Technology, Media, and Communications specialization at SIPA.

Biography

Anya 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.
In addition to her role in the , Dr. Schiffrin holds multiple influential roles across various organizations in international journalism and media governance. She is the co-chair of the Working Group tasked with producing recommendations for governments on press freedom, a director on the U.S. Board of Directors of the , 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.
She serves on boards of , , Global Board and the advisory board of the Natural Resource Governance Institute., , , and . She has chaired the board of directors for .
Dr. Schiffrin also advises the and , while contributing to the ’s Infodemics Working Group. Additionally, she has contributed to the AI Charter in Media initiative by Reporters Without Borders as a committee member since 2023.
Previously, Dr. Schiffrin served on the ' journalism program, , the Scientific Advisory Board of the , the board of the American Assembly, and the Steering Committee of the . She also served on the Advisory Board of and the board of the African journalism NGO, African Sentinel.
In addition, she has been a visiting fellow at the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford 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 on why tech giants owe publishers billions of dollars garnered significant attention and recognition.
She is a leading thinker and commentator on AI and publishing, media capture, media sustainability as well as mis/disinformation 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, ', co-authored with Joseph E. Stiglitz and Dylan Groves, and ', co-authored with Brigitte Alfter.
She has edited several notable publications on journalism and media, including ', ', ', ', and .
She is the daughter of the author and publisher André Schiffrin and the sister-in-law of the lawyer Philippe Sands. She was married on October 29, 2004, to Bank of Sweden [Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel|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.

Books

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  • Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Journalism from Around the World ,
  • From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices from the Global Spring ,
  • Bad News: How America's Business Press Missed the Story of the Century ,
  • Covering Labor: A Reporter's Guide to Worker's Rights in a Global Economy ,
  • Covering Oil: A Reporter's Guide to Energy and Development ,
  • Business and Economic Reporting: Covering Companies, Financial Markets and the Broader Economy
  • Covering Globalization: A Handbook for Reporters ,