Theo Baker | |
|---|---|
| Born | 2004or2005(age 20–21) |
| Organization | The Stanford Daily |
| Parents | |
Theo Baker (born 2004 or 2005) [1] is an American student journalist at The Stanford Daily , the student-run, independent newspaper of Stanford University. In 2023, he became the youngest recipient of the George Polk Award for his reporting that led to the resignation of Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Baker is the son of journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser.
Baker is from the Washington, D.C., area [2] and is the son of journalists Peter Baker of The New York Times and Susan Glasser of The New Yorker . [3] [4] [5] His paternal great-grandparents were Greek immigrants who anglicized their surname from Bakirtzoglous. [6] He attended high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. [7]
He matriculated at Stanford University in 2022, when he was 17, and joined The Stanford Daily . He expects to graduate in June 2026 with a degree in history. [5]
As a freshman reporter at The Stanford Daily, Baker began publishing stories in November 2022 about accusations that Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne had altered images used in research papers, leading to a formal investigation from the university. [3] [2] [8] Baker learned about the accusations through the scientific review website PubPeer and brought them to scientific integrity expert Elisabeth Bik. [2] A lawyer representing Tessier-Lavigne sent letters to Baker, describing his reporting as "replete with falsehoods." [9]
In July 2023, the final university report found that Tessier-Lavigne's research "fell below customary standards of scientific rigor and process" but did not constitute fraud. [10] Baker subsequently published another story that the investigating panel did not grant some witnesses anonymity, so they were unable to testify because of active non-disclosure agreements. [2] Tessier-Lavigne announced his resignation as Stanford's president on July 19, 2023, with multiple major news outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post , saying it was a direct result of the Stanford Daily stories. [10] [11]
In late March 2024, an article by Baker titled "The War at Stanford" was published in The Atlantic . [12] [5] The article discussed the response of Stanford University to the October 7 Attack, arguing that the attack was not adequately condemned. Similarly, Baker asserted that pro-Palestine students' rhetoric led to antisemitism and created a culture of fear for Jews on campus. [12] The article also mentioned an instance where a Stanford student allegedly advocated for violence against President Biden. [13] The student's naming was denounced by some, such as journalist Glenn Greenwald, as a form of doxxing. [14] The article was criticized by others on the basis of its portrayal of student protestors, alleging a biased narrative ignoring islamophobia and the plight of Palestinians. [15] Jonathan Chait later published a piece in New York Magazine responding to this criticism, suggesting progressive attacks were motivated by viewpoints outside the mainstream and that critics were espousing "illiberal left-wing thought". [16]
Baker took two terms off in his junior year to write a book about Stanford titled How to Rule the World, to be published by Penguin Press in 2026. [5]
In February 2023, The Stanford Daily received one of the 2022 George Polk Awards for its reporting on Tessier-Lavigne, the first time an independent, student-run newspaper has won the award. [17] [18] The Polk Awards gave Baker a "Special Award", making him the youngest ever Polk awardee. [3] [18] He has also received a James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. [1]
Baker has said that he was raised as a secular Jew and discovered when he was a teenager that dozens of relatives had died in the Holocaust. [5]
He is often portrayed as a "nepo baby", benefitting from the status of his parents in the journalistic world. [1] He rejected the criticisms, saying while he was fortunate to have good role models, he strived to keep his parents' influence "entirely separate" from his reporting. [19] He told Teen Vogue that he had previously said he would never become a journalist but changed his mind to "feel connected to [his] late grandfather, who passed just two weeks before [he] started at Stanford, and who would always sit down and talk about his time doing student journalism." [20]