Initiative for Policy Dialogue
Anya Schiffrin
Senior Lecturer in Discipline of International and Public Affairs
Personal Details
Focus areas: Media, development, innovation, media in Africa and the extractive sector
Anya Schiffrin is the director of the Technology, Media, and Communications at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a senior lecturer who teaches on global media, innovation and human rights. She writes on journalism and development, investigative reporting in the global south and has published extensively over the last decade on the media in Africa. More recently she has become focused on solutions to the problem of online disinformation, earning her PHD on the topic from the University of Navarra. She is the editor of Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Reporting from Around the World (New Press, 2014) and African Muckraking: 75 years of Investigative journalism from Africa (Jakana 2017). She is the editor of Media Capture: How Money, Digital Platforms and Governments Control the News (Columbia University Press 2021)
Education
- MS, Columbia University, School of Journalism
- BA, Reed College
Affiliations
- Natural Resource Governance Initiative
- Global Reporting Center, University of British Columbia
- Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD)
- Thomson Reuters Foundation (US)
- Founder, www.journalismtraining.net
- Media & Journalism Research Center, University of Santiago (Spain)
Research And Publications
Where the Truth Lies
International Center for Journalists
Open Society Institute
Columbia University Press
In The Media
Professor and TMAC director, Anya Schiffrin asks what will it take to regulate the abuses of Big Tech without undermining free speech?
On a recent visit to Brazil, Anya Schiffrin encountered widespread interest in regulating large social media platforms to prevent the spread of false information about elections and political polarization.
Anya Schiffrin said "the increase in polarization, the availability of guns and the virality of white supremacy is, tragically, a hallmark of political culture in the U.S.”
Anya Schiffrin writes that there are always risks that come with media regulation.
Anya Schiffrin writes that “big tech firms would rather ignore the pleas of news providers or do deals with a few powerful publishers without regard for the wider news economy. “