Theo Baker
Theo Baker (born 2004 or 2005) is an American investigative journalist for The Stanford Daily, the student 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. Reporting As a freshman reporter at The Stanford Daily, Baker began publishing stories in November 2022 about accusations of image manipulation against Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne, leading to a formal investigation from the university. Baker learned about the accusations through the scientific review website PubPeer and brought them to scientific integrity expert Elisabeth Bik. A lawyer representing Tessier-Lavigne sent what has been described as 'legal threats' to Baker, describing his reporting as "replete with falsehoods". 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. 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. 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, attributing it as a direct result of The Stanford Daily stories. Awards In February 2023, The Stanford Daily received a 2022 George Polk Award for its reporting on Tessier-Lavigne, the first time an independent, student-run newspaper has won the award. The Polk Awards gave Baker a "Special Award", making him the youngest ever to win it. He has also received a James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Personal life Baker is from the Washington, D.C., area and is the son of journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. In response to criticism that he is a "nepo baby", Baker said that he was fortunate to have good role models, but that he keeps his parents "entirely separate" from his reporting. Baker 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." References Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth uncertain 21st-century American journalists George Polk Award recipients 2000s births Stanford University alumni