Stanford alums translate journalism skills to book publishing

For months, Zoë Schiffer (MA 2019) reported on Elon Musk’s attempted takeover of Twitter. It was the summer of 2022, the deal was in doubt, and Schiffer’s deeply sourced coverage became indispensable for anyone wanting to know whether the billionaire would purchase the influential social network.

Musk eventually prevailed, and Schiffer’s reputation as a leading chronicler of the takeover caught the attention of a major book publisher.

“At that point, it was really a matter of mapping out the story I had already told, and figuring out where I needed to fill in gaps and how I could make the narrative more character-centric,” Schiffer said. “I created a massive timeline of all the important moments and then mapped characters on top of it to try and go from articles to actual scenes.”

Schiffer’s book, “Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter,” was published in early 2024. She joined the ranks of journalism program graduates who used the skills acquired at Stanford – in data reporting, narrative writing and multimedia storytelling – to make their mark as book authors.

When Simone Stolzoff (MA 2018) was a master’s student in the journalism program, he reported about automation and its impact on labor. “One of the great things about the Stanford program is that it has you in the field working as a reporter,” Stolzoff said. “It’s one of those jobs that you can’t learn just in theory — you have to learn by doing.”

After graduating from Stanford, Stolzoff continued writing about workplace issues at the digital business publication Quartz, later moving to a job at the design and consulting firm IDEO. He took his own experiences, as well as those of his peers, to report and write a book about the complexities an individual faces when identity and self-worth become too entangled with a career.

“I’ve always been drawn towards the human side of stories, and rather than writing profiles about celebrities or CEOs, I wanted to write profiles of everyday workers who were trying to think about their relationship to work in some way,” said Stolzoff, who published “The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work” in 2023.

Each chapter in Stolzoff’s book follows the career path of a different person and explains how their relationships with work have transformed over time. His Stanford training in journalism fundamentals, particularly the importance of conducting effective in-person interviews, deepened his book research. “I did a few interviews early in the pandemic over Zoom and over the phone, and it’s just so much less rich than when you actually show up and do the work,” he said.

He’s now working on a second book, scheduled to be published in 2026, exploring the topic of uncertainty in life.

Stolzoff said that during his time at Stanford, he appreciated being able to take classes across campus, in addition to core courses in the journalism program. “I took classes in the d.school, engineering school, at the graduate school of business and in the journalism program,” Stolzoff said. “The program meets you where you’re at and then accelerates you to where you want to go.”

For Schiffer, her Stanford experience led to a job at the tech news website The Verge, which then led to working for NBC and now Platformer. “Stanford is absolutely the reason I got my first job in journalism,” Schiffer said. “[Carlos Kelly McClatchy Lecturer] Janine Zacharia had a huge influence on my reporting, as did [Lecturer] R.B. Brenner. Janine also continues to be a mentor to me — she’s someone I reach out to whenever I’m at a crossroads in my career.”

Schiffer’s book on Twitter, the company Musk renamed X, displayed nuanced skills of building sources with former employees who didn’t sign non-disclosure agreements. Zacharia’s news reporting course and Brenner’s narrative class both stress ethical and strategic methods to source stories. “I genuinely try to treat sources with respect and make sure that I’m reporting in a way that won’t put them at risk — and I think people can feel that,” Schiffer said.

Alum Carolina Wilson (MA 2015) also launched her career right after Stanford. Wilson landed at Bloomberg, where she is now a senior reporter covering emerging markets, stocks, bonds, currencies and exchange-traded funds. “We don’t just crunch numbers — we humanize finance,” Wilson explained. “Our stories go beyond typical market coverage, weaving in the personal elements that make these financial narratives resonate.”

Wilson teamed up with her Bloomberg colleagues to write and publish “The Bloomberg Guide to Business Journalism,” in which Wilson writes about visual storytelling techniques for business reporting. “My journalistic experience taught me that effective communication isn’t just about words — it’s about finding the most impactful way to convey information,” Wilson said. “Stanford was pivotal in how I learned to convey complex narratives — pushing me to look beyond conventional storytelling methods … We weren’t just taught individual techniques; we were guided in weaving these diverse elements into cohesive, multifaceted narratives.”

Those multiplatform skills are something Wilson was able to explore in Hearst Professional in Residence Geri Migielicz’s courses that focus on audio, photo, video and immersive (virtual reality and augmented reality) tools to help tell stories.

“Stanford didn’t just prepare me to contribute to this book or to cover emerging markets – it laid the foundation for my entire approach to financial journalism, teaching me to see every complex story as an opportunity for innovative, inclusive storytelling,” Wilson added.

Applications for the 2025-2026 Stanford Journalism Master’s Program are due Dec. 3, 2024. The program is hosting a virtual open house on Sept. 25, 2024, where prospective students can learn more about the program and application process, as well as meet some of the faculty.