Overview
- Baker’s book, published by Penguin Press, shifts the focus from a research scandal to what he calls a selective “Stanford inside Stanford” that grants status and billionaire access to a small circle.
- He describes tight social controls on campus life, including a university “Party Review Committee” with multi-department oversight of student events.
- His freshman-year reporting for the Stanford Daily began with tips from experts who detect image manipulation in scientific papers and led to scrutiny of Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s neurobiology research.
- The coverage helped prompt Tessier-Lavigne’s resignation as Stanford president and earned Baker a George Polk Award, which made him the prize’s youngest recipient.
- A San Francisco Chronicle review praises Baker’s careful reporting but questions his memoirist self-portrait, arguing that a deferential campus culture let problems fester and that journalism is well placed to examine it.