Stephen Council on Muck Rack

Stephen Council

Verified
(He/Him)
San Francisco
As seen in: Business Insider, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, SFGate, The Information, CalMatters, Daily Northwestern
Covers:  Economy, unemployment, business, startups, labor
OpenAI/Anthropic reporter @ Business Insider / Let's talk off-record on Signal, text or WhatsApp: 415-757-8198

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Stephen Council’s Biography

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Stephen is a senior at Northwestern University, where he studies journalism, economics, and creative writing. His journalistic passions lie in people-focused economic reporting.

Wall Street Journal Profile: https://www.wsj.com/news/author/stephen-council
CNBC Profile: https://www.cnbc.com/stephen-council/
Daily Northwestern Profile: https://dailynorthwestern.com/staff_profile/stephen-council/
CalMatters Profile: https://calmatters.org/author/stephencouncil/

Stephen Council’s Journalist Portfolio

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Entrepreneur Drove Computing and Audio Forward Through Decades of Disease

Entrepreneur Drove Computing and Audio Forward Through Decades of Disease

Thomas Yuen was working in 1980 as an electrical engineer in Southern California when his kidneys failed and …

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Daylight-Saving Time Is Coming, but These People Spring Forward Every Day

Daylight-Saving Time Is Coming, but These People Spring Forward Every Day

Last year, Nojan Valadi showed up at his daughter's volleyball tournament and found an empty venue after forg…

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Actor Jussie Smollett Is Sentenced to 150 Days in Jail, 30 Months of Probation for Faking Hate Cr...

Actor Jussie Smollett Is Sentenced to 150 Days in Jail, 30 Months of Probation for Faking Hate Cr...

CHICAGO-Actor Jussie Smollett was sentenced to serve 150 days in jail as the first stage of his 30 months of …

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Restaurants Debate Masks as Covid-19 Rules Rapidly Disappear

Restaurants Debate Masks as Covid-19 Rules Rapidly Disappear

Covid-19 restrictions are easing. Restaurants are deciding whether to keep masks on the menu. California, New…

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Furnace Repair Businesses Endure Long Winter of Parts Shortages

Furnace Repair Businesses Endure Long Winter of Parts Shortages

In a winter beset by supply-chain snarls, furnace maintenance companies said it can be a struggle to keep the…

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Utah Lowered Its Drunken-Driving Threshold, and Fatal Crashes Dropped

Utah Lowered Its Drunken-Driving Threshold, and Fatal Crashes Dropped

Utah's shift to lower the legal limit for a driver's blood-alcohol concentration successfully reduced car-cra…

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Articles

California's control over tech is scaring Republicans

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By Stephen Council 
| SFGate
California is the world’s preeminent base for leading artificial intelligence companies, giving lawmakers in Sacramento a front-row seat to the ascendant industry — and thus a way in to regulating it. But this dynamic is getting under Republicans’ skins.
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Salesforce tries to soften the blow of AI's job theft

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By Stephen Council 
| SFGate
The specter of artificial intelligence is looming over the tech industry that created it. Companies are unabashedly using chatbots to write code, to answer customers’ questions and to make ads. For worried workers, the threat of AI replacement is no longer theoretical. Salesforce is at the front of this shift, with CEO Marc Benioff peddling his “Agentforce” AI tool and recently touting an AI-driven cut of 4,000 “heads” from his customer support ranks.
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Waymo finally lands its much-desired SFO permit

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By Stephen Council 
| SFGate
SF Mayor Daniel Lurie announced the permit’s signing on Tuesday, about six months after Waymo won a permit to map the airport’s roadways. The new document outlines three phrases, per the mayor’s press release. First, Waymo will test its vehicles around the airport with a human driver. Then, the company can test without a human driver, with designated passengers who work at Waymo and the airport. After that, Waymo will be able to begin picking up and dropping off regular passengers.
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Awards

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1st Place - San Francisco Press Club Award

2020 - Digital Media - Investigative Reporting

For the story, "How Bank of America helped fuel California’s unemployment meltdown," published in CalMatters. https://calmatters.org/economy/2020/11/how-bank-of-america-helped-fuel-californias-unemployment-meltdown/

Finalist - Sacramento Press Club

2020 - Capitol Enterprise

“How Bank of America Helped Fuel California’s Unemployment Meltdown,” CalMatters It seemed like a good idea at the time: Give unemployed Californians a kind of debit card loaded with their benefit payments. The cards would be distributed by Bank of America at no cost — so they said — to the state. Instead, the program became a scammers paradise, as skillfully outlined by Lauren Hepler and Stephen Council. Their reporting highlighted the many aspects of this story — from an overwhelmed state agency, to a bank that yields little information about its workings, to the victims of fraud.

Winner - Medill Student Showcase

2020 - Digital

https://calmatters.org/economy/2020/11/how-bank-of-america-helped-fuel-californias-unemployment-meltdown/

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