Informed by her scholarship, she continued to write about celebrities throughout her time at BuzzFeed and BuzzFeed News, including Adam Driver,[11] Keira Knightley,[12] Taylor Kitsch,[13] Charlize Theron,[14] Justin Timberlake,[15] Kate Hudson,[16] Margot Robbie,[17] Jennifer Aniston,[18] and Kim Kardashian.
She reported on the COVID-19 pandemic,[23] student loans,[24] Native Americans voting in elections,[25] expanding Medicaid,[26] refugee resettlement,[27] religion,[28] the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases,[29] and bachelorette parties.
[30] Being a native of Lewiston, Idaho, she was credited with being able to bring a Western small town and rural perspective to a national audience,[4] on issues such as Antifa,[31] gun politics,[32] 2017 Montana's at-large congressional district special election's relation with national politics,[33] and the COVID-19 anti-lockdown protests in the United States.
[36] Along with her partner Charlie Warzel, she wrote the book Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home, published in December 2021.
Petersen lives in Lummi Island, Washington[39] with her partner Charlie Warzel, a former New York Times Opinion writer who now writes the newsletter "Galaxy Brain" for The Atlantic.