Here we have Fox News’ media reporter, Joseph A. Wulfsohn, filling us in on CNN+’s media reporter, Brian Stelter, and his “Reliable Sources” podcast (which we didn’t know existed … he’s got a Sunday “Reliable Sources” show, a CNN+ “Reliable Sources Daily” streaming show, a Reliable Sources newsletter, and a Reliable Sources podcast too).
Wulfsohn’s story at Fox News reviewing Taylor Lorenz’s appearance on Stelter’s podcast is worth a read. As usual, Stelter lets his guest get away with saying just about anything without any pushback — almost. He practically confronted her on the scrubbed link.
NEW: Taylor Lorenz says it's "patently false" that her Libs of TikTok story linked to any personal info despite the WaPo admitting it had removed a link (the paper said it was just "professional" info).
More from her interview w/ Brian Stelter. (Thread)https://t.co/OuJX4dRAeq
— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) April 23, 2022
OK, that’s totally bogus. When the Washington Post’s senior managing editor released a statement defending Lorenz’s reporting, she declared that “we did not publish or link to any details about her personal life.” As several people noted, the Post stealth-edited Lorenz’s piece to remove the link to the real estate license without an explanation or editor’s note. When pressed on the scrubbing of the link by Wulfsohn, the Post said that “Ultimately, we deemed it unnecessary.” You mean, after you were called out. Even a woman who shared the same name reported getting death threats. But Lorenz insisted to Stelter that certainly, the Post didn’t send any hate in her direction.
Wulfsohn writes:
She rejected the notion that she had “doxxed” Libs of TikTok, claiming the term has been “devalued” and has become a “buzzword of right-wing media.” She then defined the term “doxxing” as “revealing highly, highly personal nonpublic information with a goal of harassment or sort of destroying someone’s life.”
“We absolutely did not reveal any personal information about this woman at all, remotely,” Lorenz asserted despite how her story listed Libs of TikTok’s name, occupation, religion, and where in the country she lived. “And, you know, I know that sometimes reporting practices can seem foreign to people that aren’t familiar with journalism, but this was very by the book and very benign… We didn’t reveal anything personal and certainly, you know, not directing any kind of hate towards her.”
Stelter then asked Lorenz about the link that was included in her story exposing personal information, including her address, which was later removed by the Post following intense online backlash.
“That’s just false. That’s just patently false,” Lorenz claimed.
“So what was the link to?” Stelter asked.
“I don’t know,” Lorenz responded. “I think maybe it’s an open government database? But absolutely nothing personal – maybe like an old- I don’t know… but I just know that I went through that whole story myself. And there was nothing personal, and I know this woman’s personal information. It’s not even remotely.”
What was the link to? “I don’t know,” said the “accomplished” journalist.
Lorenz justified the newsworthiness of revealing Libs of TikTok, who yields such "power," saying "for all we knew, this could have been a foreign actor."
Notably, her report heavily relied on research conducted by Prototype Fund, which is funded by the German government.
2/
— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) April 23, 2022
Taylor Lorenz: "The whole goal with the right-wing media is to obscure this stuff and attack journalism and to try and discredit any kind of journalist that attempts to hold these powers to account… I assumed that they would have drama, sort of like what they do."
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— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) April 23, 2022
During the interview, Taylor Lorenz referred to herself as a "millennial" even though she recently tweeted she's 43 years old, meaning she is actually a Gen Xer since she was born in the 1970s. (Millennials were born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s.)
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— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) April 23, 2022
Taylor Lorenz doubled down on her assertion that the goal of Libs of TikTok isn't to inform parents about what their children are being taught in school but rather to "get trans and LGBTQ sort of excluded from public life."
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— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) April 23, 2022
Taylor Lorenz: "This woman is shaping the media ecosystem and shaping legislation and public discourse around legislation… The idea that this woman is not newsworthy is quite nonsense… The right will make those arguments because they don't want scrutiny."
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— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) April 23, 2022
The Left post insane videos to the public forum TikTok and don’t want scrutiny, just views and likes.
Lorenz denied she "doxxed" Libs of TikTok, claiming the term has been "devalued" and has become a "buzzword of right-wing media."
She defined "doxxing" as "revealing highly, highly personal nonpublic information w/ a goal of harassment or sort of destroying someone's life."
8/
— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) April 23, 2022
"We absolutely did not reveal any personal information about this woman at all, remotely," Lorenz asserted despite how her story listed Libs of TikTok's name, occupation, religion, and where in the country she lived.
9/
— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) April 23, 2022
Taylor Lorenz: "I know that sometimes reporting practices can seem foreign to people that aren't familiar with journalism, but this was very by the book and very benign… We didn't reveal anything personal and certainly, you know, not directing any kind of hate towards her."
10/
— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) April 23, 2022
The one regret Lorenz seemed to concede was using the word "exposing" in her email to Christina Pushaw, claiming it was a "semantic" dispute and she's "not going to use that word again next time." She also accused Pushaw of being "misrepresentative" of their email exchange.
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— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) April 23, 2022
Oh wow… Taylor Lorenz told Brian Stelter that she regrets cold-emailing me to boast about how excited she was to “expose @libsoftiktok”
Okay.
But I don’t understand how I was “misrepresentative”? I literally shared screenshots of our email exchange; that’s all. https://t.co/ovhYGQXOpR pic.twitter.com/T5JSRJkIy5
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) April 23, 2022
That’s just what the clowns exposed on Libs of Tik Tok say — they were “misrepresented” out of context.
Lorenz: "I have dedicated, you know, the past decade of my life to helping ppl understand the internet and helping ppl understand how online influence works and why it's so important for media companies to understand these things… My stories are good, my stories are accurate."
— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) April 23, 2022
Your stories suck.
Related:
WaPo spokesperson tells Fox News they scrubbed that link from Taylor Lorenz’s story because they ‘deemed it unnecessary’ https://t.co/LYiK0YLOMM
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) April 20, 2022
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