The Washington Post has added a pretty harsh correction to the Taylor Lorenz article we told you about earlier where she was busted lying about creators covering the Johnny Depp–Amber Heard trial:
Content creators bust Taylor Lorenz for lying about them in her WaPo piece about Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial https://t.co/3jgPbnL2O0
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) June 3, 2022
This was finally added to the article. From Washington Post:
CORRECTIONA previous version of this story inaccurately attributed to Adam Waldman a quote describing how he contacted some Internet influencers. That quote has been removed. The story has also been amended to note The Post’s attempts to reach Alyte Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy for comment. Previous versions omitted or inaccurately described these attempts.
Earlier, the Post was caught stealth-editing the post:
.@washingtonpost just edited Taylor Lorenz’s article claiming she reached out to 2 accounts for comment after those accounts posted that she in fact never reached out to them. An outright lie published by WaPo.https://t.co/6RbVjZCNuL pic.twitter.com/IkmDh5lDFy
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 3, 2022
Here’s what the article says now, which is at least the third version of what happened:
The content creator Alyte Mazeika earned $5,000 in one week by pivoting the content on her YouTube channel to nonstop trial coverage and analysis, according to Business Insider. She declined to comment for this story. ThatUmbrellaGuy, an anonymous YouTuber whose entire channel is dedicated to pro-Depp content, earned up to $80,000 last month, according to an estimate by social analytics firm Social Blade. ThatUmbrellaGuy could not be reached for comment. Orec said he earned over $5,400 last month in Instagram Reels bonus payments.
And since the Post is so fond of changing articles without telling readers, we’ll add a screenshot of the correction *just in case*:
Exit question: If Lorenz “omitted or inaccurately described” how she attempted to contact these two creators, what about the “dozens” of others? And what about her other articles?
I spoke to dozens of creators who posted about the Depp v Heard trial and wrote about how platform incentives warp the creator-driven news ecosystem and influence public opinion. (While the public increasingly turns to creators over legacy media for news) https://t.co/lwJ3pekgis
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) June 3, 2022
Over to you, Washington Post.
***
Related:
Editor’s note: We corrected a typo in the headline.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member