On Sunday, leftist sleazebag and professional victim Taylor Lorenz of The Washington Post appeared on CNN’s Reliable Sources to double down on her lie that she never doxxed the woman behind the popular Twitter account Libs of TikTok. Which is a bald-faced lie.
Despite the fact that Chaya Raichik of Libs of Tiktok is more of a journalist than she will ever be, Lorenz proceeded to trash the account as hateful and that it “is targeting LGBTQ folks.” She claimed that “the entire goal of the account is to direct hate to trans and LGBTQ people. She said she doesn't believe gay people who come out should be allowed to teach children.”
When host Brian Stelter pushed back slightly by observing how “there are a lot of conservative parents or just a lot of parents in the United States that are worried about what their kids are learning,” Lorenz dismissed those concerns and lectured “you can have concerns about what your children are learning in school and not follow an LGBTQ hate account.”
Continuing her crying, Lorenz baselessly claimed that “the whole goal [of Libs of TikTok] is to get trans and LGBTQ people sort of excluded from public life and drive these very harmful narratives around trans people.”
She then defended doxxing Raichik’s name and address despite later claiming she didn’t reveal personal information:
The idea that this woman is not newsworthy is quite nonsense, you know what I mean? I cover influencers for a living and I'm telling you this woman is more influential than a lot of people that I cover. So it's very important. The right will make those arguments because they don't want scrutiny.
Lorenz’s next denial was claiming that she “absolutely did not reveal any personal information” about Raichik and thumbed her nose at critics by claiming “reporting practices can seem foreign to people that are not familiar with journalism.”
She proceeded to attack conservative media by claiming they lie and spin up narratives with the goal to “sow doubt and to discredit journalism.”
Lorenz has done much discredit journalism. So, it’s ironic that she is accusing anyone else of lying when that is all she did during her entire interview. It is a fact that she revealed or “doxxed” the woman behind Libs of TikTok. In her original story for The Washington Post, she linked to her home address before it was subsequently removed.
To make matters worse, Stelter repeatedly lied during his panel discussion at the ironically named “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference when he claimed CNN has never spread disinformation.
Brian Stelter allowing Taylor Lorenz to repeatedly lie on his show about not doxxing the woman behind Libs of TikTok was made possible by T-Mobile. Their information is linked.
To read the relevant transcript click “expand”:
CNN’s Reliable Sources
4/24/2022
11:17:50 a.m. EasternBRIAN STELTER: So there are several arguments against your article. One is that this person's identity was simply not newsworthy. It doesn't matter who this anonymous conservative woman is and that you naming her is targeting her, trying to hurt her. What do you say to those folks?
TAYLOR LORENZ: Well, first of all, this woman is targeting LGBTQ folks. She brags about getting multiple teachers fired. You know, the entire goal of the account is to direct hate to trans and LGBTQ people. She said she doesn't believe gay people who come out should be allowed to teach children. She attacked the Trevor Project calling it a groomer organization. I don't know what she's talking about in that sense at all.
STELTER: But when you say it exists to attack LGBTQ, there are a lot of conservative parents or just a lot of parents in the United States that are worried about what their kids are learning. You say it's all about --
[crosstalk]
LORENZ: Well, I mean, I think there’s a —you can have concern about what your children are learning in school and not follow an LGBTQ hate account that’s, the whole goal is to get trans and LGBTQ people sort of excluded from public life and drive these very harmful narratives around trans people. I mean, that's -- those are two very, very, very, very different things, right?
She also talked about mobilizing her base to run for local school boards and is collecting email lists, which 100 percent are going to be used for political purposes. This is a political force, this is an influential media force. The idea that this woman is not newsworthy is quite nonsense, you know what I mean? I cover influencers for a living and I'm telling you this woman is more influential than a lot of people that I cover. So it's very important. The right will make those arguments because they don't want scrutiny.
STELTER: You think it’s that—That's a very blunt statement for a Washington Post reporter to make, they just don't want scrutiny.
[crosstalk]
LORENZ: I think powerful people do not want scrutiny. They want to be able to discredit the media so they can operate with impunity. Case in point, this woman deleted thousands of tweets the day that my article came out because she realized that she was going to be under increased scrutiny and that she could get -- that people were really going to start looking at her account. And I think that's a good thing. I think we should scrutinize anyone that has power in the country, anyone that’s influencing politics and legislation and public sentiment in the media, those figures are important to look at.
STELTER: I appreciate you're willing to talk about this and you're willing to take on the scrutiny as someone covering this. So here's the next one, the conservative supporters of this account said you were doxing the person, you’re doxing them. Can you tell us how you actually define doxing and the difference between doxing and real reporting?
LORENZ: Yes, of course. Well, the word doxxing has been so devalued and it kind of is a buzzword now in the right-wing media. Doxxing means revealing highly, highly personal nonpublic information with the goal of harassment or sort of destroying someone's life. We absolutely did not reveal any personal information about this woman at all. Remotely, and you know, I know that sometimes reporting practices can seem foreign to people that are not familiar with journalism but this was very by the book and very benign. The thing is the right-wing media will lie.They kind of just will spin up these narratives. The goal is to sow doubt and to discredit journalism. That is their agenda. I think we need to be prepared for that and recognize those things for what it is. You know, Brian, so much of what I do is try and educate people about the mechanics of these online outrage cycles and harassment and sort of educate news organizations on how to cover it and how to understand bad-faith attacks. So I think it's really important as us, members of the media who cover media, to recognize bad-faith attacks when they're levied.
