While CNN's "Reliable Sources" often turns out to be an oxymoronic title, due to the content, or lack thereof, it really proved to be this Sunday. Host Brian Stelter spoke with The Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz, who last week doxxed the person behind the Libs of Tik Tok Twitter account.
The segment was memorably ridiculous from the start. As Stelter asked her if she was "always determined to identify the person" and "was that like the most important part of the story for you," Lorenz gave an answer that only she could. She just had to doxx the person behind it because it might be a foreign agent.
She really suggested as much, which our friends at Twitchy definitely took notice of how ridiculous it was.
Taylor Lorenz says that one of the reasons she revealed @libsoftiktok's identity is because "for all we knew, this could have been a foreign actor." pic.twitter.com/ktRnYDxbly
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 24, 2022
"And I think it's incredibly important, you know, as someone that covers the influencer industry to know who is exerting influence in this way. I mean, for all we knew, this could have been a foreign actor, right, or someone -- we just didn't know," Lorenz claimed.
And then:
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) April 24, 2022
It was easily shown that @libsoftiktok had nothing to do with foreign sources, and the story ran anyway.
It was easily shown that Hunter Biden had many connections to foreign sources, and the story was suppressed anyway.
Note that this excuse begs the question why, once Lorenz verified that a foreign actor wasn’t behind it, she decided to run the story anyway.
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) April 24, 2022
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Also, if media activists really wanted to research foreign actors using technology to engage in subversion, perhaps it would make more sense to investigate TikTok (the Chinese Communist Party’s spyware app) instead of investigating a random American who reposts videos.
— Christina Pushaw ?? ???? (@ChristinaPushaw) April 24, 2022
Lorenz also went on to attempt to justify why it was that she had to doxx the creator. "And so, I thought, hey, look, this account has massive power, massive influence. This woman is basically on an entire right-wing media tour. She gives interviews to The New York Post, Tucker [Carlson], all of that, and registered as a media company, registered a trademark," Lorenz claimed. "So, yeah, I wanted to -- I thought it was quite important and in the public's interest to find out who was running it."
NewsBusters' Kevin Tober highlighted the segment as well, and as one can see from Lorenz's response, she barely answered any of the questions. As Lorenz focused on lies based solely on emotion, she continued to justify her journalistic standards, or lack thereof.
Stelter did acknowledge "arguments against [her] article," including how the creator's identity was not necessary, as well as how parents were concerned with their children in kindergarten through third grade being exposed to discussions on gender identity not appropriate for their age group. It's worth noting though, that when it comes to Stelter's choice of words, it's not merely an issue for "conservative parents."
Lorenz wasn't hearing any of it, as she made claims such as how "this woman is targeting LGBTQ folks" and "the entire goal of the account is to direct hate to trans and LGBTQ people."
Addressing these "conservative parents," Lorenz offered that "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 trashed the creator for having the audacity to have "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," Lorenz went on to say, even claiming that "the right will make those arguments because they don't want scrutiny."
In response, even Stelter pointed out that "that's a very blunt statement" for Lorenz to have made, only to later say "I appreciate you're willing to talk about this and you're willing to take on the scrutiny as someone covering this," a laughable claim considering Lorenz is willing to do no such thing.
As the segment continued, Lorenz even denied that she engaged in doxxing.
"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," Lorenz said, as she continued to rant about her critics.
The Taylor Lorenz article originally linked to @libsoftiktok's real estate license, which contained her address. This is doxing.
— Christina Pushaw ?? ???? (@ChristinaPushaw) April 19, 2022
The Post later revised the article to remove the link to this private citizen's address, but did NOT include any notice of retraction / correction. https://t.co/fvjT6lo6SK
As Landon covered, Lorenz not only revealed personal information, which unnecessarily involved this person's religion, she visited relatives to try to talk to them about her hit piece. She then continued to cry and complain when she tweeted people were treating her the same way. Further, someone who had the same name as the creator has received harassment and death threats as well, as Julio shared.
The Washington Post has also promoted Lorenz's hit piece on Twitter, as several people have noticed and pointed to as they've tweeted examples.
If Lorenz thinks her tactics are "very benign," it's worth wondering what else she has up her sleeve.
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