Our regular readers, both of them, will remember Taylor Lorenz, a columnist at The Washington Post covering technology and online culture. Miss Lorenz most significant claim to fame was her investigation and doxing of Chaya Raichik, the owner of the Twitter site Libs of TikTok. The left hated LoTT, because Miss Raichik’s schtick was to find the idiocy that the left were posting to TikTok — and there was a lot of it — and expose it far more widely, to the ridicule of the libs. At the time, Miss Raichik was working as a real estate agent, and the exposure was designed to cost Miss Raichik her job.
In the end, it simply made Miss Raichik more popular and wealthy, but it also made Miss Lorenz more of a public figure as well, invited to some of the hoitiest and toitiest of Hollywood soirees.
Of course, despite her insistence that everybody wear face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 — though she subsequently deleted it, she informed readers that she was at least somewhat immunocompromised — as late as August of 2023, she didn’t wear one herself.
Well, in a true sauce for the goose moment, it seems that Miss Lorenz has been outed for something. From NPR, not exactly an evil reich-wing site:
‘Washington Post’ reviews star columnist Taylor Lorenz’s ‘war criminal’ jab at Biden
by David Folkenflik | Thursday, August 15, 2024 | 7:55 PM EDT
Senior editors at the Washington Post are reviewing a prominent tech columnist’s private story on social media, which appears to label President Biden a “war criminal” in a photo.
The Post’s Taylor Lorenz attended a White House event for digital influencers on Wednesday. In the photo she shared with a circle of friends on Instagram, Biden appears over her shoulder; the damning caption rests just below him, accompanied by a text frowny face.
After the New York Post’s Jon Levine — a frequent critic of hers — revealed the Instagram photo caption yesterday in a tweet, Lorenz wrote back at him: “You people will fall for any dumbass edit someone makes.”
I am thoroughly amused.
A fact-check appended to Levine’s tweet cited her apparent denial. (The contextual note to the tweet says, “Taylor Lorenz says this is a digital manipulation which has added a false caption.”) Lorenz told her editors that someone else had added the caption to the photo.
NPR has obtained a screengrab of Lorenz’s actual post, which contained that caption. It was not shared with her wider Instagram audience of 143,000 followers.
Four people with direct knowledge of the private Instagram story confirmed its authenticity to NPR. They spoke to NPR on condition they not be identified due to the professional sensitivity of the situation for Lorenz.
“Our executive editor and senior editors take alleged violations of our standards seriously,” a spokesperson for the newspaper told NPR. “We’re aware of the alleged post and are looking into it.” Lorenz declined to comment.
The Post has already been cutting staff, due to the newspaper losing a lot of money. If Miss Lorenz loses her job over this — something which is certainly not guaranteed — would it not be a delicious bit of karma for trying to cost Miss Raichik her real estate position?
Lorenz has since told associates that a close friend took her posted picture and superimposed the caption upon it, as a joke, and that she shared it with the group on the private Instagram posting.
If that is true, then yes, Miss Lorenz has admitted posting it on Instagram. Perhaps she thought it was a joke, but as a social media savvy reporter, she should have realized just what a stink this would cause, as well as understanding that once something goes out into the internet, it can be seen by the wrong people, and used against her. Using utter stupidity as an excuse isn’t a good look.
Perhaps Miss Lorenz is now learning about sauce for the goose!