Taylor Lorenz, an internet reporter for the Washington Post, appeared to criticize MSNBC on Sunday. She said that MSNBC “f*ked up royally” following a segment about online harassment in which she was involved.
Lorenz, who has left The New York Times to join the Post this year was interviewed by MSNBC for a segment about journalist harassment. She spoke out about threats she received online and how they affected her life. Lorenz was not thrilled with the comments she received, claiming that she has suffered from severe PTSD after being harassed via social media.
Lorenz tweeted, “If your segment on ‘online harassment’ leads to worse online harassment for your subject, you f*ck up royally and should study how to properly cover these things before ever talking again about them.”
Lorenz said, “I could teach an entire course on this stuff, but it is the simple truth that very few people in power at newsrooms really understand how the modern web and online landscape works, so they continue to give ammunition to bad actors.”
MSNBC did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
An emotional Lorenz, who shared online threats and stated that she had considered suicide during the MSNBC segment, was a part of an MSNBC segment.
She said that she felt like every bit of information about her would be used by the worst internet users to ruin her life. “It’s horrifying… It’s overwhelming.”
Lorenz was in the news earlier this year after she criticized the Times while on her way out of the office. She claimed that the newspaper did not allow her to build her personal brand. In recent times, Lorenz has been a frequent target of ridicule. She tweeted the false accusation that Marc Andreessen, a business tech entrepreneur, used the “r-slur”, on the audio-driven social networking app Clubhouse. Lorenz was quickly criticized for her inaccurate tweet, which she later deleted.
Lorenz, a Times employee, co-authored a 2020 piece entitled “High School Students and Alumni Use Social Media to Expose Racism” about how students “leveraged all social media platforms to call out their peers’ racist behavior,” which also included “cultural appropriation.” She was severely criticized last year for making a false accusation against Marc Andreessen, a business tech pioneer, that he used the “r–slur” in a Clubhouse discussion.
