Washington Post Finally Semi-Corrects Taylor Lorenz's False Claims

Stephen L. Miller @redsteeze

This is now a 3rd correction because a reporter made false claims in the story. Seems to me a lot of this could be solved by editors standing up to this reporter, or this reporter simply being terminated for clear malfeasance, which seems to be an ongoing thing.

And only because they were embarrassed into doing it by online rightwing critics and FoxNews:

The Washington Post issued two lengthy corrections to its report from its "internet culture" columnist Taylor Lorenz, which was previously stealth-edited.

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Included in the paragraph was a parenthetical statement reading, "Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy did not respond to requests for comment."But both Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy refuted the statement, saying Lorenz never reached out to them prior to publication of her story.

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[T]he claim that Lorenz had reached out to the YouTubers for comment was scrubbed without any acknowledgment of the change.

After Fox News previously reached out for comment and published its story about the stealth-edit, the Post issued a correction at the bottom of Lorenz's report.

"A 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 Post wrote. "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."

The Post later followed with an even lengthier correction, this time at the top of Lorenz's article that read, "The first published version of this story stated incorrectly that Internet influencers Alyte Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy had been contacted for comment before publication. In fact, only Mazeika was asked, via Instagram. After the story was published, The Post continued to seek comment from Mazeika via social media and queried ThatUmbrellaGuy for the first time. During that process, The Post removed the incorrect statement from the story but did not note its removal, a violation of our corrections policy. The story has been updated to note that Mazeika declined to comment for this story and ThatUmbrellaGuy could not be reached for comment. A previous version of this story also inaccurately attributed a quote to Adam Waldman, a lawyer for Johnny Depp. The quote described how he contacted some Internet influencers and has been removed."

Late on Friday, the Post quietly changed "correction" to "editor's note" while maintaining the text of the errors.

Neither correction, however, addressed who was behind the stealth edit.

When asked specifically whether Lorenz herself or an editor made the stealth edit, a spokesperson for the Post replied, "That's not something we'd discuss on the record."

Lorenz was quick to dismiss the uproar on social media, tweeting, "I'm sure the right wing media and cable news world is spinning something up."

Christoper Rufo notes that the Washington Post smeared him in the past, too.

The Washington Post attempted to smear me, the nation's most prominent opponent of critical race theory -- and it backfired spectacularly.

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In recent months, outlets including The New York Times, The New Republic, MSNBC, CNN and The Atlantic have relentlessly attacked me. But the coup de grâce, they believed, would be a 3,000-word exposé in The Washington Post. The paper dispatched two reporters, Laura Meckler and Josh Dawsey, and spent three weeks preparing a vicious hit piece against me, accusing me of a range of intellectual crimes.

Only the Post's story rested on a bed of lies. Among other things, Meckler and Dawsey fabricated the timeline of events surrounding my involvement with former President Donald Trump's executive order on CRT; incorrectly claimed that a Cupertino, Calif., diversity lesson I exposed never happened; and insisted that my reporting about the US Treasury Department's diversity programs was false.

After the article was published, I went through it line-by-line and made a point-by-point rebuttal on social media and to The Washington Post's editors. Within 48 hours, the paper's story had collapsed.

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This was a deep embarrassment for The Washington Post, which then attempted to hide behind vague "clarifications" and sent a vice president of communications to do damage control. But what the paper did was indefensible: It dispatched deeply partisan reporters to do a hostaet job on a fellow journalist, with no regard for the facts or probity.

Here's the problem: I have a large social-media platform and can defend myself. But what about ordinary Americans who are smeared, slandered and degraded by hyper-partisan outlets like The Washington Post?

The episode also shed light on the bizarre determination of the prestige press to play down just how radical and fundamentally un-American CRT is.

Palmer Lucky, founder of Oculus, also says he's been victimized by Lorenz and the Washington Post, acting independently, in the past. Lorenz at this time wasn't working for the Post -- she was just compiling a portfolio of smears she would later present at her WaPo interview.

Palmer Luckey @PalmerLuckey Thread

The Taylor Lorenz/Washington Post correction scandal isn't the isolated incident apologists claim. When I was fired, her story said I had announced I was leaving Oculus. This was false -- it wasn't my choice nor my announcement. Her only source: Facebook PR.

WaPo laterpublished a story claiming I hid political contributions using shell companies and refused to comment. This was also false - it was a single donation from a regular company, and they didn't reach out to me until 5:54 AM, seven minutes before print.

That's a Taylor Lorenz move.

When I publicly called them out for this, they said the note regarding comment was technically true, and that they would only edit the story if I provided WaPo with detailed financials proving my helicopter business isn't a shell corp. Then they deleted everything with no disclosure.

At some point, someone must've realized that they shouldn't have just made things up without any evidence. These hoity-toity papers love to crow about truth and justice when they correct tiny things like misspellings, but major wrongdoing is regularly papered over without fuss.

The Post was not even employing Taylor Lorenz at that time -- they only hired her in 2021.

Though you can see why the Post would later think, "Taylor Lorenz would be a good fit for the Washington Post. She's just as dirty, cheap, and unethical as we are!"

How long can it go on?

Forever. She's doing the job the Washington Post is paying her to do.

posted by Ace at 03:50 PM

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