NY TIMES TECH JOURNALIST COMPLAINS ABOUT ONLINE ATTACK, OMITS THAT THE COMMENT WAS A PARAPHRASE OF HER OWN WORDS: 

There’s just one problem. Taylor Lorenz strategically cut off [angel investor Balaji Srinivasan’s] tweet so you can’t see what he was responding to. Here’s his original tweet, including the part Lorenz left out. Notice where he pulled this language from.

As you can see, Srinivasan was paraphrasing what Taylor Lorenz tweeted about a woman CEO named Steph Korey. Korey was making some critical remarks about “younger reporters” while also saying that “the overwhelming majority of journalists are dedicated and wonderful truth seekers.” And for that, Lorenz lashed out at her. So if Srinivasan’s tweet seemed harsh, he was really just turning Lorenz’ own words back on her.

* * * * * * * *

If you want the latest drama straight from the YouTube influencer world, you know where to get it. But if you want a straight recounting of why someone is saying mean things about Taylor Lorenz on Twitter, her Twitter feed may not be the bet place to get the full story.

In more ways than one. (Oh and read the whole thing.) Initially, I wasn’t able to get Srinivasan’s tweets to load, unless I opened up a browser in private viewing mode. Hopefully that was just a temporary Twitter glitch, but this earlier incident in which Twitter tilted the playing field in defense of MSM-DNC journalists does not instill confidence: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Defends Twitter’s #LearntoCode Purges.

THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE VANGUARD OF THE INCOGNIZANT:

“One thing above all else will restore order to our streets,” wrote Sen. Tom Cotton, “an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain, and ultimately deter lawbreakers.” The senator has advocated extraordinary measures involving the domestic deployment of uniformed soldiers for several days—as we’ve witnessed mass protests in American cities during the day and wanton violence, rioting, and looting by night. This exhortation is not new for him, but the venue in which it was placed—the New York Times opinion page—inspired a frenzied revolt from within the journalistic institution that published him. More remarkable, the aggrieved staffers and writers at the Times generally declined to issue a counterargument. They simply declared Cotton’s arguments anathema and sought to wield whatever power they could muster to see them banished.

One by one, New York Times staffers added their voices to a coordinated campaign of shame directed squarely at the paper’s management. “Running this puts Black [New York Times] staff in danger,” wrote technology reporter Taylor Lorenz, writers Caity Weaver and Jacey Fortin, climate reporter Hiroko Tabuchi, book critic Parul Sehgal, graphics assistant Simone Landon, reporter Katherine Rosman, styles desk editor Lindsey Underwood, culture writer Jenna Wortham, contributor Taffy Brodesser-Akner, and columnists Kara Swisher and Charlie Warzel. The News Guild of New York soon chimed in with a statement: “[Cotton’s] message undermines the journalistic work of our members, puts our black staff members in danger, promotes hate, and is likely to encourage further violence,” the Guild affirmed in what was billed as a “response to a clear threat to the health and safety of the journalists we represent.”

As a result of their staff’s meltdown over the Cotton op-ed, the New York Times, already drowning in a fantasy-land of alternately running pro-Soviet Union apologia and their anti-American founding “1619 Project” series, promises to narrow what they view as acceptable opinion even more. Or as Tina Lowe writes at the Washington Examiner, “New York Times employees can bully their bosses into submission — just don’t criticize a celebrity:”

A newspaper, beyond its moral purpose to tell the truth, is functionally a business. To turn a profit, it must balance journalistic integrity with revenue from subscribers and advertisers. Thus, it came as absolutely no surprise when the New York Times fired Alison Roman, the up-and-coming chef who irked professional celebrity Chrissy Teigen with a rude remark in an interview that was falsely smeared as racist and subsequently piled onto by Teigen.

* * * * * * * *

As you may recall from a long day ago, after the opinion page published a fairly straightforward op-ed from Sen. Tom Cotton, arguing to utilize the military in quelling protests — a position shared by the majority of Americans and 46% of people who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, mind you — several staff members instigated a civil war, all sharing the same copypasta bullying their bosses: “Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger.”

* * * * * * *

Publishing the opinions of the Taliban wasn’t a bridge too far for the staff, and employees claiming that destroying property isn’t violence on national television isn’t a bridge too far for the management. But a sitting United States senator’s opinion that’s shared by the majority of the electorate is, and as a result, journalism will suffer in the future.

The bitter babies at the New York Times wanted less speech, and they got it. They’ll now publish fewer op-eds overall. There is a wholly illiberal war on the free press, and its primary aggressors aren’t in the White House or corrupt police stations. It’s being waged from within the inside.

Bari Weiss, one of the saner voices at the Times, responded to her colleagues’ collective primal scream in a Twitter thread earlier today:

Naturally, as this Mediaite headline notes: NY Times ‘Civil War’: Opinion Writer Bari Weiss Gets Buried By Colleagues for Tweeting Her Takes on Newsroom Friction After Cotton Op-Ed.

In 2015, Ashe Schow, then with the Washington Examiner wrote, “With all the attention being paid to college-aged social justice warriors and microagressions, one has to ask: What happens when all these delicate snowflakes enter the workforce?”

The Gray Lady is finding out, good and hard.

UPDATE: Daily Beast editor-at-large Goldie Taylor threatens violence against Weiss, in a since-deleted tweet:

As William F. Buckley famously said, “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”

(Updated and bumped.)

FAST TIMES AT SULZBERGER HIGH: Newly-Hired NYT Reporter Accused Of Fabricating Accusation Against Another Reporter.

A newly-hired New York Times writer is being accused of fabricating an accusation against another reporter in a Tuesday Twitter squabble.

NYT reporter Taylor Lorenz hit back on her colleague Zeynep Tufekci, an op-ed writer, on Twitter Tuesday, writing that Tufekci called her “unqualified to report on the attention economy” two years ago, according to Jon Levine, a New York Post reporter. Levine took a picture of the now-deleted tweet and noted that Lorenz was “taking aim” at a co-worker “in her first month on the job at NYT.”

Lorenz, a Culture of Tech reporter, replied to Levine in another deleted tweet and claimed she wasn’t “taking aim,” adding that Levine should “stop reaching.” Levine took a photo of this tweet as well, according to his Twitter page. Following the confrontation, Lorenz blocked Levine on Twitter, screenshots indicate.

Shortly after, Levine was allegedly un-blocked and Lorenz accused him of faking the photo.

And that’s on top of this item from Sunday: Exclusive — Another New York Times Editor Made Racist, Anti-Semitic Comments.

John Nolte of Big Journalism is going to need a bigger blog to keep count: The New York Times’ Disastrous Summer of Fake News and Public Meltdowns.

OLD AND BUSTED: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

The New Hotness? Why did a Washington Post reporter urge the White House to censor Trump?

Unfortunately, the news media in this country has increasingly isolated itself from most of this country which has allowed an elitist attitude to emerge within the industry. It became more prevalent during the Trump era. We know Trump is crazy and dangerous, but the people are too stupid to figure it out on their own, so we need to do everything possible to help defeat him, even if it means shielding the public from what he has to say. Journalists repeatedly lobbied social media companies to remove Trump from their platforms — with many of them finally acquiescing post-January 6 — and encouraged corporate advertisers to pull paid ads from conservative or Trump-related content on social media and television. Many stopped carrying his speeches and events live so that viewers could not see for themselves what he had to say. All of his words were filtered through a biased media that wanted to present him in the most unfavorable light possible. Private persons who chose to support Trump anonymously online were harassed and “canceled” by news organizations, a warning that ideological dissent to the regime would not be tolerated.

Few of these journalists have ever stopped during this process to consider that their opinion of Trump might be wrong — or wonder why their strategy to silence him hasn’t meaningfully diminished his support. Instead, they have doubled down.

Earlier this week, a Washington Post reporter took it to the next level by openly suggesting the government get in on the game. During a White House press briefing, the Washington Post’s Cleve Wootson asked if the government has a “role” in tackling “misinformation” and if President Joe Biden planned to “intervene” in Trump’s X Space.

“I think that misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign issue. It’s a — you know, it’s an America issue. What role does the White House or the president have any sort of stopping that or stopping the spread of that or sort of inter — intervening in that. Some of that was about campaign misinformation, but you know it’s a wider thing, right?” Wootson asked.

The Biden administration has already been accused of illegally colluding with social media companies to censor content it deemed “misinformation” (unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiffs in this case lacked standing). Directly preventing a political opponent from speaking on a social media platform would be even further beyond the pale and it is frankly horrifying that a journalist, whose job is protected by the same constitutional amendment that shields the speech of everyday Americans from government censorship, would even suggest such a thing.

That the question was asked with little pushback from Wootson’s mainstream colleagues suggests to me that the American media has been emboldened in its illiberal ways. The problem is likely to get worse before it gets better. The media don’t seem to care that their trust with the American people is at an all-time low or that many of them have had to lay off staff. They have apparently decided it is more important to use their platforms and power to gatekeep “acceptable” ideas in society.

While attempting to censor Trump into silence, the WaPo is pretty laid back about receiving radio silence from Harris: Questions we’d love to ask Kamala Harris.

Since replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the 2024 Democratic ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris has neither given a sit-down interview nor held a news conference. Her campaign’s website lacks an “Issues” page (there’s only a biography). We get it, tactically: It’s tempting for Ms. Harris, as it would be for anyone in her position, to stay as vague on the issues as possible, for as long as possible, to avoid giving fodder to the opposition or dividing her supporters. Ms. Harris is confident she’ll win if the campaign is about the many flaws of former president Donald Trump.

And the Post will be perfectly happy if Harris never does an interview with them. And why not? The silent treatment has to be much more enjoyable for Democratic Party operatives with bylines than the constant abuse they received from her nominal boss over the decades. (Besides, have you heard about how badly Kamala treats her staffers?)

UPDATE: One prominent WaPo journalist weighs in editorially on Biden — and presumably the person that Democrats have chosen to replace him as well:

DAVID HARSANYI ON THE RISE OF BLUEANON: How the Democrats Became a Party of Conspiracy Theorists.

Pennsylvania, the top political adviser to Democratic Party mega-donor Reid Hoffman — who had himself recently joked about Trump becoming a “martyr” — sent an email to journalists wondering why, “NOT ONE NEWSPAPER OR OPINION LEADER IN AMERICA IS WILLING TO OPENLY CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY THAT TRUMP AND PUTIN STAGED THIS ON PURPOSE.”

Dmitri Mehlhorn implored reporters to consider the “possibility — which feels horrific and alien and absurd in America, but is quite common globally — … that this ‘shooting’ was encouraged and maybe even staged so Trump could get the photos and benefit from the backlash.”

Indeed, it was horrific to see social media explode with claims that the assassination attempt was “staged” and “false flag.” These theories garnered millions of likes, retweets, and views. And plenty of people who should know better, academics and activists, participated.

Indeed, Mehlhorn’s boss, the founder of LinkedIn, isn’t some unhinged commenter on Reddit; he is worth $2.5 billion. He pledged $100 million to fund efforts to oppose President Trump in 2020 and was on the same path in 2024.

Perhaps Mehlhorn felt comfortable posing conspiratorial questions to reporters because they have been quite receptive in the past. Mehlhorn, for example, padded his plea to journalists with conspiratorial mainstays of the contemporary left — theorizing that the assassination staging was a “classic Russian tactic” and urging them to consider “how often Putin and his allies run this play.”

The Russian collusion conspiracy theory — hatched by Democrats — is the most successful and consequential in American history, conceived by a major political party and spread by establishment media. Earlier this year Nancy Pelosi was still on MSNBC claiming that Putin probably “had” something “financial” on Trump.

Fortunately, one brave leftwing journalist looks to get to the bottom of her own party’s love of conspiracy theories:

What could possibly go wrong?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Who is Rahul Ligma?

It turns out that the purportedly fired Twitter employees featured in the news yesterday were hoaxers with a good sense of humor. CNBC’s story on them now comes with an editor’s note: “After CNBC published details of an interview with people who claimed to be fired employees of Twitter, several reports emerged suggesting it was a hoax. CNBC could not confirm the identities of the individuals.” The New York Post follows up in “Pranksters posing as laid-off Twitter employees trick media outlets: ‘Rahul Ligma.’”

“Rahul” went all the way in the name of authenticity: he “held a copy of Michelle Obama’s book ‘Becoming’ aloft while speaking to reporters.”

Hoaxer “Rahul Ligma” had a good name. Hoaxer “Daniel Johnson” had a good line, reported by CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa: “Daniel tells us he owns a Tesla and doesn’t know how he’s going to make payments.” I’m choking up as I write. The hoaxers can be seen in Bosa’s tweet below.

UPDATE: It’s real, and it’s spectacular:

Self-described “technology columnist” at the Washington Post just knocking it out the park.

Flashback: Are There Any Adults at the Washington Post?

I’LL TAKE STATEMENTS NO ONE IS UTTERING IN TEXAS RIGHT NOW FOR $500, ALEX:

As Glenn has written, why not start with a pilot program first? Ban A/C for DC! “We won two world wars without air conditioning our federal employees. Nothing in their performance over the last 50 or 60 years suggests that A/C has improved things. Besides, The Washington Post informs us that A/C is sexist, and that Europeans think it’s stupid.”

FAST TIMES AT BEN BRADLEE HIGH: The Washington Post’s week from Hell.

The paper known for its slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” should perhaps be more concerned about its own well-being after the disastrous week it had.

The Washington Post, the once-revered news organization that famously exposed the Watergate scandal leading to a president’s resignation, is still highly respected in the Beltway but has lost its way in recent years among most Americans. From declaring the coronavirus lab-leak theory was a “debunked” “conspiracy” to quickly rejecting the Hunter Biden laptop scandal in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election, the Post of today is simply not the same as the Post of the Nixon era.

But the events that occurred over the past week may be some of the worst that have plagued the Washington Post in its 144-year history.

Speaking of which: Things at the Washington Post are great.Thanks for asking!

It certainly looks apparent that despite the suspension of Weigel over a simple retweet, Sonmez is trying to provoke a disciplinary action from her superiors at the Post, which she can then use as evidence of retaliation for her lawsuit in her appeal.

The public appearance is that the inmates are running the Jeffrey Preston Bezos Asylum and that the Post has a completely upside-down idea of what constitutes an ethical lapse. A single retweet, swiftly retracted, is worth a month-long suspension. However calling out colleges on a public timeline, siccing online mobs on them, leaking internal emails and refusing to comply with workplace directives are allowed to continue. Something stinks at the Washington Post and for once it’s not Dave Weigel.

And the hits just keep on coming! WaPo’s Felicia Sonmez torches ‘White’ colleagues for ‘downplaying’ workplace drama with ‘synchronized tweets.’

Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez continued her scorched-earth tweeting about her colleagues on Thursday, this time taking aim at ‘White,” “star” reporters who expressed solidarity with the paper as the viral infighting has dominated conversation in the media industry.

On Thursday, Sonmez took a flamethrower to fellow staffers in another lengthy series of tweets, attacking those who had posted recent, strikingly similar messages of support for their paper.

“I don’t know who the colleagues anonymously disparaging me in media reports are. But I do know that the reporters who issued synchronized tweets this week downplaying the Post’s workplace issues have a few things in common with each other,” Sonmez wrote during a lengthy Twitter thread.

“They are all white – They are among the highest-paid employees in the newsroom, making double and even triple what some other National desk reporters are making, particularly journalists of color – They are among the ‘stars’ who ‘get away with murder’ on social media,” Sonmez tweeted. “Of course the Washington Post is a great workplace. It is a great workplace *for them.* The system is working *for them.* What about for everyone else? The General Assignment team? The Morning Mix team? The newsletter researchers?”

Sonmez insisted there have been “long-standing issues” within the Post that have not been addressed and that will only continue, even if the media will move on from “trivializing” them as a “Twitter spat.”

Nothing like calling your employer crypto-racists. So how is all of the drama of the gifted children being received outside the writers’ bullpen?

TWITTER LOCKS DOWN PRODUCT CHANGES AFTER AGREEING TO MUSK BID:

For now, Twitter won’t allow product updates unless they’re business-critical, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private. The company accepted a $54.20-a-share bid from Musk after a whirlwind courtship that began with the Tesla Inc. magnate disclosing a 9% stake in Twitter earlier this month.

Product changes will require approval from a vice president, the people said. Twitter imposed the temporary ban to keep employees who may be miffed about the deal from “going rogue,” according to one of the people.

Meanwhile, outside of Twitter HQ: Total Meltdown: Liberals Absolutely Losing Their Minds Over Elon Musk Buying Twitter. Of course, some meltdowns are more spectacular than others:

Related: Stop Falling For This Facebook Scam.

IF ‘MEME GIRL’ IS THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM: Then count me out.

AT THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE DON MCNEIL SCANDAL DEEPENS:

Now, today Erik Wemple, the Washington Post‘s media columnist, wrote a piece in which he contacted some of the students who were on that 2019 field trip to Peru with McNeil, and who complained about him. The trip, by the way, cost over $5,000 per student; your parents would have had to be pretty well-off to send you on it. Here is what Wemple found:

Six students who participated in the trip told the Erik Wemple Blog a consistent story about McNeil’s comportment: He provided expertise about public health and science consistent with what the students had expected. When the structured discussions yielded to informal chatter about other topics, it was a different story. McNeil was brusque and difficult, they said, in keeping with his prickly reputation in the newsroom.

As for specifics:

• Students largely confirmed in broad outlines McNeil’s account of the n-word fiasco. But they said that he uttered the epithet in a way that they perceived as casual, unnecessary or even gratuitous.
• In a discussion of cultural appropriation, McNeil scoffed. Though the term applies to people in Western countries adopting fashions or other items from other cultures, McNeil offered the example of people all over the world eating imported Italian tomatoes, according to a student in attendance. What’s the problem with that?
• Two students reported coming away with troubling impressions of McNeil’s view of white supremacy, with one of them claiming that he said it didn’t exist.
• Speaking about high incarceration rates of African Americans, McNeil argued that if they engage in criminal activity, that’s on them, and not on an oppressive and racist power structure, recalls a trip participant who said that the comments were “triggering” to the group. The participant, however, said that McNeil’s opinions didn’t disparage African Americans.

A caveat: There were about 20 students on the trip and many conversations. This is not a comprehensive inventory. But the tensions between McNeil and the students — a predominantly White group with progressive sensibilities — led some participants to withdraw from interacting with him as the trip wore on.

So these were rich liberal white kids. An older white man questioned their woke assumptions about “cultural appropriation,” and that hurt their feelings. The older white man supposedly said that high incarceration rates among black Americans might be a result of high black crime rates, and not racism. Hey maybe he’s wrong about that, but that’s a debatable proposition — though not to these rich white progressive snowflakes, who were “triggered.” I would very much doubt that a New York Times reporter would deny that white supremacy exists, but I would imagine such a figure saying that it is not as ubiquitous as these teenagers think it is.

There is a bit of pushback regarding another attempt by a Timesperson to feed a prominent figure to the Twitter mob:

That’s quite a non-apology apology from Lorenz. In 2014, Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon described the Times as:

Gossipy, catty, insular, cliquey, stressful, immature, cowardly, moody, underhanded, spiteful—the New York Times gives new meaning to the term “hostile workplace.” What has been said of the press—that it wields power without any sense of responsibility—is also a fair enough description of the young adult. And it is to high school, I think, that the New York Times is most aptly compared. The coverage of the Abramson firing reads at times like the plot of an episode of Saved By the Bell minus the sex: Someone always has a crazy idea, everyone’s feelings are always hurt, apologies and reconciliations are made and quickly sundered, confrontations are the subject of intense planning and preparation, and authority figures are youth-oriented, well-intentioned, bumbling, and inept.

And things have only gotten worse, as editor Dean Baquet has lost control over his newsroom.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): The spoiled and woke white kids are talking about “racial justice.”

MAYBE THEY DON’T THINK YOU BRING ANYTHING ELSE TO THE TABLE:

My own experience is that Legacy Media coverage doesn’t generate any noticeable traffic unless it includes a link, which it seldom does.