On Tuesday night’s broadcast, Carlson did call out Lorenz for her claim that she was the victim of an online harassment campaign, who had described online criticism as having “destroyed her life.”
After Tucker Carlson called out New York Times journalist Taylor Lorenz, the Times swooped in to her rescue and took aim at Carlson. The Times' "response to Tuesday night's 'Tucker Carlson' broadcast" read:
"In a now familiar move, Tucker Carlson opened his show last night by attacking a journalist. It was a calculated and cruel tactic, which he regularly deploys to unleash a wave of harassment and vitriol at his intended target.
Our response to Tuesday night's "Tucker Carlson Tonight" broadcast. pic.twitter.com/LkvaLjcRl5
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR)
"Taylor Lorenz is a talented New York Times journalist doing timely and essential reporting. Journalists should be able to do their jobs without facing harassment."
This despite the Times having sought to harm Carlson previously. The Times threatened to dox Carlson, though they then denied it.
On Tuesday night's broadcast, Carlson called out Lorenz for her claim that she was the victim of an online harassment campaign, who had described online criticism as having "destroyed her life."
Lorenz, a tech writer, faced blacklash and online hate after she falsely slandered venture capitalist Mark Andreesen for having reportedly said the word "retarded" in a chat on social media app Clubhouse. It turns out that he never said it, but instead of walking back her comments, Lorenz made excuses for herself, deleted the tweets, and locked her Twitter account.
But the Times has not routinely defended their journalists. Over the summer of 2020, the opinion editor published an article written by Tom Cotton that stated that state governments should bring in the National Guard to quell the violent riots that took place in hundreds of cities across the US, some of which lasted for over 100 nights, as did the events in Portland, Ore.
As a result of that opinion piece, the Times' conservative journalist Bari Weiss was forced out, as was Jim Bennet, the op-ed editor, and the entire editorial division was restructured.
Bari Weiss was harassed out of her job at the NYT with a regular stream of anti-Semitic comments and vitriol. You haven’t done a damn thing to address that. But it took you less than a day to issue a statement on Tucker’s critique of Lorenz’s fragile ego. https://t.co/iViEwUU6ED
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz)
Glenn Greenwald pointed out that The New York Times is large enough and powerful enough to curb journalists' impulse to critique the outlet. He posits that this, perhaps, is part of their strategy.
Knowing you will be vilified as some kind of brute abuser if you criticize a New York Times reporter is, for many people, too high of a price to pay.
So people instead refrain, stay quiet, and that is the obvious objective of this lowly strategy.https://t.co/Y3xyuCUbzE
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald)
Of Lorenz, Carlson said "The most powerful people claiming to be powerless. Taylor Lorenz for example sample writes for The New York Times. She's at the very top of journalism's repulsive little food chain. Lorenz is far younger than prominent New York Times reporters used to be. She's also much less talented. You'd think Taylor Lorenz would be grateful for the remarkable, good luck that she's had," he said. "But no, she's not."
"Just this morning she tweeted this, quote, 'for International Women's Day, please consider supporting women enduring online harassment. It's not an exaggeration to say that the harassment and smear campaign I've had to endure over the past year has destroyed my life.'
"Destroyed her life. Really?" Carlson continued. "By most people's standards, Taylor Lorenz would seem to have a pretty good life. One of the best lives in the country, in fact. Lots of people are suffering right now, but no one's suffering quite as much as Taylor Lorenz is suffering."
"People have criticized her opinions on the internet and it destroyed her life," he added. "Let's pause on this International Women's Day and recognize that. You thought female Uyghurs had it bad—you haven't talked to Taylor Lorenz."
Carlson has the largest audience in US cable news.
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