Woke journalist Taylor Lorenz OUT at Washington Post

Leftist tech reporter Taylor Lorenz, who notoriously doxxed Libs of TikTok's Chaya Raichik in her reporting, has left the Washington Post to launch her own Substack, called User Mag. She spoke to Hollywood Reporter about the venture and in an X post praised her former colleagues at the Post, saying "I cannot speak more highly about my colleagues at WaPo. I would DIE for the people. I love them so much."

User Mag, Hollywood Reporter notes, will "cover technology from the user side. It's about who has power on the internet and how that power is being wielded." She said that she hopes to bring her former colleagues on her podcast.

Lorenz said that she "just wanted to get out of legacy media." In August, she was investigated by the Post after having put up a post in which she called President Joe Biden a "war criminal" over his administration's involvement in the Israel-Hamas war. In the past, she said that New York Times reporters are only allowed to espouse "right wing opinions."

"I feel like it's just really, really difficult to do the kind of reporting that I want to do on the internet within these kind of older institutions as a primary job. I like to have a really interactive relationship with my audience. I like to be very vocal online, obviously. And I just think all of that is really hard to do in the roles that are available at these legacy institutions."



So far, the new outlet will just be Lorenz, but she's hoping to bring in more people as the site builds over time. She doesn't have much hope for legacy media as far as their ability to connect with readers on internet matters. "I think also legacy institutions generally have just really struggled to cover the internet in any meaningful way," she said. "I think that they often sort of shy away from the internet."

"I write about the attention economy," she told The Hollywood Reporter, "and I write about the content creator industry, and I just want complete autonomy to write and do and say whatever I want, and engage a little bit more directly with my readers, with the public, when it comes to my work."

"User Mag is founded on the belief that the real story of technology lies with its users. Instead of focusing on corporate earnings and boardroom conflicts, User Mag covers how people are using technology," Lorenz states on the site where readers can subscribe to the newsletter.

"We document the people and movements that shape the internet –  from weird online phenomena, to under-the-radar trends, to platform developments, to policy initiatives, to the powerful forces that shape our online world. It's about who has power on the internet and how that power is being wielded."