Tucker Carlson escalates battle with New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz
Tucker Carlson stepped up his attacks on a New York Times reporter over her claims that she has been harassed online, saying she has been ungrateful in the face of her “remarkable good luck.”
The Times on Wednesday called Carlson’s remarks “calculated and cruel” after his Tuesday show blasted a tweet that Times reporter Taylor Lorenz had made about facing online harassment over her controversial reporting. Carlson said in his opening salvo that she in reality is “at the very top of journalism’s repulsive little food chain” and has “one of the best lives in the country.”
The dustup over Lorenz kicked off last month, when journalist Glenn Greenwald called her a “journalistic tattletale” after she incorrectly accused Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen of using the “R-word” — meaning “retard” — during a private discussion on the members-only Clubhouse app.
In fact, another member of the discussion — which was about the GameStop stock rally — had used the word while explaining that some investors on Reddit call themselves the “R-word Revolution,” according to its moderator Nait Jones, who added “this is why people block” journalists from private discussions — “because of this horse s–t dishonesty.”
“Lorenz is much younger than prominent New York Times reporters used to be. She’s also much less talented,” Carlson had said Tuesday. “You’d think Taylor Lorenz would be grateful for the remarkable good luck she’s had, but no she’s not.”
In a Wednesday statement on Twitter, the Times didn’t address Lorenz’s error, calling her a “talented” journalist doing “timely and essential reporting” even as it ripped into Carlson.
“In a now familiar move, Tucker Carlson opened his show last night by attacking a journalist,” the newspaper said. “It was a calculated and cruel tactic, which he regularly deploys to unleash a wave of harassment and vitriol at his intended target.”
Just a few hours later, however, Carlson remained undeterred, devoting another chunk of his nightly broadcast to the Lorenz controversy.
“There’s a lot of real harassment out there. This is not it,” he said. “The people running the New York Times believe that anyone who disagrees with them is committing assault.”
Fox News said in a statement, “No public figure or journalist is immune to legitimate criticism of their reporting, claims or journalistic tactics.”
Conservative commentators seized upon a Tuesday tweet from Lorenz in which she said: “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. No one should have to go through this.”
“’Destroyed her life’? Really?” Carlson asked sarcastically. “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 is suffering quite as much as Taylor Lorenz is suffering.”
Lorenz covers internet culture for the Times out of Los Angeles and she has maintained that abuse heaped on her and other prominent women has been worse during the pandemic.
As expected, the battle has observers divided along partisan lines. Associated Press chief political reporter Steve Peoples defended Lorenz amid Carlson’s broadsides.
“This is dangerous and disgusting,” Peoples tweeted. “Someone asks for help after suffering online harassment, and this man mocks her in prime time — using her full name five separate times — in an obvious attempt to encourage more harassment. We are better than this.”