Washington Post tech columnist Taylor Lorenz slammed MSNBC’s handling of a segment in which she detailed her experiences contending with online harassment — claiming the network botched the report so badly that it made the problem worse.
In a segment airing last Friday on MSNBC’s Meet the Press Daily, Lorenz revealed that online harassment targeting her and her family caused her to experience “severe PTSD” and contemplate suicide in the recent past.
The MSNBC coverage aimed to detail brutal harassment faced by female journalists — noting data that showed 73% reported experiencing online attacks while doing their jobs.
But Lorenz said she has faced “even worse” treatment since the segment went live.
“If your segment or story on ‘online harassment’ leads to even worse online harassment for your subjects, you f—ed up royally and should learn how to cover these things properly before ever talking about them again,” Lorenz tweeted on Sunday.
MSNBC representatives did not immediately return a request for comment on Lorenz’s remarks.
MSNBC’s segment detailed how Fox News host Tucker Carlson ripped Lorenz in March 2021 for calling for an end to online harassment. At the time, Lorenz, then a reporter for the New York Times, said she had endured a “smear campaign” that had “destroyed her life.”
Carlson fired back, claiming Lorenz’s remarks were another example of “powerful people claiming to be powerless.”
The dustup kicked off in February 2021, 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.
