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The Washington Post, along with The New York Times, is the most powerful newspaper not only in the United States, but probably in the world in terms of influence, history, and prestige. It is a media outlet that, despite the distrust, provides the U.S. with a very powerful platform that influences the political, social, and cultural debate around the world like few others.
Having such a powerful weapon at their disposal should be enough for journalists, editors, and, ultimately, the editorial board to assume the responsibility that the articles they publish are rigorous, contextualized, and ethically impeccable. This would be ideal, but we know that this is not the case.
Over the last decade, U.S. journalism has fallen out of favor. People no longer trust the media or reporters. Trust in the media, for example, is only favorable among Democrats. Republicans want absolutely nothing to do with the traditional press, and independents are increasingly skeptical of anything coming from the mainstream media.
The main reason conservatives and independents no longer trust the liberal press is not even because of its editorial line, but because of its biased coverage. Liberal media outlets, like The Washington Post, completely ignore momentous issues like Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings for the simple fact that they may affect progressive politicians who agree with their political views and may benefit conservatives.
Not only do they ignore the facts, like Hunter Biden’s computer, but they do their best to whitewash the protagonist or discredit the story. On the other hand, when it comes to covering the other side, journalists automatically drop their idleness to disguise themselves as expert investigators.
However, now the media not only betrays the American citizen by not wanting to investigate the blue politicians, but attacks and goes directly against those ordinary Americans who seek to show the reality that does not appear in the media such as The Washington Post.
The controversial case of Libs of TikTok and Taylor Lorenz
The latest major controversy starring The Washington Post involves its technology and culture reporter, Taylor Lorenz, the woman who came out shedding crocodile tears a couple of weeks ago on national television because she was allegedly receiving unbearable online harassment.
In a sensationalist and malicious hit piece, Taylor Lorenz charged against the woman behind the famed Twitter account “Libs of TikTok”; a profile that is responsible for spreading and denouncing sexualized teachers, school districts, or camps that attempt to impart inappropriate content to children in schools.
Intersectionality Theory, Gender Theory, or curricula related to sexuality and sexual liberation are the main target of criticism of Libs of TikTok, which draws most of the time from content posted on networks by progressive teachers or school districts.
But for Taylor Lorenz and the WaPo, Libs of TikTok is not an account that seeks to protect children from sexualization or possible grooming, but a macabre account that uses videos to inflame and outrage conservatives and spread anti-LGBT content in a fierce cultural battle.
Lorenz basically presents Libs of Tiktok as an enemy and a hate account that has immense political and communicational power thanks to its influence in the conservative world.
It’s funny, because if you put it all in context, we have the WaPo, one of the most influential newspapers in America, hitting the roof because an account using videos and public documents went viral showing a reality that the liberal media ignores: children in America, today, are very exposed to sexualization and parents are worried.
Instead of accepting this reality and understanding why the public consumes Libs of TikTok, Taylor Lorenz, the same woman who cried about online harassment, decided to reveal the identity of the account manager, exposing her private life and linking (in the original version of the article) personal information that could put the creator of the profile at risk. Lorenz, blinded by generating this successful piece, did not care about crossing the limits of journalistic ethics and went to the home of the creator of Libs of TikTok, and harassed her family members.
What Taylor Lorenz did was nothing more than pure and simple doxxing. That’s why the criticism did not take long to come against her and the WaPo, who, instead of accepting their mistake, decided to publish an absurd justification for their journalist and the report by adding a lie: “We did not publish or link any details about her personal life.”
In addition to doxxing the creator of Libs of TikTok and its lying statement, The Washington Post and Taylor Lorenz also defended the teachers exposed by Libs of TikTok portraying them as tender educators who only wanted the best for their students.
Bill Zeiser, the editor of RealClearPolicy, said in a column for The Spectator World that Libs of TikTok exposes “Pedophilia, sexual liberation of children: these were not innocent teachers.”
Zeiser, quite rightly, demonstrates with several examples that the work of Libs of TikTok, beyond how progressives may characterize it, is honest and important; and that it is far from being the evil right-wing communicational force presented by Lorenz in the WaPo.
Precisely that kind of journalism – sensationalist, decontextualized and manipulative – is the trash journalism that we don’t deserve and that is doing so much damage to this craft.
Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón is a journalist at El American specializing in the areas of American politics and media analysis // Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón es periodista de El American especializado en las áreas de política americana y análisis de medios de comunicación.
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