During his show on Tuesday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson attacked New York Times Taylor Lorenz over her accounts of facing online harassment, claiming that she has “one of the best lives in the country.”
Lorenz and the paper spoke out on Carlson’s criticism, calling his segment “calculated and cruel.” Carlson proceeded to label Lorenz as a “deeply unhappy narcissist,” denying that she faces online abuse and allowed a guest to accuse her of “harassing kids and teenagers.”
“I hope people see this and recognize it for what it is,” Lorenz said on Twitter late Wednesday, “an attempt to mobilize an army of followers to memorize my name and instigate harassment.”
A Fox News spokesperson defended Carlson’s statements, saying that “no public figure or journalist is immune to legitimate criticism of their reporting, claims or journalistic tactics.”
In July, the Fox host alleged that the Times had been working on a story about the location of his family home, which he claimed was an effort to “terrorize” and intimidate him. The Times denied that the story was in the works.
Three months later, NBC News slammed Carlson for a similar situation, saying he had “encouraged harassment” of one of its reporters, Brandy Zadrozny, after a former Trump aide on his show attacked her over her reporting.
Lorenz, a Los Angeles-based reporter who focuses on Internet culture, has faced abuse multiple times.
“I believe it’s directly to the broader trend of people spending more time in closed, moderated spaces, like Facebook groups, group chats, subreddits and so on,” Lorenz said. “I think that shift is a natural consequence of these large, open social networks’ failure to create a safer experience for their users.”
In honor of International Women’s Day this past week, Lorenz tweeted, “please consider supporting women enduring online harassment,” citing a campaign that she said “destroyed” her life.
