Former New York Times journalist Taylor Lorenz is being sued for $11.6 million for allegedly defaming a former social media agent in an August 2020 article.
The article in question, titled "Trying to Make It Big Online? Getting Signed Isn’t Everything," allegedly contained false and disparaging statements of fact leading to clients fleeing entrepreneur Ariadna Jacob, founder and CEO of influences.com, along with destroying her career and reputation, according to her lawsuit.
Jacob previously filed a $6.2 million defamation lawsuit against Lorenz, who currently works for the Washington Post, in late August though the suit was dismissed shortly after citing "loose, figurative, or hyperbolic language."
"These types of online smear campaigns and reputational attacks are things more and more journalists are dealing with. Newsrooms must be clear eyed about these campaigns. I’m so grateful to the New York Times for their support and to the court for dismissing this baseless case," Lorenz tweeted, per Fox News.
Jacob's amended suit filed earlier this month alleges the former Times reporter "bullied" Jacob's Tik Tok clients into providing false statements for the story, according to the outlet.
The amended lawsuit accuses the New York Times and Lorenz of knowingly publishing the article with false statements and claims their position in legacy media would protect them from liability. Influencers Adam Cohen and Kyle Oreffice, who reportedly had direct contact with Lorenz, also provided sworn affidavits for the amended lawsuit.
"This lady is a one-woman wrecking crew, and I’m hoping we will be the ones to finally hold her accountable for all the damage she’s caused to so many people," Harmeet Dhillon, who is representing Jacob's, told Fox News' Tucker Carlson. Lorenz created a career of "out of clout-chasing and, increasing her stature by picking victims who happen to be on the upswing in the public eye and attacking them viciously," according to Dhillon.
"In this case, she focused on our client, who was running influencer houses and managing talent on TikTok. Believe it or not, it’s a huge industry worth billions of dollars, and our client was on the upswing there."
Dhillon continued:Given five hours to respond to her hit piece questions in writing, which is her M.O, and the M.O. of other dishonest journalists, she [Lorenz] was provided with information debunking many of the lies that she published in her story. And having written information in hand debunking these lies, she went and published anyway, and followed it up with posts on social media, lying about our client's business practices… calling our client a bad actor on social media, and basically destroying our client’s career and causing her damage in the tune of millions of dollars.
The amended suit includes additional claims and evidence of defamation citing tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, according to Dhillon's website.
