Up next
Author

Earlier today I wrote about the feminist backlash to the fact that Johnny Depp won his defamation suit against Amber Heard. One of the articles I highlighted was an analysis piece written by Taylor Lorenz for the Washington Post in which she argued that the social media content creators were cashing in on the popularity of the trial. That article has since come under fire by at least two people mentioned in it.

Her article cites two YouTube personalities, “LegalBytes” host Alyte Mazeika and an anonymous user named ThatUmbrellaGuy. Lorenz alleged that according to Business Insider, Mazeika “earned $5,000 in one week by pivoting the content on her YouTube channel to nonstop trial coverage and analysis.” She also claimed that ThatUmbrellaGuy “earned up to $80,000 last month, according to an estimate by social analytics firm Social Blade.”

Included in the paragraph was a parenthetical statement reading, “Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy did not respond to requests for comment.”

Both Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy refuted the statement, saying Lorenz never reached out to them prior to publication of her story.

Alyte Mazeika tweeted about the story, pointing out that she was never contacted by Lorenz, at least not until after the story was published.

ThatUmbrellaGuy, the other person mentioned in the story, also never heard from Lorenz prior to publication but she contacted him after the fact as well.

He clarified today that in addition to never contacting him, Lorenz also misrepresented his earnings.

The story was first stealth-edited, removing the claim that the two content creators had not responded to requests for comment.

Alyte Mazeika appeared on a YouTube show today and said Lorenz had apologized for that claim and said it had been added by someone else, presumably an editor. Lorenze claimed she asked them to remove it. Mazeika seems to take Lorenz at her word but I find this explanation odd. Claiming that people were contacted for comment is a pretty specific thing to say. Would an editor really add that without hearing from the reporter that such an attempt was made? Why did this editor add it if Lorenz never said it?

But apology aside, Mazeika clearly wasn’t happy with the fact that Lorenz never mentioned she was an attorney who had planned to cover the Depp trial long before it became a media spectacle. She was just lumped in as yet another content creator chasing clout and cash. In any case, the Post has added a correction to the article.

A previous version of this story inaccurately attributed to Adam Waldman a quote describing how he contacted some Internet influencers. That quote has been removed. The story has also been amended to note The Post’s attempts to reach Alyte Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy for comment. Previous versions omitted or inaccurately described these attempts.

You may have noticed that the correction doesn’t really describe what happened here. Here’s the revised paragraph from the story. [emphasis added]

The content creator Alyte Mazeika earned $5,000 in one week by pivoting the content on her YouTube channel to nonstop trial coverage and analysis, according to Business Insider. She declined to comment for this story. ThatUmbrellaGuy, an anonymous YouTuber whose entire channel is dedicated to pro-Depp content, earned up to $80,000 last month, according to an estimate by social analytics firm Social Blade. ThatUmbrellaGuy could not be reached for comment. Orec said he earned over $5,400 last month in Instagram Reels bonus payments.

So, it’s true I guess that they declined to comment but no one reading the revised story or the correction would know that the Post initially claimed they didn’t respond even though neither of them had been contacted. Only after they complained were they contacted at which point they declined to comment. Someone who comes across this a month or a year from now won’t know about any of that and would have a hard time piecing it together. It seems more like a cover-up than a correction.

This isn’t the first time Lorenz has been been caught making false and misleading claims and it won’t be the last time. Here’s the full YouTube show featuring Mazeika. I have this cued up to her arrival on the show.

[embedded content]

Source: