(Daily Mail) Controversial Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz has slammed her own newspaper’s reporting on China and its opposition of Covid lockdowns in the country.
On Saturday, the Post tweeted an article about China’s record number of coronavirus cases, noting how only a tiny proportion its billion-strong population are vaccinated.
‘A coronavirus outbreak on the verge of being China’s biggest of the pandemic has exposed a critical flaw in Beijing‘s ‘zero covid’ strategy: a vast population without natural immunity,’ the post said.
Within hours of the tweet, Lorenz, an ‘internet culture’ columnist for the paper, re-tweeted the report with her own view on the matter, tearing apart the reporting.
‘There is no lasting ‘natural immunity’ to COVID. You can get covid over and over and over again bc there are so many endlessly evolving strains and antibodies wane. Also, choosing not to kill off millions of vulnerable people (as the US is doing) isn’t a ‘critical flaw’,’ Lorenz wrote
Twitter users were appalled Lorenz would seemingly defend the authoritarian country’s lockdowns and implied human rights violations – with one user accusing her of ‘spreading misinformation’ noting how her editors were unlikely to sanction her because any controversy would lead to more views for the Post’s website.
Lorenz later attempted to clarify her earlier tweet by suddenly praising the Post’s reporting adding how the article contained ‘a lot more nuance btw’.
There were also very few direct responses to Lorenz’s original tweet because her Twitter settings do not allow for a right of reply unless followed by her directly.
Controversial Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz has criticized her own newspaper’s reporting on China and its opposition of Covid lockdowns
Lorenz later attempted to clarify her earlier tweet by praising the Post’s reporting adding how the article contained ‘a lot more nuance btw’
Taylor Lorenz, an ‘internet culture’ columnist for the post re-tweeted the Post’s report with her own view on the matter, seemingly challenging the Post’s own reporting
Few can reply to Lorenz on her Twitter profile because she has it set to settings whereby only those she follows personally can answer her back
Residents line up for COVID-19 tests in Beijing on Saturday. China recorded its highest number of COVID cases since the pandemic began. Authorities stuck to their zero tolerance approach
An epidemic control worker and a security guard wear protective suits to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as a resident collects a food order outside an apartment building in Beijing, China
Police watch protesters in Shanghai on Saturday demonstrating against China’s restrictive COVID measures in rare displays of public defiance
China is battling a surge in infections that has prompted lockdowns and other restrictions in cities across the country as Beijing adheres to a zero-COVID policy even as much of the world tries to coexist with the coronavirus.
China defends President Xi Jinping’s signature zero-COVID policy as life-saving and necessary to prevent overwhelming the healthcare system.
Officials have vowed to continue with it despite the growing public pushback and its mounting toll on the world’s second-biggest economy.
Lorenz’s Twitter posting quickly drew criticism from other users online, although none to her own profile because she has restricted her account to only allow replies from people she follows.
‘Sickening. Washington Post ‘journalist’ and obsessive Covid maximalist Taylor Lorenz is now full-on defending the Chinese Communist Party’s massive human rights violations… just days after civilians burned to death in a locked-down apartment block in Urumqi,’ Christina Pushaw wrote.
‘Nothing to see here, just @TaylorLorenz (I’m blocked) of the Washington Post defending China’s insane, authoritarian ‘zero-covid’ strategy. Hundreds of millions of people living like slaves, testing every single day and having no personal freedom, i.e. Taylor Lorenz’s dream,’ Maxwell Meyer tweeted.
‘It is common knowledge at WaPo that Taylor Lorenz uses the paper to settle personal & political scores but they do nothing because the misinformation she spreads creates epic levels of controversy that deliver epic numbers of clicks. WaPo IS #fakenews,’ stated one user.
‘Taylor Lorenz is a terrible and talentless person,’ wrote another.
