Taylor Lorenz, the prominent tech columnist for The Washington Post, announced her departure from the publication on Tuesday. Her next steps lead her to the subscription newsletter service Substack, where she starts her own project ‘User Mag’. The new format will focus on internet culture and the so-called ‘creator economy’ and examine who has power on the internet and how it is used. In an introductory post, Lorenz explained that she will continue to host the Vox Media podcast ‘Power User’. She also emphasized that she now has the freedom to collaborate with other content creators and pursue new opportunities that were not available to her at The Washington Post. Lorenz, who served as a technology reporter for The New York Times from 2019 to 2022, has also previously worked for outlets such as The Daily Beast, The Atlantic and Business Insider. She is also the author of the bestselling book ‘Extremely Online,’ which documents the rise of power and fame on the Internet. In recent years, Lorenz has been exposed to critical voices on social media several times. A miscommunication with her editor at the Washington Post in 2022 led to an inaccurate statement in an article, which caused anger online. She also came under fire when an Instagram post of hers called President Biden a ‘war criminal’. Lorenz later explained that this post was intended as a meme and should not be taken seriously. The Washington Post pointed out that Lorenz had violated the newspaper’s social media guidelines. A spokeswoman for the Post thanked Lorenz for her work in an email and wished her much success in her future independent journalistic work. News of her departure was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter. Taylor Lorenz is just the latest of several journalists who have recently left major media institutions to start independent projects. Oliver Darcy, a former media writer at CNN, launched the media subscription newsletter ‘Status’ in August. The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim founded Drop Site News, and a group of journalists who previously worked at Vice’s Motherboard launched 404 Media last year.
