Journalist Taylor Lorenz just pulled a Jerry Maguire at The Washington Post—announcing that she is leaving her role as a tech culture columnist to launch a solo magazine venture via Substack. Lorenz told The Hollywood Reporter that she will be covering “technology from the user side” as the sole contributor of User Mag. “It’s about who has power on the internet and how that power is being wielded,” said Lorenz, adding that stepping away from “legacy media” will enable her to have unfiltered access to her audience of followers. “I like to have a really interactive relationship with my audience. I like to be very vocal online, obviously. And I just think all of that is really hard to do in the roles that are available at these legacy institutions,” said Lorenz. The news of her departure comes following backlash over a photo shared to her Instagram stories in which Lorenz allegedly captioned a photo of President Joe Biden as “war criminal.” NPR reported that WaPo was in the process of reviewing the incident, but Lorenz told THR she had been thinking about becoming a free agent for some time. Lorenz worked for the Daily Beast from 2017-2018.
