Tech columnist Taylor Lorenz has left the Washington Post, reportedly after a rift with editors. She launched her own digital publication, User Mag October 1.

In an age when legacy media journalists are dropping like flies as their venerable publications face shrinking circulations, that wouldn’t matter much, except for two things:

1.On August 31, Lorenz wrote a piece for her newsletter outlining the way that the current media environment created by the internet favors individual content creators over venerable media institutions (and that triggered a squabble at the Democratic National Convention):

The way creators are being mocked and belittled by so-called “established” journalists and observers online is nothing short of disgraceful. The entitlement, the arrogance, and the gatekeeping is appalling. While the viciousness of these attacks is upsetting, the backlash is not surprising. This is the same kind of protectionist behavior that has been happening in the media world for decades, as many invested in institutional power structures lash out amidst their dwindling influence. (I wrote about this last year for WaPo and extensively in my book). From the first blogger to receive White House press credentials in 2005, to fashion influencers being seated front row at Dolce & Gabbana in 2009, to this recent convention, creators have been infiltrating and upending traditional media structures for nearly 25 years.

“Journalists vs content creators debate”

At the time, we said, “But, as her book Extremely Online (Simon & Schuster 2023) indicates, she has adapted because she knows that the power has shifted. And so has the audience.”

And so, it appears, has she. She has jumped from a venerable publication to new media.

2.Her new venture, User Mag, “a tech and online culture publication featuring exclusive reporting, interviews, and insights about the online world.,” already has 41,000 subscribers at about $7.50/mo.

She won’t starve. But the key problem individual creators face, as we’ve often noted, is the Big Government drive to somehow get control of the internet, recently promoted by Hillary Clinton, among many other notables.

Essentially, the internet crashed the cost of two things: individual content creation and censorship. Which will win?

The risk is that we won’t have the editors of the New York Times deciding what we should be allowed to know but rather — the government and Big Tech.

We can still vote no.

You may also wish to read: Lab leak theory was not just misinformation: British PM. This tidbit would hardly matter except for the fact that a couple of years ago, honest researchers were discredited and censored for discussing this lab leak theory.