In the space of a few hours on Monday, Christina Pushaw, spokeswoman for Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, showed why conservatives find the media utterly contemptible.
Consider Pushaw’s two exchanges on Twitter.
The first concerned longtime Florida environmental journalist Craig Pittman, now of the Florida Phoenix.
Apparently responding to something Pushaw has said, Pittman asked “What conclusion should I draw from the fact that all of his [DeSantis] water management appointments have been white folks?”
Pushaw flashed the question to her 118,000 Twitter followers and requested suggestions for a reply.
Pittman offered one idea, apparently realizing he had opened the door with an obviously leading and biased question: “How about ‘without snark’? That’d be a novelty.”
Yet she really didn’t need the help. She shared her answer.
“It is not my job to tell you ‘what conclusions to draw’ when it’s abundantly clear that you have drawn your conclusions already,” Pushaw replied.
I have the utmost confidence that you will interpret any and all demographic analysis of the governor’s appointments in a way that furthers your disingenuous narrative, regardless of my input. Governor DeSantis does not view appointments or anything else through the prism of race.”
She then shared some of Pittman’s own snarky posts about DeSantis’ pick for state surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who happens to be black.
Pittman generally tweeted stories that instead of looking at the Harvard-trained doctor’s qualifications, focused on the political angle of his views on COVID vaccines, how his views are “controversial and antithetical” to the opinions of “the medical mainstream,” and how his hiring by the University of Florida, where Ladapo is supposed to split time, was allegedly “rushed” and “politically motivated.”
In the tweet string, Pushaw also noted of Pittman, “Maybe he should give his job to a person of color. He works for the Florida Phoenix which is almost entirely white, like most of Florida media, which I must say is surprising for such a diverse state.”
In an update on this story, Craig Pittman penned a column and responded to Pushaw saying in part, “When I asked the governor’s press office about him appointing no Black people to the water boards, Press Secretary Christina Pushaw slammed me on her Twitter account for daring to ask such an impertinent question. She labeled me a “Critical Race Journalist” as if that were something nasty, like “Skunk Ape Fondler.”
But that wasn’t the only media person who had Pushaw fired up. Later on Monday, Washington Post tech “reporter” Taylor Lorenz asked Pushaw for a comment.
That’s because the Post was, as Lorenz put it, “running a story exposing” the woman who operates the wildly popular Libs of Tik Tok account on Twitter.
Pushaw made that message public as well and tweeted her reply: “The [Amazon founder Jeff] Bezos Post’s internet hall monitor is so excited to ‘expose’ @libsoftiktok. Here is my comment”: which ended with a clown-face emoji.
Later in reply to commenters on Lorenz’s story, Pushaw added, “Unbelievable. She even uses the word ‘expose.’ So excited to destroy this random woman’s life!!!”
The owner of the account even reported that Lorenz went to the homes of family members for her story.
This is something Pushaw noted in her thread on Lorenz:
“Here’s why private citizen @libsoftiktok incurred the wrath of WaPo’s Taylor Lorenz: Degenerate progressives posted public videos about how they have sexually explicit conversations with minors. LibsofTikTok reposted those videos. Degenerates faced professional consequences.”
“So, oligarch-owned State Media, the @washingtonpost, is being wielded to push Biden Regime/Pentagon/FBI talking points, defend left-wing degenerates … and now, intimidate & dox private citizens who try to protect kids from left-wing degenerates.”
“Taylor Lorenz was just crying on MSNBC about her experience with ‘online violence’ but she has no problem using Bezos money to stalk a private citizen’s relatives by showing up at their HOMES. Because she’s mad that @libsoftiktok reposted videos of degenerate predators.
That is, in fact, what made Lorenz’s question to Pushaw so despicable and hypocritical.
On April 1, she appeared on MSNBC and complained about being harassed and bullied on social media for some of her own work.
On MSNBC, Lorenz added of her critics, “They’ll … threaten my parents. I’ve had to remove every single social tie. I have severe PTSD from this. I contemplated suicide, and it got really bad. You feel like any little piece of information that gets out on you will be used by the worst people on the internet to destroy your life, and it’s so isolating.”
She then broke down blubbering.
Now, less than three weeks later, she is set to expose, for no other reason than she can, one of conservatives’ most liked, influential and effective Twitter accounts, which does nothing more than repost and circulate videos that liberals themselves post.
Pushaw then shared posts by liberal journalist Glenn Greenwald, who noted of Lorenz, “Only the narcissists in corporate media could take someone who grew up in Greenwich wealth and Swiss boarding schools, who regularly harms the lives of ordinary citizens with their massive journalistic platform, and tell the public: *she’s* the victim and can’t be criticized.”
“Taylor Lorenz is about to ‘expose’ the private citizen behind some anonymous account on Twitter, and when people criticize her for it, she and her friends will claim Taylor is the Real Victim™ and anyone criticizing this type of “journalism” will be guilty of causing her trauma,” Greenwald continued.
“This is what Taylor does: to teenagers, to obscure women on the internet, now to this anonymous Twitter use. That’s what arouses her,” he added. “But remember: the Real Victim™ is Taylor and her colleagues who publish articles in Jeff Bezos’ newspaper. Coddle them.”
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