Tampering by NYT Taylor Lorenz Exposes Conflict of Interest, Damages Ariadna Jacob’s Startup
Written by Nathan Duff
Nathan Duff is an award-winning freelance journalist who lives in Clarksdale, MS. He is the former editor and publisher of the Clarksdale Press Register, and contributor to Delta Business Journal among other regional publications.
Taylor Lorenz abused her position as technology reporter for the New York Times by tampering with the relationships in an industry she covers. A direct and intentional result of this tampering has been the damage to the credibility of Ariadna Jacob, CEO of Influences, a leading digital marketing and influencer firm that formerly represented many of the highest-earning TikTok stars in the world. Jacob claims that she has been blacklisted from an industry in which she was previously cited as a leader due to the inaccuracies in Lorenz’ stories and Twitter posts, and due to her major and direct conflict of interest with Influences competitors. United Talent Agency is the behemoth Hollywood talent agency that represents Lorenz. Many former Influences clients are now represented by UTA.
Among the Standards and Ethics documents on the Times Company website is a manual titled Ethical Journalism Guidebook, stated to be “a handbook of values and practices for the News and Opinion departments.” It contains many strictures that Lorenz violated in her coverage of Influences, UTA and the TikTok influencer industry. The Guidebook explicitly says, “Staff members may not accept employment or compensation of any sort from individuals or organizations who figure or are likely to figure in coverage they provide, edit, package or supervise.” UTA represents Lorenz for book deals.
UTA sought to increase its presence in the TikTok influencer industry, a sector of the digital media that traditional talent agencies had been slow to penetrate. Lorenz published the first of two articles concerning UTA, Influences and Jacob on April 6, 2020, These Top Hollywood Agents Are Signing All The Influencers. In it, she mentions other agencies briefly, but features quotes from or information about three UTA executives. The article closes with quotes from a UTA client declaring the agency to be the most relevant in the industry. At no time does Lorenz disclose her relationship with UTA. The effect of the article is a recommendation of an agency to a talent, which also violates the Ethical Journalism Guidebook section Rules for Specialized Departments which reads, “(employees) may not suggest agents, publishers, producers or galleries to aspiring authors, playwrights, composers or artists.”
The second article, Trying to Make It Big Online? Getting Signed Isn’t Everything, appeared on August 14, 2020. It paints a one-sided story of the events surrounding the establishment, management and ultimate failure of the Kids Next Door and Girls in the Valley content creator houses. It also details a complaint to the California Labor Commission in which Jacob was accused of withholding payment from a client. The article makes numerous defamatory claims against Jacob and her company with spurious or no substantiation. Many of the claims Lorenz reported included statements that Jacob and her lawyer had previously refuted in emails to Lorenz. Former Influences clients are quoted with no context or corroboration — clients who had breached their contracts with Jacob and were now signed to or being pursued by UTA.
Lorenz reported that the influencers living in the Kids Next Door house “were told that they would have to cover a larger share of rent.” Jacob’s lawyer responded to this allegation prior to the article being published, and called it “100% false.” Lorenz ignored this, along with Jacob’s lawyer’s thorough explanation of the agreements between Jacob and her clients, which indicated that Jacob was being taken advantage of by clients and others attempting to live rent-free in the house.
Several of the tenants admitted to Jacob and her lawyer that they had taken side deals with brands that cut Influences out of contractually obligated commissions, and that they were refusing to pay their agreed upon share of the rent in an attempt to force breaches of their contracts. One tenant, Jessie Underhill, said that another tenant, Marcus Olin, encouraged him to speak negatively about Jacob to Lorenz in order to avoid paying rent and commissions, indicating that if they were able to damage Influences enough, that the company would not have the resources to litigate the breaches of contract. Following the publication of the August article, Underhill approached Jacob and a colleague and told them that he had lied to Lorenz because she had been aggressively pursuing him to provide dirt on Jacob and Influences. At this time, Jacob says Underhill wanted to move back into the Kids Next Door house and resume his relationship with Influences. Jacob added that just prior to Olin speaking to Lorenz, Olin threatened her with “severe consequences” if she did not agree to cancel Olin’s production contract with Influences, in which Jacob had already invested tens of thousands of dollars.
Throughout the article, Lorenz includes selected responses from Jacob and her lawyer. The responses are incomplete and culled from several emails between both camps. Omitted are any of the responses or documentation that would elaborate on the relationships and agreements between Influences and its clients, as well as any information that would exonerate Jacob. Lorenz oversimplifies the situation greatly, and lends full credence to unsubstantiated claims without including Jacob’s rebuttals. This is especially evident in the description of the legal dispute between Jacob and Brittany Tomlinson, who, at various times, had signed with Influences, UTA and Creator Edge, a third management entity comprised of Jacob, Jace Norman and Benjamin Berkley.
Jacob maintained that Influences never withheld any money owed to Tomlinson, and shared accounting records showing that Tomlinson was paid on time, within 5 days of Influences receiving payment from the brands using her for campaigns. Lorenz omits this information while quoting Tomlinson liberally. Tomlinson’s complaint with the California Labor Commission was based primarily on claims that Jacob was guilty of operating a talent agency without a license and demanding an “unconscionable” commission of 20%. Lorenz failed to acknowledge that online content creators are usually not considered “artists’’ under the California Labor Code unless they also work in one of the more traditional entertainment arenas, such as film, television or stage or that top TikTok representation firms including TalentX, Willy Social, Collab, Doiyen and Viral Nation often collect 20% commissions from creators. Even if Tomlinson had been considered an artist under the California Talent Agency Act, she had signed with UTA in November of 2019, and UTA was working in conjunction with Creator Edge. The case was far more complex than Lorenz accounted for, and by quoting Tomlinson without Jacob’s rebuttals she painted a very negative picture of Influences and Jacob while giving Tomlinson’s claims full credence. The complaint was ultimately resolved, and Influences was not required to present its defense to the Labor Commissioner, but by that time, the damage had been done. Lorenz has so far failed to publish another story explaining the outcome of the case.
Incomplete or tangential responses from Jacob tepidly follow uncorroborated statements by Drip Crib influencer Devion Young, Tomlinson and others. Lorenz was provided with documentation that elaborated on all situations, but shared the former Influences clients accusations without qualification.
Young claimed that Jacob was responsible for distributing nude photos that Lorenz says she has documentation of but refuses to provide. Lorenz does mention that Jacob’s lawyers dispute the claim, but gives none of the supporting context that the lawyer provided to her prior to the article being published, which indicated that Jacob simply made her partners aware of the existence of the photos.
Young said that Jacob leaked his nude photos to mutual business partners. Jacob says this is categorically false. Young and Jacob do not have — and have never had — any mutual business partners. Jacob says that she received a text alerting her to an allegation about Young sending nudes to potentially inappropriate parties. Jacob immediately forwarded those screenshots to the house manager for Drip Crib so he could investigate and as a matter of pressing ethical concern. She also sent them to Young who stated to Jacob at the time that his nude photos had been leaked on thousands of online Telegram chat groups by a member of the Drip Crib.
Likewise, the responses concerning Tomlinson’s claims about her “lock(ing) creators into contracts” includes out of context quotes from two management professionals without any evidence that they are even discussing Jacob. It is evident that Young and Tomlinson expected to benefit from their statements being taken at face value.
Lorenz includes quotes from several individuals who misrepresent their connection to Influences. Lorenz presents Tianna Singer as an Influences client and cites her as the primary source for her description of the events surrounding the dissolution of the Girls in the Valley house, a description that is disparaging of and misleading about Jacob’s role in the enterprise. Witnesses who could have corroborated Jacob’s version of events were ignored. Jacob states that Singer was never signed to anything other than a standard liability waiver as a guest at a content house and that Singer was never an official Influences client signed to a management or production contract. Jacob says that she tried to steer opportunities to Singer, but that Singer declined the opportunities around the time that Singer was being interviewed for the article. Lorenz instead relates Singer’s accusation that “She promised brand deals, money and opportunities. Everyone was promised income, but that never happened.”
During the time Lorenz was insinuating herself into the lives of the impressionable young creators and their often equally impressionable parents as she worked on the articles, UTA was actively pursuing Influences clients.
Lorenz has gone on to sow discord in other areas of the technology sector and is receiving strong backlash from many media commentators and critics for a number of recent gaffes. She has been caught masquerading online using a fake name and profile, something else that is explicitly against the Ethical Journalism Guidebook. She is held up as an example of reckless journalism by many, such as Glenn Greenwald, Tucker Carlson and Saagar Enjeti. In the case of her coverage of the TikTok influencer industry, her recklessness willfully exacerbated an already tenuous situation. Her slanted reporting cost several people more than hundreds of thousands of dollars while benefiting the agency that represented her. Influences is effectively out of business as the company it once was, and Jacob is picking up the pieces of her shattered career as she seeks investment funding for a new technology startup. In light of Lorenz’ failure to report on the outcome of Tomlinson’s complaint to the California Labor Commission, it is reasonable to conclude that her biased depictions of the industry demonstrate an ulterior motive, namely, to damage the credibility of Jacob for the benefit of UTA.
