The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz is out with a must-read new piece: “How Libs of TikTok became a powerful presence in Oklahoma schools.”
And check out Lorenz’s video interview with the far-right activist Chaya Raichik, who operates the social media account Libs of TikTok. The account on X, Lorenz writes, “has amassed an audience of millions … largely by targeting LGBTQ+ people.”
Lorenz notes in her story that Raichik splits her time between California, where she is registered to vote, and Florida. But Raichik has a big impact in Oklahoma — a state she has only visited once.
Lorenz writes, “Last month, Raichik was appointed to the Oklahoma Library Media Advisory Committee by Republican schools superintendent Ryan Walters, a former history teacher who has been called ‘the state’s top culture warrior’ for his opposition to teachers unions and other conservative targets, including LGBTQ+ students’ rights. Since her appointment, Raichik has sought to pull books depicting gay and transgender people, as well as sex education, from public school libraries, saying she has found ‘porn’ in various districts.”
Lorenz does a superb job in her 53-minute interview with Raichik, who clearly had trouble keeping up with Lorenz’s questions, which were direct without being confrontational. Despite Raichik’s answers, which often came off as those you might hear from a petulant teenager, Lorenz pressed forward and was always ready with the next follow-up.
The Daily Beast’s Brooke Leigh Howard called it a “painful, agonizing interview” in which “Raichik seemingly expressed a belief in the Great Replacement Theory and blasted ‘wokeness,’ said that transgenderism is ‘based on lies and nonsense,’ and gave her take on removing books from public school libraries — a move that she vehemently claimed is not a book ban.”
I spoke with Lorenz on Sunday about her interview.
Lorenz often interviews social media influencers, but she had never before interviewed Raichik. Initially, Raichik said she would do the interview in person and give Lorenz five minutes. It turned into nearly an hour.
Lorenz told me, “The reason that (these influencers) gained a massive following is because they have this kind of star quality or charisma or they are usually interesting — highly dynamic people. And I found her to be the complete opposite. I was actually surprised at how she wasn’t that.”
Lorenz was ready for Raichik to follow a common playbook: try to turn the tables on the interviewer by bringing up media controversies, or the controversies involving the specific person interviewing them.
“One thing about a lot of them is they are there to get content,” Lorenz said. “There is an intentionality behind it. I assumed that she would show up, try to record me.”
Lorenz was prepared for that.
“The way to react to that is always be completely polite and completely calm,” Lorenz said. “Because all they want to do is have you freaking out or yelling at them. … But I was just shocked. At the end, I was like … wow, she is not going to have an ounce of footage to work with.”
Interestingly, the video footage of the interview, which is on YouTube, was actually shot by Raichik’s social media person. Raichik then willingly shared the video with Lorenz. Twice. Lorenz, who assumed she was only getting Raichik for a quick comment for her story, only recorded audio and a brief video. The somewhat professional-looking footage was provided by Raichik.
“Say what you want about some of these other conservative influencers, there’s no way in hell they would give a journalist the footage that they just shot of the interview,” Lorenz said.
That’s especially true after an interview in which the influencer did not come off well.
Lorenz said most conservative influencers won’t even sit down with a journalist, or someone who they might see as adversarial, because typically, Lorenz said, “It doesn’t go well for them.”
When they do, the purpose is to get a journalist to lose his or her cool, and to troll their interviewer. Raichik attempted to do that, showing up in a T-shirt with a photo of Lorenz crying.
“I was like, ‘Uh, OK, that’s funny,” Lorenz said, laughing.
But the joke was on Raichik, who didn’t show any of the charisma that influencers typically have.
Podcaster, writer and activist Jordan Uhl tweeted, “If you’re going to show up to an interview wearing a shirt with the reporter’s face on it to try & troll them, you should at least be prepared to answer relatively straightforward questions about a set of ideas you’ve built your entire online persona around. Incredible faceplant.”
Lorenz credited Washington Post editor Mark Seibel (Lorenz called Seibel “the best editor on the entire planet, in the whole world”) for helping her prepare for the interview.
In the end, it was a masterful interview by a skilled and prepared journalist.
This piece originally appeared in The Poynter Report, our daily newsletter for everyone who cares about the media. Subscribe to The Poynter Report here.
