(PatrioticPost.com)- The New York Times is facing a new $6.2 million defamation lawsuit from an agent who formerly represented online influencers.
Recently, Ariadna Jacob, an entrepreneur who represented online influencers and stars of TikTok, filed her lawsuit against the paper and its reporter Taylor Lorenz. The suit revolves around a 2020 article described as a “hit job” that Jacob says completely devastated her livelihood.
Jacob filed the lawsuit with her company, called Influences, earlier in August in the U.S. Southern District of New York. In the suit, she says an August 2020 article in the Times made “numerous false and disparaging statements of fact and concerning” her and her company.
As a result of the article, the suit states clients left her company in droves.
Speaking to Fox News recently, Jacob said:
“Most people that I’ve talked to have told me that, you know, that they’re proud of me and that it was a brave thing to do. It’s certainly not easy to sue one of the biggest news organizations.
“The biggest thing that people have to understand is that if this is happening in my industry, you know, it’s a niche industry that perhaps a lot of people don’t know the ins and outs of. But if this is happening in this industry, it could be happening in many others, and that’s concerning.”
The article in question has the headline “Trying to Make It Big Online? Getting Signed Isn’t Everything.” It goes onto paint a very damaging picture of Jacob, who is no longer in practice she says because of the article.
Along with the article was a photo of Jacob with a caption that accused her of turning the dreams of social media influencers into a “living nightmare.”
In the article, Lorenz wrote that Jacob held a lease of a house referred to as the Kids Next Door house. TikTok influencers lived there while Jacob represented them.
Jacob apparently agreed to pay half of the rent for the influencers as long as they “would produce content and fulfill a certain number of brand deals obtained by the company.” The article then said those deals fell through, the house didn’t have Wifi that worked, and the influencers struggled a lot financially.
The Times article further said Jacob withheld a lot of money from her clients and didn’t live up to the promises she made. It also said she intimidated or pressured her influencers constantly.
Jacob says none of this is true. She once had a roster of 85 stars on TikTok, and five of them ranked among the top seven TikTok earners according to a recent Forbes list.
But, all of them have since left her company following the Times article.
For their part, the Times says it will “vigorously” defend itself in court. A spokesman for the publication said:
“Ms. Jacob’s main complaint is that The New York Times gave voice to young people who felt they had been mistreated by her. It’s troubling that she has turned to litigation to try to silence those who criticize her business practices. We plan to defend against the suit vigorously.”
