by Jeff Lewis
Remember the story about Debrahlee Lorenzana, the so-hot-she-got-fired bank clerk? Of course you do. Somebody probably forwarded you a link in your work email, or else you “stumbled” onto it via one of the millions of newsfeeds that picked it up. In case you missed it, though, Ms. Lorenzana was fired from Citibank, allegedly because her bosses found her too hot and couldn’t focus on their work … or something. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Village Voice reporter who broke the story, Elizabeth Dwoskin, was dismayed by the rate at which news of this woman’s downfall spread around Internetland.
Over at the Columbia Journalism Review, she writes:
I watched this unfold in real-time—a punch-drunk, surreal, I-don’t-want-to jinx-myself-but-I-don’t-think-this-will-ever-happen-to-me-again sort of experience— extremely pleasurable, and also slightly disturbing. As a journalist, you spend so much time plugging away at stories that you hope will impact society. Then, suddenly, you hit on a sexy banker who lost her job, and, delighted as you are, you also can’t help but wonder: Is this what it takes to be talked about all over the world?
In a word, yes. In a world where the search engine optimizer is king, Dwoskin, like most credible journos everywhere, continues to struggle with the Internet’s tendency to legitimize opinion as fact. (I personally struggle with the sheer volume of crap that passes for intelligent dialogue). Not long after the Voice ran the initial story, Dwoskin recalls, “Every print organization had to weigh in with commentary, every news network had to invite Debbie on TV in order for her to retell the identical, sound-bite version of her story. The New York dailies set about the task of excavating every last detail of Debbie’s personal life.”
Since the story ran, Dwoskin has gone back to writing about boring old justice-issues and union politics. Reaction to real news has been comparatively tame, and Dwoskin’s cool with that. But, she muses, “I also might just have to find another hot banker.”
