Reporter Leaves Out Key Facts in Hit Piece on Libs of TikTok

Vice News published a story last fall asserting that Libs of TikTok, the popular social media account run by Chaya Raichik, was responsible for a rise in school bomb threats.

The reporter, Tess Owen, wrote that “bomb threats targeting schools or school districts following Libs of TikTok posts appears to be a particularly ominous escalation.” She then cited a “disturbing pattern” from 11 school districts.

Newly obtained emails, released Thursday by Raichik, suggest that Owen wasn’t completely truthful in her reporting.

In a post on X, Libs of TikTok claimed Vice News and Owen “knowingly withheld critical information about me because it didn’t fit their narrative.”

In her Oct. 4, 2023, story, Owen wrote:

Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota was targeted in Libs of TikTok posts on September 13 and 14. They received a bomb threat by email on September 15. The district’s director of communications Jim Skelly told VICE News that it was unusual for the district to receive threats directly by email such as this one. This was the second direct threat that the district, which is Minnesota’s largest, received in the last two years. More commonplace threats usually come from students or are made via social media and are quickly processed as “non-credible” by law enforcement, said Skelly.

The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project obtained copies of Owen’s correspondence with Anoka-Hennepin School District and Raichik released them Thursday. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news outlet.)

Owen neglected to reveal two key details Skelly told her, according to their Sept. 28, 2023, email exchange.

1. “The district did receive a ‘threat’ via email on Sept. 15 which was quickly determined to be non-credible by law enforcement.”
2. “The district has no information linking this bomb threat to the Libs of TikTok messaging.”

Yet despite these omissions, Owen wrote Thursday on X that “I stand by my reporting. And I recommend imagining a world in which email was not the only way to communicate.”

Owen didn’t explain why she neglected to include the information Skelly provided.

Mike Howell, the Oversight Project’s executive director, called Owen’s story part of a “coordinated media campaign which is viciously attacking Chaya Raichik.”

“So-called journalists are implicating her in crimes and driving hate mobs her way,” Howell told The Daily Signal. “A major problem for them is that they’re wrong, but I suspect they already know that. The emails we uncovered show that Tess Owen was clearly and directly told that the school district in question had no information linking the bomb threat to Libs of TikTok. Tess Owen omitted that exculpatory evidence from her article.”

Owen was laid off last month when Vice Media made significant personnel cuts and ceased publishing on Vice.com.