Exposing ToC's Contributor: Tom Lorenzo = Tim Buckley

[DISCLAIMER: LONG MESSAGE. ALL REFERENCED SOURCES ARE LINKED AT BOTTOM. E-MAIL IS ADDRESSED TO DAVID FROM TASTEOFCINEMA.COM AND BCC'D TO THE APPROPRIATE MEDIUM ADDRESS.]

To whom it may concern,

A fairly recent contributor to your platform that goes by the pseudonym "Tom Lorenzo", using the following byline:

"Tom Lorenzo is Long Island, NY’s most preeminent pop culture fanatic. If it’s a western or a horror movie, he wants to see it. No argument is too minuscule or flawed for him to go full force with."

Lorenzo is responsible for article's such as "7 Reasons Why Wonder Woman Just Saved the DCEU" (June 29, 2017), and the massively controversial (or in your case: financially successful) "All 11 Batman Movies Ranked from Worst to Best" (July 5, 2017)

Aside from the swift changing of their byline — it used to say "critic" instead of "fanatic"; both are equally deceptive — Tom Lorenzo also seems to be doubling-down on his potential financial gains using your site by posting under the other pseudonym "Tim Buckler", using the following byline:

"Tim Buckler is a writer and performer who spends far too much time rambling on about pop-culture than any grown man should. For show info and other rants follow him on twitter @Blockbusterman."

The most recent (perhaps only?) contribution from him entitled "The 10 Most Faithful Comic Book Movies of All Time" (August 13, 2017) not only included the film V for Vendetta and the misquoted ignorance under that list entry, but his new "Tim Buckler" byline exposes his deceit by including his Twitter handle. His Twitter bio has a link to his Wordpress, entitled "What Buckler Saw", where you can find an entry on June 8th of this year that redirects to an article he published on the platform Medium, surreptitiously titled "Seven Reasons Why Wonder Woman Has Saved the DCEU". (It was published on Medium on June 2nd; six days before the blog post.

This is almost 4 weeks prior to him recycling that article on TasteofCinema by way of revision while maintaining his argument's rhetoric. But it gets even worse: In his Wordpress post linking the article, he seems to sleight the other platforms he contributes to (AKA, TasteofCinema) by introducing the link with:

"A little piece I wrote on a far superior blog site."

It seems that Tom Lorenzo/Tim Buckler isn't just guilty of manipulative writing, routinely sloppy research, and making claims that he leaves unjustified across the board — he also likes to bite the hands that fed him when he finds some greener grass, and then recycles his articles a month later when he hasn't been getting the exposure he hoped for.

Now, I understand that one of ToC's main goals is to generate clicks to collect traffic for ad revenue, and that's totally fine. But your "Write for Us" section puts this before mentioning clicks:

"We’re gathering a team of passionate and skillful writers to join us in bringing high-quality content to the millions of monthly readers that visit Taste of Cinema."

Then I think you owe the people clicking on the articles, which creates the path for you to realize that revenue, a little more respect in regards to policing your contributors a bit better. Yes, Lorenzo/Buckler's "Batman Ranked" got 54 comments, which is the highest I've seen on the site in a long time, and that's nice. But continually allowing such negatively received and poorly written content at the sacrifice of the audience's trust (and your platform's integrity), leaves a bad taste in my mouth, as well as many other readers. Especially when this particular contributor is manipulating the system for his own personal gain, and you're enabling him.

I beg you to investigate Tom Lorenzo/Tim Buckler's activity and see the fraud for yourself. I don't know if ToC has rules against recycling content or a copyright policy (I couldn't find any page on your site), but I know for sure that Medium does and I will also be reporting this to them.

Sources are linked below.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

A concerned but still avid reader.

[SOURCES – CHRONOLOGICALLY – ALL ARCHIVED]

1. "Seven Reasons ... Wonder Woman" via Medium, June 2, as Tim Buckler: https://web.archive.org/web/20170814043515/https://medium.com/@timothybuckler/7-reasons-why-wonder-woman-has-saved-the-dceu-b085e87c2fae

2. "Seven Reasons..." Wordpress entry (putting down other platforms to promote his Medium article), June 8, as Tim Buckler: https://web.archive.org/web/20170814043133/https://timbuckler.wordpress.com/2017/06/08/seven-reasons-why-wonder-woman-has-saved-the-dceu/

3. "7 Reasons ... Wonder Woman" via TasteofCinema, June 29, as Tom Lorenzo: https://web.archive.org/web/20170814035523/http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2017/7-reasons-why-wonder-woman-just-saved-the-dceu/

4. "All 11 Batman ... Ranked" via TasteofCinema, July 5, as Tom Lorenzo: https://web.archive.org/web/20170814042312/http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2017/all-11-batman-movies-ranked-from-worst-to-best/2/

5. "10 Most Faithful Comic Book Movies..." via TasteofCinema, August 13, as Tim Buckler (with byline): https://web.archive.org/web/20170814042901/http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2017/the-10-most-faithful-comic-book-movies-of-all-time/2/

6. Twitter bio of Tim Buckler linking to aforementioned Wordpress (as of August 14, 2017, 1:53 AM): https://web.archive.org/web/20170814055234/https://mobile.twitter.com/blockbusterman?lang=en