Kaitlyn Kiepert writes for National Review Online about criticism of a leading legacy media outlet over its coverage of Maine’s Democratic US Senate candidate.
Lyndsey Fifield is accusing the New York Times of deliberately downplaying her abuse allegations against Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, one day after another woman came forward with sexual abuse allegations against the scandal-plagued candidate.
“The line most shared from the piece was the claim that the Times ‘could not corroborate’ my story despite talking to two of my friends,” Fifield said in a statement on X.
She said that the Times called two of her friends who would not have known specifically about the abuse but could confirm that she and Platner had been in a relationship.
“They simply did not call the other three,” she said.
Her statement was a reaction to the Times’s exclusive June 4 article documenting accounts from several of Platner’s ex-girlfriends who recalled his “‘unsettling’ behavior.” In the article, Fifield explained how Platner emotionally and physically abused her, even providing specific examples.
“The Times’s article on June 4 brought to light a pattern of unsettling behavior by Graham Platner and included many of the details that women shared with us that were on the record and confirmable,” Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander told NATIONAL REVIEW. “The article also provided readers with context about what the women were and were not willing to share at the time. It was a revealing and sensitive piece of reporting that helped Maine voters and others learn more about Platner and his candidacy. Politico advanced this public understanding with even more information that they independently reported.”
But Fifield, who previously worked in Republican politics, said she understands why Democrat leaders didn’t seem to take her story seriously at first — and why they are now.
She said that she had gone so far as to give the Times her former roommates’ names and screenshots of text conversations with them discussing Platner “stalking our row house” which was only five houses away from his home.
