How The New York Times Buried a Conservative Woman’s Allegation

If a major Senate candidate abused a past girlfriend, isn’t that newsworthy?

If a major Senate candidate knowingly sported a Nazi tattoo, isn’t that newsworthy?

If a major Senate candidate, already under fire for his past remarks about rape, talked about raping intruders, isn’t that newsworthy?

You’d think so.

Yet in an extensive new article about Maine Democrat Graham Platner, The New York Times reporters penned over 1,000 words before revealing the detailed allegation of physical abuse. (There is a very brief mention of Platner being “physically threatening” in paragraph six.)

There are over 500 words before reporting that an ex-girlfriend says Platner knew his tattoo was a Nazi symbol.

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And there are about 1,300 words before the revelation that Platner “said … a lot: If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them” and “He was like, I would rape them to show them that I’m dominant,” according to that same ex.

As anyone with experience in journalism knows, most readers generally won’t read a full article—or even most of an article, depending on how long it is. Most people are busy. That’s why journalists are taught to put the most important facts in the first few paragraphs of an article.

So it’s telling that The New York Times, a major outlet with employees most definitely familiar with journalism norms, decided that the opening paragraphs of its article should include sentences like “several women … [described] Mr. Platner as a fun and caring partner, and saying they felt safe with him,” but not the most explosive allegations of his former girlfriend, Lyndsey Fifield.

>>> Watch Tony Kinnett dissect The New York Times’ coverage of the allegations against Graham Platner:

Fifield, I should disclose, is someone I worked with for years. As part of her work, Fifield expertly ran much of the Daily Signal’s social media.

She’s someone who deserved to be treated better by The New York Times, not to have her story buried in an article headlined, “Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall ‘Unsettling’ Behavior.”

“Unsettling” is a good word to describe actions such as when a boyfriend makes plans and then cancels them last minute or seems a touch flirtatious with another woman.

It’s not the right word to describe actions of physical force.

In her interview with the Times, Fifield made some extremely concerning allegations. She “said [Platner] regularly grabbed her by the shoulders — sometimes hard enough to leave marks — and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car.”

That wasn’t all.

“During one argument, she recalled, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was ‘calm.’ Eventually, Ms. Fifield said, she fell asleep and left the next morning,” Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer write in paragraph 23.

Fifield, by the way, operated the way that journalists wish every interviewee making serious allegations did. She spoke on the record, allowing the Times to use her name.

Because of her social media expertise, Fifield, I’m sure, knew exactly what it would mean for her personally to come forward publicly with allegations about a Senate candidate. She would understand the kind of vitriol she could expect on social media for speaking up. She would be aware of how, perhaps for the rest of her life, these allegations would affect how she was viewed on social media, how any comment she makes in the future may well trigger responses about this.

Yet, knowing the heavy personal price she would pay, she still spoke up—on the record. As any journalist knows, it’s very hard—understandably—to convince most people to speak on the record about this kind of thing.

They don’t want the blowback. They don’t want to be the public figure. They don’t want to be revictimized, criticized, and shamed by strangers.

But journalists often demand that sources go on the record, and for good reason: If the persona making the allegation is transparent, it gives the public more information to make an honest assessment of an allegation’s veracity.

Fifield didn’t just ask The New York Times to interview her and just accept what she said. She also provided them with supporting documentation.

“The Times reviewed texts between Ms. Fifield and Mr. Platner, along with Google Chat exchanges, texts, and Facebook messages between Ms. Fifield and her friends during and after the relationship,” report Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer, who also note Lyndsey showed them old diary entries.

These are the actions of a serious accuser.

Glueck and Lerer also extensively detail Fifield’s past work for right-leaning groups and the Nikki Haley campaign. That’s relevant context, but here it’s revealing what isn’t mentioned. Fifield posted on X after the article was released that she had also told the Times, “I’d supported local democrats and that most of my family (and husband) are liberal.”

She also criticized the Times for leaving out this relevant information: “The Times also failed to include any mention that I DID confide in multiple friends through the years that Graham had been abusive — long before he was running for office. Those friends confirm they told the Times so.”

Asked to respond to Fifield’s criticism of the piece, Times spokesperson Nicole Taylor wrote in an email that the outlet “stands by our reporting.”

“We published accounts provided by several women who were in romantic relationships with Graham Platner,” Taylor wrote. “Our story accurately presents each of these accounts as told to our reporters and according to our standards. We stand by our reporting of the accounts from Ms. Fifield and the other women, who provided a revealing look at the behavior of a major candidate for the U.S. Senate.”

Platner, for his part, denied the allegations in a MSNOW interview Thursday night. “There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about are simply not true,” he said. “Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who’s politically motivated.”

Fifield wrote on X Friday morning, “It dawned on me that this really was a set-up all along.”

“The journalists I trusted who convinced me to share a story I never wanted to tell methodically delayed and twisted this into a gift to the Platner campaign,” she added. “Violating the trust of his victims. Shattering the trust I placed in them with the most vulnerable story of my life.”

There was a right way to report this story—and then there was the way The New York Times did it. Conservative women who have info to share about political candidates or officials shouldn’t reward the Times with future scoops.