Downplaying Allegations: A Journalist’s Perspective
On Wednesday, a reporter from the New York Times surprisingly minimized accusations against Graham Platner, a Senate candidate from Maine, suggesting they didn’t fit the mold of a “classic abuse allegation.”
Jodi Kantor, a Pulitzer Prize winner known for her reporting on Harvey Weinstein’s abuses, implied that voters in Maine might be ready to overlook the troubling claims surrounding Platner’s campaign, framing them as “not typical MeToo accusations” and even comparing them to scandals involving former President Trump.
“These instances don’t include sexual advances from a supervisor towards a younger woman,” Kantor stated during her interview with CNN. “Most of these were consensual relationships,” she added, reflecting on the allegations detailed against Platner.
Kantor indicated the accusations varied in nature: “There are some sensational texts about sex. Others from former girlfriends feel different. The way these were reported doesn’t resemble classic abuse claims at all,” she noted.
She went on: “Their experiences, rather, reveal aspects of his personality that were unsettling, like having Nazi tattoos.”
In the previous week, the Times had reported on Platner’s alleged misogyny, highlighting accounts from three former girlfriends.
One of them, Lindsay Fifield, who dated him from 2013 to 2015, narrated that Platner, a Marine veteran and former oyster farmer, would often shake her by the shoulders with enough force to leave marks. On one occasion, during a disagreement, he allegedly dragged her out of a taxi against her will.
Fifield recounted another distressing incident where he twisted her arm behind her back and confined her in a bedroom until she “calmed down.”
Kantor did acknowledge there was at least one allegation of crossing physical boundaries but suggested it placed Platner’s situation in a different context than that of Trump’s, for example. “These charges are quite different,” she emphasized.
Kantor drew parallels to the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, which Trump dismissed as “locker room talk.” She pointed out the ongoing confusion in the post-MeToo era, where various gender-related accusations often get conflated, insisting that they should be viewed independently.
Fifield has criticized Times reporters for allegedly distorting Platner’s account to serve the Democratic Senate campaign, claiming they downplayed other assault allegations and omitted supportive testimonies from friends.
Despite the backlash from these accusations, Platner managed to clinch the Democratic Senate nomination with approximately 72% of the vote on Tuesday night.
Fifield has yet to respond to requests for comment from the press.
