New York Times under scrutiny over Graham Platner coverage

The New York Times is facing scrutiny over the growing scandal plaguing Democratic Maine Senate hopeful Graham Platner; Some question what his reporters know, and one past accuser insists the paper did no good to verify his story.

Politico published a bomb report On Monday, one of Platner’s ex-girlfriends alleged that he sexually assaulted her during their relationship. Jenny Racicot claimed that in 2021, a drunken Platner entered her home uninvited and had sex with her despite her repeatedly telling him to stop. Platner flatly denied Racicot’s allegations, which he said constituted rape.

Racicot was one of the women interviewed. Times report last month About Platner’s “disturbing” behavior. According to the Times, Racicot described “positive memories” of her time with Platner but said he “did not respect women” based on her resulting comments. It was also seen that the report also mentioned Racicot’s sexual assault allegation.

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“Ms Racicot also said he showed up at her house drunk after she asked him not to come to her in 2021. She declined to provide further details but said she cut off contact shortly after this incident and found his behavior ‘reckless’ and ‘disturbing’.” Times wrote.

That paragraph was buried about 70 paragraphs into the expose, with much of the story focusing on the conservative politics of another Platner ex-girlfriend, Lyndsey Fifield, who had her own allegations of domestic violence.

However, Racicot told Politico that he described the assault allegation to The New York Times off the record but declined to go into detail. She told the Times that she told him she didn’t want to go public because she didn’t want to be known as a rape victim.

“My part of the story was just read from cover to cover,” Racicot told Politico about the Times report. “And the story was Lyndsey and the accusations that she was politically motivated.”

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According to longstanding journalistic practice, anything a source says off the record and the reporter agrees to the request should not be reported. But conservatives on social media are still accusing the Gray Lady of trying to come to Platner’s defense.

Writer Bethany Mandel responded, “The Times had this. They chose to bury it 30 paragraphs deep under a novel about Lyndsey’s professional past.”

“Complete journalistic error,” Mandel continued. “Of course, another outlet would finish the job the Times chose to capture and kill.”

Fifield, who operates in conservative circles, has been accused by some members of the left-wing media of being an unreliable accuser because of his political views.

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Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Director of Public Affairs Joe Simonson wrote“It’s not just that the MSM is shamefully partisan – often evading basic editorial standards for partisan interests – it’s that their colleagues behave like mobsters. They keep their mouths shut when these things happen. They’d never attack one of their own.”

Times accused embedding LEDdisdainfully allegations “absolutely disgusting” behaviourand even journalist John Daniel Davison added“The NYT tried to protect Platner. That’s actually the least surprising part of this whole thing.”

Daily Wire editor-in-chief Brent Scher called it a “huge embarrassment” for the Times.

“Racicot has already talked to them and is so disappointed that he went to @politico and @CNN because the NYT put Lyndsey and her policies on the story instead of Platner and let the communications team shape everything,” Scher wrote.

GRAHAM PLATNER’S ACCUSER SLAMS NYT FOR SOFTENING THE ALLEGATIONS, SAID THE NEWS WAS A ‘GIFT’ TO THE DEMOCRAT

Democratic Maine Senate hopeful Graham Platner. (Matthew Symons for Fox News Digital)

Fifield has previously claimed that the Times put her in touch with other women Platner allegedly harassed, who the Times said would be featured in the story, in an attempt to get her to go on the record. But these women were nowhere to be found when the story was published, Fifield wrote.

“After the story came out, I started asking them…wait, where are the other women’s stories? Where are the sexual assault accusations? Why am I the focus? Why are there 11 paragraphs devoted to detailing my employment history (far more than anything ever published about Graham’s)?” wrote to X last month.

Fifield continued to run his columns in the New York Times on Tuesday morning after the Politico report forced many Democrats to abandon the embattled Senate candidate, who has not dropped out of the race to unseat Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

“In fact, I understand why Democratic leaders didn’t take our stories seriously when the Times reported it in June, but now they do. This was by design. The most shared sentence in this piece was the claim that the Times ‘couldn’t verify’ my story, even though I spoke to two of my friends. I gave them contact information for five of my friends. They called the two of whom I made clear, stated they had no knowledge of the abuse, but could confirm the timeline, events, etc. of our relationship. They just didn’t call the other three.” Fifield wrote, stating that he had provided information to several other people who could verify his story.

“As the weeks went by I stopped giving them evidence because they seemed to be overwhelmed by the amount I had already given them and I thought that meant they had more than enough to substantiate every claim I made,” he continued. “But tell me again how they couldn’t ‘verify’ it.”

One of Fifield’s friends came forward and stated that newspaper reporters never contacted him.

Emily Zanotti wrote to X: “I was one of those friends. The Times never contacted me.” “Now other reporters have also contacted me. It is not difficult to reach me [sic] Meanwhile.”

The New York Times did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

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“We published accounts provided by several women who were romantically involved with Graham Platner. Our story accurately presents each of these accounts as told to our reporters and by our standards. We stand by our reporting of the accounts of Ms. Fifield and other women who provide a revealing look at the behavior of a key candidate for the U.S. Senate,” a Times spokesperson previously told Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital’s Robert McGreevy contributed to this report.