The New York Times tried to patch over its reporting on the Graham Platner saga and ended up making the controversy worse, with critics saying key allegations were downplayed and sources sidelined.

The Times published a piece that many see as a curiously soft take on accusations that ended Graham Platner’s campaign, redirecting focus onto one woman’s background rather than the more serious claims that later surfaced. That shift opened the paper to charges of mishandling off-the-record information and of failing to corroborate allegations that others had already documented. Conservatives reacted fast and loud, arguing this was more than an editorial judgment; they called it a pattern of bias and carelessness.

The paper’s deputy politics editor, Felice Belman, addressed the criticism in an internal interview with an editor who handles standards and trust. Belman defended the newsroom’s approach to sourcing and off-the-record material, saying the goal was fairness rather than scoring political points. The exchange reveals how the newsroom balanced named accusations, anonymous accounts, and information given off the record.

So, we surfaced credible, well-sourced allegations about Mr. Platner’s treatment of women, and reported and published as many on-the-record details as we could confirm at the time. But some people criticized the story or wanted it written differently. Many Republicans wanted it to be tougher on Mr. Platner. Some progressives wanted it to discount one of the accusers because she is a conservative. Some critics thought we downplayed his treatment of the three women. How do you see all this reaction?

FELICE: Yes, we have been accused of publishing damaging information about Mr. Platner with the purpose of hurting his campaign. And we have been accused of withholding information with the purpose of helping him. Neither is true. Our job is not to take sides but to fairly report the facts.

[…]

This week, one of the women in our story, Jenny Racicot, was quoted by Politico and CNN saying that Mr. Platner forced her to have sex with him in 2021. That allegation was not in our article. She told Politico that she had told The Times more details of that night off the record. We don’t talk publicly about information we get off the record. But can you talk about our approach to handling off-the-record information?

FELICE: Especially with allegations of sexual violence, people sometimes feel comfortable speaking to reporters off the record initially and then considering what they are willing to put on the record and make public. Their thinking on this often evolves over time.

As Jenny Racicot has said elsewhere, we published what she was willing to tell us on the record about that incident. Anything she told us off the record was not included in our story, and we did not share any off-the-record information with the Platner campaign.

[…]

The story described the political leanings of the three women. Ms. Fifield is a conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns; the other two are Democrats. Why get into their politics?

FELICE: We wanted to be forthright with readers about the political views of people making accusations against a political candidate. For instance, we noted that Ms. Racicot agreed with many of Mr. Platner’s policies. We included Ms. Fifield’s background in conservative politics, including whom she had worked for and when, and that she wasn’t connected to the campaign of Mr. Platner’s opponent, Senator Susan Collins.

Our reporting showed that their accusations were serious and credible, which is why we ran the article.

The problem for the Times is that the narrative didn’t stop once others went public. Jenny Racicot told outlets she had described a forcible encounter to Times reporters off the record, and a different outlet published that allegation. Meanwhile Lyndsey Fifield says she supplied the Times with corroborating contacts and evidence that the paper reportedly never fully checked. Critics say that sequence makes the earlier piece look incomplete at best and protective at worst.

https://x.com/lyndseyfifield/status/2076455921392267281

Readers noticed that the published story spent more time on a criticizable detail—one accuser’s employment history—than on the corroborating facts Fifield says she provided. If a newsroom flags political leanings to be transparent, that’s one thing; if it sidelines multiple sources who could verify serious misconduct, that’s another. Conservatives argue the latter is what happened here.

Politico published Racicot’s allegation and CNN picked up the claim, while the Times stuck with its original presentation and explanation about off-the-record material. That contrast fed a narrative that a major paper had failed to follow up aggressively on corroboration that was offered to them. For many readers the omission was glaring and the aftermath felt like damage control rather than accountability.

Voices on the right labeled the episode as not only journalistic failure but as a deliberate whitewash to protect a candidate with ugly associations, and some used very blunt language to describe the newsroom. The intensity of the backlash shows how little patience conservative audiences have for perceived sloppiness on stories that cut against establishment figures.

That anger is amplified by Fifield’s public account of how she says the Times handled her cooperation. She describes a long process in which she kept her word to the reporters, delivered the promised materials and witnesses, and later found the published piece focused where she did not expect. Her thread reads like someone who feels betrayed by a news outlet she trusted.

Once again, the NYT whitewashed their article to shield a Nazi, and the way Fifield was treated was so terrible that it led Racicot, who backed Platner’s agenda, to come forward.

Either the NYT is stupid, incompetent, or both. All the work was done for you guys; you just had to dial the numbers and review the information provided. Why didn’t you do that?

We all know the answer, you fake news clowns.

Fifield has laid out her experience repeatedly and the thread below pulls those moments together in one place:

I bucked all advice from my friends (and resisted my conservative bias) and decided to fully trust the Times journalists.

As they left my home they asked that I not talk to any other outlets and I insisted then and repeatedly over the following weeks that I would keep my word and only share this story with them.

But then the weeks dragged on. They kept coming back to us saying the editors needed more. I needed to go on the record (okay). We need more screenshots (okay). I met every bench mark they set, eager to provide more sources or evidence as needed.

After the story went up I began to ask them … wait, where are the stories from the other women? Where are their accusations of sexual assault? Why am I the focus? Why are there 11 paragraphs dedicated to detailing my work history (more than has been published about Graham’s by far)? 

Why does it say “nobody could corroborate” when I offered them sources that COULD corroborate?

Why did they include an out of context quote from a friend joking “do not call Graham” after I called off my wedding? (Because she knew I would never).

Where were the screenshots they’d said they would use? Or the mention that I’d supported local democrats and that most of my family (and husband) are liberal?

The editors said it was too much, they explained.

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.

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. Violating the trust of his victims. Shattering the trust I placed in them with the most vulnerable story of my life.

And at the end of my call with them I reluctantly accepted their insistence that this was still a powerful story and that I had done a brave thing. And I thanked them for all the hard work they had put into it.

Still fawning after all these years.

I actually understand why Democrat leaders didn’t take our stories seriously when the Times reported them in June but are taking them seriously now.

It was by design.

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.

I gave them the contact information for five friends.

They called the two who I clarified would not know about the abuse but would be able to affirm our relationship timeline, events, etc.

They simply did not call the other three.

I also gave them the names of all my former roommates who remembered him stalking our row house (which was about 5 houses down from his) and waiting for me to return. I gave them screenshots of messages between these roommates and I discussing it.

I gave them the names of other men I dated who might have remembered him following us around the hill and showing up on my stoop after we walked home from dates to confront us. I gave them emails to my landlord urgently ending my lease and moving to an apartment across town and diary entries talking about it – all time marked.

I told them that during pre-marital counseling I had spoken to my ex-fiance about the abuse because I had to explain to him why I reacted with such terror any time he lost his temper. They said oh NO we don’t need to bother HIM (or my priest). Besides, I had written about it in my diary in detail, they reassured. 

As the weeks dragged on I stopped trying to give them evidence because the amount I had already given them seemed to overwhelm them and I thought it meant they clearly had more than enough to verify my every claim.

My friends might not have known the details of the abuse, but they affirmed that yes, I had told them that he was abusive—long before he ran for Senate.

Besides, they assured, my part in their reporting would be small. I thought my details would only serve to affirm Jenny and the other anonymous woman.

Jenny and I – having never met or spoken – both shared with these reporters terrifyingly similar details of intimate partner violence, coercive control, and cycles of abuse/love bombing. The third unnamed woman in the story did as well.

But tell me again how they “could not corroborate.”