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Why the national press got Maine so wrong
Excellent article that echoes exactly how I felt about Graham Platner's campaign in Maine, with a nice mention of my local newspaper:
Alex Seitz-Wald spent a decade as a DC-based national political reporter for NBC before moving to Maine in 2022. He is now the deputy editor of the Midcoast Villager, which launched in 2024. Seitz-Wald, who has been covering the Senate race, said the disconnect between national outlets’ growing certainty that Platner’s campaign was finished and the dozens of Platner yard signs he saw every day on his way to work sometimes made him feel “like I was taking crazy pills.”
To help illustrate his case, Seitz-Wald pointed to the ill-fated campaign of Janet Mills, the governor of Maine, who entered the Senate race in October. Despite the backing of Chuck Schumer and other national Democratic Party leaders, her campaign generated only modest local enthusiasm. “I saw, throughout the course of the primary, three Janet Mills signs,” Seitz-Wald told me. “It’s the coldest take in the world, but living in a place helps you understand it better than anything else.”
The absence of robust local newsgathering operations in Maine may also have played a role in the national media’s failure to understand the dynamics of the Platner-Mills race. Gone are the days when states had deep rosters of seasoned local political reporters whom national reporters could consult. “They would be compensated enough and have enough security that they could build that kind of institutional knowledge and be really trusted quality voices,” Seitz-Wald told me. That is no longer so much the case in Maine. The Villager has four full-time reporters and covers forty-three towns, some of which are accessible only by ferry. Most don’t stream their select-board meetings online, requiring reporters to attend in person or to find out what happened some other way. When resources are this tight, it’s an easy choice to focus on local events at the expense of major national races, Seitz-Wald said. But it comes at a cost. “It means that you don’t have this bubbling-up of coverage of Senate races and presidential races and stuff for the national media to draw on.”
The lack of local newsroom resources may also explain why the major scandals that have rocked Platner’s campaign—including, most recently, his history of sexting with various women while married to Amy Gertner, and allegations from several former girlfriends that he spoke and acted in ways that were threatening, disrespectful, and demeaning to women—were all broken by national outlets. “I have four full-time reporters, total,” Seitz-Wald said. “They’re covering small businesses and high school graduations and local politics and car crashes. We do not have the resources to just cover our local day-to-day, let alone take big swings on something like the Senate race.” Still, the Villager’s coverage of the Platner race has been admirable compared with that of other local outlets and many big national players, in part because it has focused squarely on the views of Maine voters.
To help illustrate his case, Seitz-Wald pointed to the ill-fated campaign of Janet Mills, the governor of Maine, who entered the Senate race in October. Despite the backing of Chuck Schumer and other national Democratic Party leaders, her campaign generated only modest local enthusiasm. “I saw, throughout the course of the primary, three Janet Mills signs,” Seitz-Wald told me. “It’s the coldest take in the world, but living in a place helps you understand it better than anything else.”
The absence of robust local newsgathering operations in Maine may also have played a role in the national media’s failure to understand the dynamics of the Platner-Mills race. Gone are the days when states had deep rosters of seasoned local political reporters whom national reporters could consult. “They would be compensated enough and have enough security that they could build that kind of institutional knowledge and be really trusted quality voices,” Seitz-Wald told me. That is no longer so much the case in Maine. The Villager has four full-time reporters and covers forty-three towns, some of which are accessible only by ferry. Most don’t stream their select-board meetings online, requiring reporters to attend in person or to find out what happened some other way. When resources are this tight, it’s an easy choice to focus on local events at the expense of major national races, Seitz-Wald said. But it comes at a cost. “It means that you don’t have this bubbling-up of coverage of Senate races and presidential races and stuff for the national media to draw on.”
The lack of local newsroom resources may also explain why the major scandals that have rocked Platner’s campaign—including, most recently, his history of sexting with various women while married to Amy Gertner, and allegations from several former girlfriends that he spoke and acted in ways that were threatening, disrespectful, and demeaning to women—were all broken by national outlets. “I have four full-time reporters, total,” Seitz-Wald said. “They’re covering small businesses and high school graduations and local politics and car crashes. We do not have the resources to just cover our local day-to-day, let alone take big swings on something like the Senate race.” Still, the Villager’s coverage of the Platner race has been admirable compared with that of other local outlets and many big national players, in part because it has focused squarely on the views of Maine voters.
https://www.cjr.org/feature/out-of-state-graham-platner-senate-campaign-national-press-maine-oysterman-scandal-nazi-tattoo-misogyny-reddit-seitz-wald-democrat-janet-mills.php
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