Believe Some Women? How New York Times Treated a Conservative Woman
7th June 2026
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.
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.