Media Floats Two Ridiculous Excuses for Their Failure in the Platner Drama

We've been talking about how the Democrats have shamed themselves with the way they tried to downplay the Graham Platner scandal and slip him by the voters despite all the many, many allegations against Platner, the Democrats' nominee for the Senate seat in Maine. How once that effort became unsustainable with a rape allegation and the polls turned bad, suddenly, the "democracy defenders" flipped the switch and threw him under the bus, forcing him out of the race. Platner finally suspended his campaign on Wednesday.
READ MORE: Democrats Blew Up Their 'Protectors of Democracy' Talking Point With Graham Platner
It's Over: Graham Platner Suspends Maine Senate Campaign
However, the Democrats had a little assistance in this drama — their compliant partners in the liberal media.
The liberal media is now spinning madly, too. Here's MS NOW's Molly Jong-Fast saying that she interviewed Platner for her "Fast Politics" podcast and that his team swore to her there was nothing else that would be coming out on him.
MSNOW’s Molly Jong-Fast says she and other media types were "sold a character arc" by Platner and his team about how he’d changed.
The 'journos were duped’ defense here is rich.
The threaded post below shows the stuff that was being said on her podcast.
Really rich. https://t.co/nbU0pbyNtj pic.twitter.com/YZD8YBoHPT
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) July 8, 2026
Jong-Fast claimed, "We were sold a character arc" of a guy who behaved badly in the past but didn't do that anymore. She indicates that maybe she should have pressed him more.
Ya think? Really? There are obvious questions the media left on the table. Maybe one doesn't just believe the guy with the Nazi tattoo and the abuse allegations? I mean, just a thought.
So we have two options here: Either the media is really stupid and doesn't do its job, or they're trying to sell us a bill of goods themselves. Either way, it doesn't look good for them. What "journalist" just accepts what a politician is trying to sell them? Not a good one, particularly in this context.
What does this sound like again? The same kind of thing the liberal media pitched us about their coverage of Joe Biden. They only began acknowledging Biden's cognitive issues were a reality after his disastrous debate, despite the signs going back years that we covered at length. Some in the media even sold us a story that the claims about Biden were just "deep fakes."
At least Jong-Fast is admitting some of them didn't do it right. Then there's this hot take: how the press "did its job."
New @PuckNews
The Graham Platner hostage crisis, how the press did its job when Dems got starstruck, and why Dems around the country are rolling their eyes at Platner's "arrogance and privilege" as he stubbornly hangs aroundhttps://t.co/qdtbCWzHwE
— Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) July 9, 2026
As Newsbusters' Curtis Houck explained, the media did not, in fact, do their job on the many issues that had been hanging out in the wind for a while.
ABC/CBS/NBC didn't mention ANY of his scandals on their AM/PM/Sunday shows until May 31! https://t.co/Y3CSY0n3sJ
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 9, 2026
Even when they started covering some of the issues, it was with the redemption arc spin. If you didn't buy that, you were just an evil person for not accepting all that Platner had been through during his military service.
But if the press had done its job, we wouldn't be here now, with this debacle. The New York Times had access to Jenny Racicot before the primary, but didn't have her on the record. Some believe that was an effort to "catch and kill" the stories against Platner. So Racicot's story about the rape allegation didn't come out until Politico covered it this week, about a month after the primary.
Then you wonder why no one has any faith in the media when they do things like this. They want us, now, variously to believe they were either morons or brilliant, when, in fact, for months, they downplayed how bad everything was. Those are the facts. And they can't try to sell us this same kind of story once again.
@iowahawk is gonna need a sequel tweet if this keeps up pic.twitter.com/oWedYIiKTS
— Tony Schroeder (@schroedertony) July 9, 2026