Want to see how a media org creates a modified limited hangout for its political allies? Lyndsey Fifield lays it out in two lengthy X/Twitter essays that show how the New York Times set her up rather than tell the truth about Graham Platner.
As I pointed out last night, the NYT structured its “exposé” curiously in the first place. It took ten paragraphs to get to the allegations by three women, Lyndsey among them, of Platner’s abusive and occasionally violent behavior with them. Before getting to the actual point, the report first prefaced the story by referencing other former girlfriends who offered character attestations, clearly arranged by the Platner campaign ahead of publication. Seven paragraphs later, we finally get to the meat of the allegations, primarily from Lyndsey, who gets described in detail as a political activist in DC for conservative groups.
This begins in April, Lyndsey writes, when the NYT’s reporters reached out to convince her to tell her story. They promised that other women were coming forward and that they wanted to tell the truth about Platner. Instead, as Lyndsey describes, they ended up crafting a story that allows Platner and his campaign to create a modified limited hangout built around a curated version of the actual truth:
But then in early April the New York Times came to me. I asked how they got my number. I said I was not interested in sharing my story. They said but wait—there are other women. Women terrified to tell their stories, too, and you need to band together. WE will help you. We will protect you. Men can’t keep getting away with this.
Hours before their first call to me I saw Eric Swalwell’s name plate get removed from his office door in Cannon. It felt like fate.
I welcomed the two journalists into my home days later, nervous and overwhelmed. Justin Fairfax had just murdered his wife and himself the previous day and even conservative pundits were conjecturing that “if only those women hadn’t accused him of abuse, this never would have happened…”
But I told them my story. I let them take pictures of my diary pages. I sent them screenshots of messages and gave them phone numbers and contacts. It was excruciating. I was surprised by what details I remembered, and as I poured through old messages I was horrified by how much I had forgotten.
I explained very clearly that, like many women abused by their partners, I had not told anyone about his violence at the time—I had covered for and defended it. I accepted his earnest apologies. They said that’s fine because the diary entries and my on the record story was enough.
They connected me to two of the other victims so we wouldn’t feel so alone. I insisted to each of them that I trusted the NYT journalists and that we were doing the right thing despite their (sadly very accurate) sense that something was wrong.
Lyndsey’s instincts proved correct when the story went up. As she describes in the second part of the essay, the reporters kept coming back, insisting on more evidence and corroboration, and wanted her to go out more on the record. The paper dragged its heels on publication, making it sound like Lyndsey was the problem. And when Lyndsey gave them everything they requested, she found that the paper had cut it out of the story:
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.
That’s when Lyndsey realized she’d been used:
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.
Exactly. The story gives priority to non-victims provided by the Platner campaign as a way of offering a soft contradiction to the claims of Platner’s victims as its framing mechanism. The NYT then leans into Lyndsey’s political background as context for her claims, and then strips the corroborating evidence and testimony she provided, a strategy that allows Platner to dismiss Lyndsey’s claims as politically motivated.
This smells like a “catch and kill” effort by the New York Times. They wanted to get any potential allegations under their control and then just sit on them long enough to allow Platner to strategize around it. When other outlets became interested in the story, the catch-and-kill strategy became less viable. Instead, they shifted into a strategy to minimize the claims and spin them as much as possible into a political hit job, which Hugh Hewitt dubbed a “trap and tame” strategy, which is itself a kind of modified limited hangout:
The category of story that most people describe as “catch and kill,” in the hands of the @nytimes becomes “trap and tame.” Don’t think it’s going to work with Graham Platner but Tuesday’s vote will tell. Governor Mills is on the Democratic ballot still and has stressed in recent… https://t.co/q8zs8d9ozY
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) June 5, 2026
Governor Mills is on the Democratic ballot still and has stressed in recent days she did not drop out of the race.
The problem for Democrats is that Maine voters have cast ballots for three-plus weeks already. The state does not have early voting per se, but instead uses “in-person absentee” voting. That started on May 11, and it ended … yesterday, which is conveniently when the NYT chose to publish its “trap and tame” story on Platner. As of Wednesday, almost 35,000 ballots have already been submitted, and 72% of those are for the Democrat primary. That’s a lot of votes that Platner likely will dominate as the only active candidate in the race during that period, and that’s why Democrats are circling the wagons around a Nazi-tatted violent creep rather than switch allegiance to the sitting governor who’s also on the ballot.
That’s exactly why the NYT betrayed victims of a violent misogynist with a Nazi fetish, too. They would rather push Platner across the finish line than tell the truth about Platner’s character, actions, and lies.
