Maine’s top news outlets have been ignoring bombshell revelations from the so-called “Twitter Files.”
For anyone familiar with Maine’s newspaper and TV reporters, that selective coverage won’t come as a surprise. The “Twitter Files” show how government operatives and corporate media companies conspired to scam the American people into believing an elaborate, made-up conspiracy about President Donald Trump for the purpose of undermining his presidency and preventing his re-election.
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But the conspiracy against Trump isn’t the only Twitter Files story of which Maine media outlets are depriving their readers. The files have also shown major social media censorship — coordinated with American law enforcement agencies and health officials. Newspapers used to care about stuff like that. Not anymore. The majority of Maine media companies and their employees have adopted the opinion that Trump is bad, that conservatives are bad, and therefore telling their readers or listeners about what the Twitter Files hold would be … inconvenient.
The Portland Press Herald has mentioned the “Twitter Files” precisely twice. The first was an Associated Press story the paper re-printed. That story didn’t concern any of the monumental news stories that have emerged from the documents, but it instead pouted about a handful of writers who were temporarily booted from the platform for violating the rules. The only other mention came courtesy of Tony in Saco, whose letter to the editor aptly pointed up the Herald’s ridiculously one-sided political coverage.
[RELATED: Twitter Files Show Feds, Big Tech Rigged COVID-19 Debate…]
“Well, I waited for the Portland Press Herald to say something about “The Twitter Files” … but nothing … not one thing,” wrote Tony. “I should have known better. If it was something about Donald Trump or Jan. 6, the newspaper would have had two pages of stuff.”
[RELATED: Twitter Files: Liberal Employees Knew Trump Didn’t Violate Policies, Banned Him Anyway…]
Good point, Tony. I’d also note that the links the Herald editor injects into the editorial are curious. The first is the already mentioned AP article. The editor seems to be saying, “We’ll show this idiot Tony! There! Look at that! We covered it real good!” The truth, of course, is that the Herald’s coverage of the disclosures has been so paltry that coming up with a second link forced to editor to go to the BBC, which says quite a bit in and of itself. Tony from Saco had them dead to rights.
The Bangor Daily News is even worse. A Google search for “site:bangordailynews.com “Twitter Files”” turns up zero stories about the disclosures. Perhaps they don’t have anyone on staff capable of reading Matt Taibbi‘s Twitter threads, but they do have some content sharing arrangements that would allow them to educate subscribers on a matter of vast historical importance.
Maine Public Broadcasting has done somewhat better. They re-published three NPR stories in December, but even those stories are predictably one-sided, and ever since their interest seems to have waned. Indeed, there’s no way for me to listen to every hour of MPBN radio and keep my sanity, but I’d bet the average subscriber couldn’t tell you one thing about the content of the Twitter Files.
Now, compare the coverage of the Twitter Files — which again include damning, irrefutable evidence of high-level government and corporate conspiracies to manipulate public opinion and interfere in elections — with the coverage of New York Rep. George Santos.
Santos somehow made it across the finish line of his election despite nearly everything about his public profile being a lie. Where were the vaunted journalists while that was happening?
The openly gay Republican has reportedly lied about his education credentials, his work experience, his volunteerism, his heritage, and more. The New York Times reported, long after the election and likey on the basis of a tip from a Republican source, that Santos never really worked Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as he had claimed, never attended Baruch College, like he’d claimed, and isn’t Jewish, like he said he was. He might not even be gay!
It’s an intriguing story, for sure: a politician lied to get elected. O-M-G! Stop. The. Presses.
Given the current Commander-in-Chief’s relationship with embellishment, you might say Santos pulled a Biden. Or you might wonder whether the severity of his fabrications rise to the level of, say, Elizabeth Warren falsely claiming to be Native American so she could land a $350,000 per year minorities-only job at Harvard.
Does the story really impact the lives of Mainers? No, not one bit. But the Maine media is absolutely obsessed with Santos. They cannot get enough of this back-bench first-term Republican. They’ve almost reported more on Santos than they have on Maine’s own congressional representatives!
MainePublic.org has published at least 15 stories about George Santos, including one Monday and one on Tuesday. The Bangor Daily News has published multiple editorials on the guy. The Press Herald has published more than ten posts about him, including multiple opinion pieces. WMTW’s Phil Hirschkorn has tweeted about Santos a dozen times since December and retweeted more than a dozen stories about him. Tweets about the Twitter files? Zero. In the same time period, Hirschkorn hasn’t tweeted about Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden.
What could possibly explain the gap in coverage of historically significant revelations of major corporate and governmental conspiracies to interfere in elections and warp public opinion through censorship, on the one hand, and some New Yorker who lied to get elected?
It might be so simple as the R behind Santos’ name.