Maine’s largest paper has outdone even itself in the self-loathing sphere, begging readers for encrypted ICE tips.
But judging from the reaction on the Portland Press Herald’s Facebook account, followers think its editors are in sophomoric meltdown.
In a post Tuesday, the editor told readers she was “collecting information about ICE activity.”
“Our journalists are working to verify ICE sightings and report events as they happen,” editor Carolyn Fox announced with a straight face.
“Report events as they happen.”
That would be a new genre for the state’s liberal legacy rag.
“Have a tip?” Fox asked. “Fill out the form.”
Better yet, the paper said tipsters should contact it through the encrypted Signal app, as in ” just between us girls.”
So, apparently the paper can operate in secrecy while it outs federal immigration-enforcement activity.
Marc Maheu of Fairfield found the paper’s narco approach laughable, telling Fox (sans encryption), “I see ice everywhere: my pool, the driveway… “
“As for agents not yet,” Maheu added, “but they are welcome.”
Facebooker Dylan Tibbetts, meanwhile, gave Fox a dressing down:
“Enticing your audience to confront, report and likely harass a federal agency is foolish,” Tibbetts pointed out.
“If ICE is in your neighborhood then your kids will be safer,” he added. “If you’re here illegally that’s just too bad, we have checks and balances and we have to take care of our citizens.”
He said Democrat Gov. Janet Mills, who pays the Press Herald for fawning coverage, “has turned this state into an asylum dumping ground in which most of those who get dumped here are still living on our tax dollars years later. Time to clean this state up.”
Not if Carolyn Fox has anything to say about it. (Send her an encrypted message, since the paper’s website is forbidding public comments.)
