Graham Platner, a 41-year-old Marine veteran and Maine oyster farmer, burst onto the political scene last August to run for Senate, scored an endorsement from Bernie Sanders, was profiled in the New Yorker, and by October, became embroiled in a series of seemingly campaign-ending controversies.
There was the tattoo Platner got in 2007 that had Nazi connotations — which he claimed he was not aware of at the time and later covered over — and derogatory posts years back on Reddit, ranging from speaking dismissively about sexual assault to using homophobic slurs. Though Platner apologized, the ugly comments spilled out publicly as Janet Mills, a popular governor and the establishment’s pick, entered a crucial Senate primary in an election that could tip the balance of power in Congress.
“Ten, fifteen, even five years ago, I don’t have any doubt that he would’ve just been totally nuked by that out of the gate,” said Alex Seitz-Wald, deputy editor of Maine’s Midcoast Villager, who added that Platner would have become a “cautionary tale about why you don’t get excited about no-name viral candidates who are oyster farmers and have no political experience.”
With Mills dropping out of the race, I rang Seitz-Wald, who spent a decade covering national politics at NBC News before joining a local Maine paper. We discussed the Platner phenomenon, the pivotal role of local news, and how modern, media savvy candidates under attack can “post through it.”
In October, Seitz-Wald reported how Platner voters didn’t seem to be wavering even as he was awash in negative headlines: “Every day on my drive to work, I check if the Graham Platner yard signs are still there from the day before. They’re all still up. And every day for the past week, I’ve tried to find a voter who supported Platner but have since abandoned him — haven’t found any yet.”
Seitz-Wald said he expected “a kind of reckoning or recalculation” about Platner, and recalled talking to people about the race everywhere – at a PTA carnival, the general store, the post office — and checked in with others he’d met at rallies. “For me personally, that was a very eye-opening moment,” he said. “I had spent 15 years covering national politics from DC and being the one who parachutes into these races all over the country and tries my best to understand what’s going on.”
While Seitz-Wald praised the work of his colleagues in New York and Washington, he said “we need people embedded in communities across the country to really understand what’s going on in them.”
In discussing Platner’s campaign I was reminded of a piece I wrote last year on “Zohran Mamdani’s flood-the-zone media strategy.” Mamdani and Platner share a 26-year-old media consultant, Morris Katz, and similarly gained the endorsement of Sanders and backing from the progressive left. They both weathered controversies over past comments and associations by addressing them directly in media appearances, while generating their own viral content, and campaigning relentlessly with a focus on the billionaire class.
As I wrote then, “Mamdani has stayed consistent in his economic message this past year while vastly expanding his media reach, becoming not only the main character in a local mayoral race, but an emerging player on the national stage.” Swap a few words and you’ve got Platner’s candidacy.
“If this were the peak-woke era, I think he totally would’ve been canceled by the left. And if this was the pre-Donald Trump era, I think he would’ve been canceled by everyone because it’s just not at all allowable,” Seitz-Wald said. “Instead, I think there’s just now this hunger for authenticity and realness and also just the [desensitization] to candidates doing weird things, mainly because of Donald Trump, but also just we have millennials and Gen Z people who — everyone had embarrassing things in their past, but now it’s all documented and online.”
Seitz-Wald said that Mills, 78, ran a “very pre-internet” campaign, focused more on small, private functions, engaging with legacy media and maintaining establishment support. Meanwhile, he said, Platner’s campaign was “totally optimized for the internet,” saying “‘yes’ to every interview request, going on every podcast.” This strategy, he said, helped “inoculate him” against the scandal, as clips spread of Platner addressing controversies everywhere from cable news to “Pod Save America” to comedian Tim Heidecker’s “Office Hours Live.” Platner, he said, “totally flooded the zone in a way that she didn’t.”
From Trump, who proved skilled in 2016 at hijacking the news cycle against staid Republican rivals, and now communicates as president in unprecedented ways — like regularly taking calls from reporters — to Mamdani and Platner, risk-averse and conventional modes of campaigning appear out of step in today’s fractured media environment.
Or, as Seitz-Wald put it: “In an attention economy, you’re not just competing against your other opponents, but you’re competing against Netflix and TikTok and all the things competing for people’s attention. So if you’re just a boring person in a suit reading white papers, no one cares. They might show up and vote for you [out] of a sense of obligation or whatever, but if you’re trying to actually touch people, energize people, you have to be interesting.”
FCC targets Disney
The president of the United States is – once again – calling for late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to be fired over a joke, as the FCC launches an early review of Disney’s eight ABC broadcast licenses.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who bragged in March about Donald Trump ”winning” his fight against the “fake news media,” said on Thursday that the White House did not pressure him to launch the review, which he said stemmed from Disney’s diversity initiatives.
As Corbin Bolies writes, Carr said Disney would have to “come in and demonstrate that they’ve been operating in the public interest,” indicating the early review could rope in the Kimmel matter as the FCC looks at ABC’s licenses.
Despite campaigning in support of “free speech,” conservative media and GOP have largely stayed silent. Texas’ Ted Cruz has been an exception, saying: “It is not government’s job to censor speech, and I do not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police.”
Kayla Cobb and Jose Alejandro Bastidas zoom out: Jimmy Kimmel’s Latest Flap Gives New Disney Boss Josh D’Amaro His Next Big Stress Test | Analysis
Dokoupil’s dismal start
Tony Dokoupil has steered “CBS Evening News” for 16 weeks now. But as the show’s ratings continue to decline, it appears he’s captaining a ship fighting an impossible current.
The Dokoupil-led “Evening News” hit its lowest-rated month in total viewers since the anchor took over, averaging less than 3.9 million viewers throughout April. In the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demographic, the show is averaging 497,000 viewers, its lowest April in the demo this century. But the show is up 2% in total viewers from April 2025, which remains its lowest-rated April in total viewers this century.
The numbers reflect a dismal start to Dokoupil’s second quarter in the anchor chair, raising questions over whether his stewardship can turn around the perennially third-place program. The show averaged 4.279 million viewers in its first quarter, down 7% from the same period last year, while its 25-54 audience was at 535,000 viewers, down nearly 20%.
Check out Bolies’ full piece: Tony Dokoupil’s ‘CBS Evening News’ Era Keeps Hemorrhaging Viewers to Record Lows | Chart
Press freedom under threat
The U.S. fell seven spots to 64th place in Reporters Without Borders‘ 2026 World Press Freedom Index as the organization found that President Donald Trump “has turned his repeated attacks on the press and journalists into a systematic policy.”
The organization, which surveys press freedom in 180 countries and territories every year, claimed that Trump’s “weaponization of state institutions” — through his push to defund federally funded news organizations such as NPR and PBS, his input on corporate media mergers and his calls to arrest journalists — place an additional burden on “journalists who were already fighting against economic headwinds and dealing with a crisis of public trust.”
“Since his return to office, journalists have also been targeted on the ground during protests, reflecting a broader deterioration that amounts to one of the most severe crises for press freedom in modern US history,” the organization wrote.
Bolies’ full piece: US Drops 7 Spots in Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Report
Also on TheWrap
Barry Diller’s IAC to Cut Staff, Rebrand to People Incorporated
CBS News Hires Shayndi Raice as Foreign Editor After Ousting London Bureau Chief
Alex Jones Claims ‘Massive Victory’ as Court Pauses The Onion’s Infowars Takeover | Video
On my radar
“AOC’s hide-and-seek strategy with the press” (Alex Thompson and Holly Otterbein, Axios)
“60 Minutes journalist decries ‘spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear’ at CBS News (Jeremy Barr, The Guardian)
“The WCHD Do-Over Dilemma” (Oliver Darcy, Status)
Finally: This will be my last edition of “The Media Front,” which will be on hold for now. Thanks very much for reading!
