Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter.

Back in April, Susie Banikarim wrote for CJR about Cheyenne Hunt, a lawyer and former congressional candidate, who played a role in surfacing allegations from several women that Eric Swalwell—a Democrat from California who was a front-runner for governor—had sexually assaulted or harassed them. Hunt—who recently founded Reckoning Action, a nonprofit aiming to combat misogyny, and has a sizable Instagram following—gave an interview to Politico at the time, describing how she had coordinated with Swalwell’s accusers, then worked with reporters to ensure their story was told with rigor, reach, and credibility. “I have a lot of fears about the blurred lines between content creators and journalists,” Hunt said. “I don’t want this to be a green light to creators who think that they should be breaking sensitive news.” Banikarim noted the wisdom in “understanding that social media influence alone would not be enough to take on a powerful politician and care for Swalwell’s accusers.” This week, Hunt’s name appeared in Politico again—now connecting reporters with Jenny Racicot, who accused Graham Platner, a Senate candidate from Maine, of sexual assault. As Jessica Piper, one of the authors of the Politico story, told me, “A story like this asks you to hold two things at once: real sensitivity toward a source who is describing a traumatic experience and real rigor in testing the account.”

Racicot had previously talked about her relationship with Platner for a June New York Times piece, in which she and other women described “volatile and ‘toxic’ relationships” with him. She’d told the Times that “she had an off-and-on relationship with Mr. Platner and had positive memories,” but that “in 2021 he arrived at her house drunk, after she had asked him not to come over.” The article continued, “She declined to elaborate, but said she cut off contact soon after that episode and found his behavior ‘reckless’ and ‘unsettling.’” The Times included other allegations against Platner—notably from Lyndsey Fifield, who had worked for Republican campaigns, and who said that he’d “twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom, and held the door closed from the other side.” But the piece, which portrayed Platner as a “charming and charismatic” man who could also be unfaithful and demeaning, only went so far. The story “brought to light a pattern of unsettling behavior by Graham Platner and included many of the details that women shared with us that were on the record and confirmable,” as Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, put it in a statement shared with me. “The article also provided readers with context about what the women were and were not willing to share at the time. It was a revealing and sensitive piece of reporting.”

Platner conceded to being “a far from perfect boyfriend,” but told the Times that any allegation beyond that was “politically motivated.” He then told Chris Hayes on MS Now that some of the accounts were “simply not true.” As Vanesa Gezari wrote for CJR, he soon went on to a decisive victory in his primary. “Few Democrats, in the end, seemed overly troubled by the fact that he, like most of us, has led a complicated life and has not always been the person he is today,” she wrote. Part of his campaign narrative had always been that he was a rough-around-the-edges guy who went through dark days. There was enough murkiness in the back-and-forth of the story for Mainers to forgive Platner, or at least accept him. 

This week’s Politico report, by Jessica Piper and Adam Wren, took Racicot’s story further. “Racicot said she was contacted by the New York Times in the spring and shared off the record that Platner had assaulted her,” they wrote. Racicot told Politico that “she didn’t want to be known as a rape victim” and that she felt a moral conflict “between supporting his politics, but not supporting him as a person.” But after the Times story was published, she was dismayed by the response. “My part of the story was just a read-over,” as she told Piper and Wren. “And the story was Lyndsey, and the accusations of her being politically motivated.” Piper told me, “What changed, she said, was watching the reaction to the Times story get consumed by controversy around another woman’s Republican ties.” 

That’s when Racicot came in contact with Hunt—who had previously endorsed Platner but withdrew her support in view of the Times reporting, and was now actively opposing him. Per the article, “Hunt connected Politico to Racicot.” Racicot was now ready to give a full account of her experience. “I very much appreciated her willingness to speak with us, not just once, but across three interviews over two weeks, about such an incredibly difficult subject, and to continue going back and forth with us as we worked to confirm and corroborate the story,” Piper said. She noted, too: “Many outlets were chasing this story, and after publication we saw others follow up quickly. But on a story this sensitive, competitive pressure is far less important than nailing down the facts and corroboration as firmly as possible. There really is no point in reporting something first unless you really get it right.”

The Politico article catalyzed a major response—Platner has lost all Democratic support, and is expected to drop his candidacy, even as he called accusations of nonconsensual behavior “categorically false”—in addition to media scrutiny. Fifield posted on social media criticizing the Times for not corroborating aspects of her account—and went public with the Washington Post that Platner removed condoms during sex without telling her. Fifield told the Post that she shared that information off the record with the Times “but felt embarrassed to publicly share such private information about their sex life.” The Post also reported that “since the publication of the Times’ story, Fifield said she has faced a variety of reactions and some skepticism of her account due to her political leanings.” (Speaking on The Daily last month, Lisa Lerer, one of the reporters on the Times piece, said, “We published everything credible that we had.”) 

Racicot also shared her story with CNN, and mentioned that Platner “had taken something I said as an invitation.” (On Breaking Points, a video podcast, Drop Site’s Ryan Grim shaded that in: according to a Politico reporter, Racicot had said in a text message to Platner on the night of the alleged assault that she needed a glute massage.) Hardly is that an invitation to enter her house—she told him not to come over—and rape her.

All of this is profoundly troubling, wish-we-knew-it-sooner stuff, and a reminder of the patient work that Me Too reporting requires. It’s cause for reassessment of Platner’s character (and vetting). It’s a political challenge for Democrats. It has also been turned into talking-head fodder—and not entirely successfully. When Wren appeared on MS Now’s Morning Joe, he was grilled by Mika Brzezinski, the cohost, and others about how he and Piper substantiated their account. “There’s not a police report—correct me if I’m wrong,” she began. “And there’s not a legal case playing out here for due process to see itself through.” (Per Politico: “Racicot said she considered going to the police but struggled with shock and confusion about what had happened to her and did not file a police report. Even as time passed, she said she felt uncomfortable potentially telling a police officer about such a personal experience, and feared retaliation from Platner.”) 

Wren said they reviewed email exchanges between Racicot and her therapist—in which she said she was talking to the press about her sexual assault—and interviewed people who could corroborate her story. They also reviewed Facebook messages from 2023 in which she called Platner “consensually careless.” Brzezinski replied, “What do you have that actually connects this literally?” Wren relayed that Racicot told Politico that she “sent Platner a private message on Instagram saying that the encounter was not consensual” and then deleted their correspondence, which she was unable to recover. Brzezinski, looking unconvinced, turned to Willy Geist, who wondered why Racicot came forward with her whole story only now. As the segment came to a close, Brzezinski further interrogated the evidence: “I’m going back to the decision to publish,” she pressed. “What took it over the edge and had you and your editors decide to publish, of course, kind of an earthquake in Democratic politics?”

Reporting on sexual violence is an extraordinarily difficult, sensitive task, and there are often serious questions of timing and approach. Brzezinski’s queries may not be out of place in a meeting with editors, fact-checkers, and lawyers—but on air, in the absence of context about the way sexual assault is experienced or shared with others, they display a misunderstanding of the work. Grim’s claim that Politico and CNN “omitted a key detail” in leaving out the massage message similarly misses the point. It’s worth remarking how much this can undermine the role of people like Racicot, on whom journalists depend to bring such stories to light. Sexual violence is reported to medical professionals or police only a fraction of the time, for legimitate reasons ranging from awkwardness to trauma; the absence of a case file has not, since at least the start of the Me Too movement, been the standard. Weirdly, Brzezinski asked Wren nothing about Platner—who is alleged to have sexually assaulted Racicot, and beyond that, either forgotten or lied about his actions repeatedly to the Maine voters who stood by him, flaws and all. 

Piper—who went to college in Maine and went on to cover politics for two and a half years at the Bangor Daily News—told me that “sources I developed during my time at the BDN have been helpful for much of my reporting on the Platner campaign over the last ten months. With Racicot and corroborating sources, it was helpful that I know firsthand what it is like to live in a small town in Maine and the privacy concerns that some of our sources had, given that.” Platner will remain part of that community. More news on what that looks like is sure to come. 

Has America ever needed a media defender more than now? Help us by joining CJR today.