Maine's biggest paper screws up its own award story

By Ted Cohen/The Maine Wire

If Maine’s anti-gun crowd resents the fake award the Portland Press Herald is boasting about possibly receiving for doing nothing, it’s for good reason.

The Press Herald in cahoots with Maine Public and PBS is trumpeting the “award” nomination they received from National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences for their lame coverage of the 2023 mass killing in Lewiston.

What the pre-party celebrants – no awards yet, just nominations – fail to point out is that the aftermath-news coverage by the liberal press didn’t move the anti-gun law needle an inch.

Democrat Gov. Janet Mills – who otherwise is in bed with the gun opponents – proved to be a disappointing roadblock to their demands for a new gun-grabbing law.

“In the months following Lewiston, Mills signaled that gun-control measures were unlikely to get her support,” the Press Herald itself reported.

Mills last year, fearing political backlash from gun owners, allowed a new 72-hour measure regulating gun purchases to become law without her signature.

So in fact the anti-gun folks come out of this “news award” thing with absolutely nothing – no help from Mills and worse, maybe, no real aid from the gun-hating editorial board at Maine’s impotent legacy newspaper.

If worthy journalism awards are ever meaningful to anyone – and that’s doubtful – they are at least based on news coverage that effects change in public policy, good or bad.

The coverage by the Democrat-friendly Maine newspaper based in the solid-liberal southern part of the state and the leftists at Maine Public accomplished nothing if the aim were to get the legislature to hand the Second-Amendment opponents what they really want – no guns.

While Maine already has a Yellow Flag law that requires due process before authorities may strip a gun owner of his gun, anti-firearm activists are now gearing up for a campaign to support passage of a more restrictive Red Flag law.

Meanwhile, it’s not only the gun opponents who can’t depend on their friends at the Portland Press Herald.

It’s also the readers, who must be scratching their heads.

To wit, in its piece announcing the news-and-documentary Emmy awards, the paper reported as follows:

“The one-hour film, titled ‘Breakdown in Maine,’ was part of a joint project between the publications.”

Neither Frontline PBS nor Maine Public are publications – they are broadcasting outlets.

Oops.

The journalistic incompetence – announcing your own fake-news award and screwing it up in the process – is breathtaking, all-the-more so because the award describes the nominees as exhibiting “extraordinary talent.”

For essentially doing nothing.

From all appearances, there is no credible editorial oversight at the Maine Trust for Local News, even for the most elementary tasks.

After all, the trust’s hordes of editors couldn’t even get the most basic part of their own award story correct, i.e., making sure TV stations are not described as newspapers.

No coincidence, perhaps, that Carolyn Fox, the paper’s chief editor, has placed an ad for a new digital editor.

Fox specified that whoever applies must be “a professional change agent.”