I’ve read recent opinions criticizing what some see as the press’ favorable treatment of Graham Platner, and I think the focus has missed the larger issue. This isn’t about demanding favorable media coverage, and it isn’t about arguing that only “experienced” or establishment-approved politicians deserve attention. It’s about how selectively outrage is applied and who gets to decide which voices are treated as legitimate.

What’s being framed as a concern about “equal coverage” feels more like frustration that the coverage isn’t favoring a preferred candidate. Newspapers backing, spotlighting or showing greater interest in certain candidates is nothing new. Yet the outrage only seems to surface when attention lands on someone people personally dislike or want to see lose.

What’s more troubling is how uncomfortable we’ve become with anyone who doesn’t neatly fit an approved political mold. Instead of debating ideas, we increasingly try to disqualify outsiders altogether. They are treated as something to be avoided, silenced or delegitimized. That impulse isn’t healthy, and it isn’t democratic.

Even more revealing is how readily we normalize genuinely reckless or corrupt behavior from established figures while reacting with moral panic to unconventional candidates or imperfect pasts. If the same scrutiny were applied consistently, much of our political class would not survive it.

This isn’t really about one candidate. It’s about a deeper unwillingness to confront how broken our system has become and how resistant we are to change unless it benefits those already in power. We’ve lost perspective, and arguing over whose voice gets amplified fixes nothing.

Billy-Joe Smith 
Standish