NYT's Meatball Editorial Choices

In an attempt to explain why they’re playing a part in Donald Trump’s criminal conspiracy to steal an election — which explanation NYT put on its digital front page while burying the far more scandalous story on remote polls not opening in Alaska — Terence McGinley described that the stacked ballot story arose in the wake of a story he did in September.

In September, after weeks of digging into the surprise firing of a handful of senior aides, I published an article about allegations that Peltola had mistreated and verbally abused her staff over many years. One of the fired aides had been Peltola’s campaign manager. She ultimately shared key details with me about the Democratic effort to recruit candidates onto the Senate ballot, which leads us to where we are today.

That story relied on four former staffers, at least two of whom Peltola had just fired, including Elisa Rios, the most controversial source for the stacked ballot story.

September’s story was a misogynistic trope, depicting a female congressperson as abusive for doing things — like using objectionable language and yelling at staffers — that male congresspeople (and Presidents) get to do without criticism.

Crazier still, the key anecdote that McGinley seemed to think was his big hook, to which he dedicated 159 words in a 2500 word story, was fucking hilarious: During a period that included the aftermath of her spouse’s death, Peltola asked her staffers to feed her chameleon.

Her demands could be unusual, such as requiring aides to feed live crickets to her family’s pet chameleon, Meatball.

[snip]

For some on her staff, one task exemplified the disregard Ms. Peltola appeared to have for her employees: feeding her daughter’s pet chameleon, Meatball.

Meatball’s preferred diet consisted of live crickets, according to three staff members familiar with the demand, including two who fed the chameleon. Ms. Peltola instructed aides to purchase the insects at a pet store and then feed them to Meatball.

Aides initially went to Ms. Peltola’s apartment in Washington to feed Meatball, but the congresswoman later brought the reptile into her office on Capitol Hill. On at least one occasion, the crickets escaped in the office and had to be recaptured, according to two former aides who witnessed it as well as a photo viewed by The Times that showed aides in the office trying to trap the crickets using manila folders and small paper cups.

First, no, Terence, for better or worse it is actually not unusual for members of Congress to ask their staffers to feed, or even walk, their pets. West Virginia Senator Jim Justice’s staffers even cart Babydog around the Senate for him. Feeding a chameleon is less of an ask than walking a dog. The fact that you tried to make a scandal out of the time some crickets escaped in Peltola’s office reflects badly on you and makes Peltola look cooler.

That story was, in my opinion, a stupid story and a poor editorial decision.

And Elisa Rios was one of the people behind that earlier ill-considered story. And then went on to make certain claims about the campaign’s — and more importantly, Peltola’s — role in getting fake Dan Sullivan on the ballot.

I actually have no problem with relying on Rios for the stacked ballot story after she tried to renege, to which decision the story itself dedicates 176 words and this explanation dedicates 617 words. But there are two problems with the way NYT dealt with Rios.

First, this story is about something Rios and others did. The people who were worried this would be discovered? Are the ones who are exposing it. The aides the story describes as deeply corrupt? They are the people Peltola fired or demoted. NYT is not transparent about the extent that their sources are burning an operation they themselves are the key participants in. It is not transparent whether the unnamed “aides” described in emails and texts include anyone beyond Anton McParland (who was demoted but not fired, and refused to comment on this story) or their own sources. And especially given that the single tie their story makes to Marc Elias (who is the one who fired these staffers) is about something where a proposal “fizzled” after consulting with lawyers,

Jacquelyn Lopez, an attorney with the Elias Law Group, the firm that represents both the committee and the Peltola campaign, was part of this effort, according to Ms. Rios. In a text message from April viewed by The Times, a campaign consultant asked Ms. Rios: “Do we need to follow up with Jackie about maga party stuff?”

In another message from that month that misspelled Mr. Kurtz’s first name, Mr. McParland wrote: “Jackie is calling Jarid.” Ms. Lopez did not respond to a request for comment.

The MAGA party plan fizzled out in May.

… The claim of law firm involvement is unsubstantiated at best, if not affirmatively misleading.

This is a story primarily about what NYT’s own sources did; aside from the role Jarid Kurtz, the shady guy who recruited others, played in this, NYT’s story does not remotely substantiate its claims about the involvement of people beyond its sources and McParland. At that level it is bad journalism.

But the more important issue is this one. The single solitary source NYT gives for the claim that Peltola herself knew about this is Rios.

Ms. Peltola was not directly involved in the project, Ms. Rios said, but she was “definitely aware.”

There’s no other substantiation for that claim, just Rios’ verbal claim. And including that claim after Rios tried to renege is pretty problematic. That’s really the only newsworthy part of the story, because both parties have shitholes like Jarid Kurtz. And it is entirely reliant on Rios.

The story has other problems. As everyone remotely sentient notes, NYT never bothers to explain in these stories the significance of ranked choice voting, which is why people stack ballots in AK but also makes it less damaging, even while doing a separate story tying the scandal the NYT created entirely by relying on Rios’ claim about Peltola’s awareness to GOP efforts to defeat ranked choice at the ballot.

Similarly, while the main story prominently notes that ballot-stacking is legal,

Ballot-stacking tactics are common in politics and generally considered legal — and have been employed by both parties in Alaska. But this operation, which has not been reported before, reveals the lengths to which Democrats went to seek advantage in a Senate race that could determine control of the chamber.

When it comes to describing GOP ballot-stacking in Alaska, it leaves out GOP efforts to do so this year, which were more obviously tied to the GOP Senate Committee.

Republicans have also taken advantage of this system. When Ms. Peltola ran for re-election to the House two years ago, the state Republican Party backed an effort to help a Democrat — an inmate who ran his campaign from a New York prison — stay on the ballot.

Compare NYT’s incompetent reporting with CNN’s more thorough treatment.

One group, Fair Deal Alaska, spent more than $800,000 attacking Peltola while promoting a lesser-known Democratic candidate and a Green Party candidate. A post-primary campaign finance filing revealed the group was mostly funded by the Senate Leadership Fund, the top GOP super PAC in Senate races.

And in 2024, Alaska’s Democratic Party sued to keep someone off the US House ballot: Eric Hafner, who has no apparent ties to the state and is serving time in a federal prison in New York. The Democratic Party argued that it and its preferred candidate — ironically, Peltola — would be harmed because having an unaffiliated Democrat on the ballot “would confuse voters.”

A divided state Supreme Court allowed Hafner to remain on the ballot. He is running again this year, also in the House race, and is on the November 3 ranked vote general election ballot.

In NYT’s explanation, they excuse focusing on Democratic efforts to the exclusion of GOP ones by claiming this story is interesting, “just a great story all the way around.”

Ballot-stacking is generally considered legal. Republicans have used the tactic in Alaska. What was newsworthy about the effort that led us to write an article?

Amy: It’s not unprecedented for campaigns or major parties to find decoy candidates with the same name as a major-party contender. But it is rare, and that’s what made the candidacy of Dan J. Sullivan unusual. We’ve also written extensively about other ballot-stacking efforts, by both parties — including in Alaska this year. Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy also became a subject of interest in the Alaska political world and beyond, and questions were being raised when he barely campaigned. There is also the fact that the Peltola campaign so vigorously denied it, for so long. That made it a bigger story, in the end.

I’d add: Dan J. Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher who lives in a remote village accessible only by plane or boat. He has a Che Guevara magnet on his fridge. He gave money to a past campaign of Mary Peltola. It’s just a great story all the way around.

Kellen: Yes, Democrats have made the point that Republicans have done this, which is true. That doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t write about particularly glaring or interesting examples of it. And in this case, we were able to pull back the curtain and take readers inside the plan in an unusually detailed way.

But they have not, of course, reported on another “glaring or interesting example,” the one in Nevada where Danielle Ford is confusing Democratic voters by suggesting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backs her rather than Democrat Aaron Ford for governor, a race where, unlike Alaska, if people mistakenly vote for Danielle, their vote will be lost.

Which is to say the only reason they’re reporting this story is because they’ve platformed people who were fired, the very campaign staffers most involved in this.

Where NYT’s poor editorial decisions becomes participation in a criminal conspiracy to steal an election is in the way they portray DOJ’s involvement in all this. A week ago, Todd Blanche went on the Sunday shows and made it clear he was doing what Jeffrey Clark promised — but was thwarted from doing — six years ago. “Just say the election was corrupt.” Trump instructed his then Acting Attorney General. “And leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen,” Trump said days before he launched a coup attempt.

NYT’s story about that parroted Blanche’s claim that this is just a good government effort.

He defended the department’s actions in a statement to The New York Times, saying the suit relied “solely on federal law” and was not intended to benefit any candidate or party.

“The Department of Justice does not seek to stop any ballot from being cast or to stop the certification of Alaska’s election,” he wrote. “This litigation seeks to ensure that after Alaskans cast their ballots, they are preserved in a manner so that only Alaska’s governing officials have the information necessary to make a determination as to whether Alaskan voters were confused or misled.”

Shortly before one of his deputies filed the Alaska suit, Mr. Blanche cast the department’s recent lawsuits as a good-government effort and dismissed the likelihood of a department effort to block certification of the results in any given state as a “doomsday scenario.”

This is one of the problems with focusing only on Peltola and not the GOP efforts: you are part of DOJ’s false claim that this is unusual or criminal. NYT should be calling out DOJ’s selective focus but it is instead capitalizing on it.

And while it quotes a lot of people saying that DOJ’s lawsuit lacks merit, it doesn’t say why: because states run elections, not the federal government. It is illegal to do this — or would be if SCOTUS weren’t in the bag for Trump and hadn’t given Trump immunity for ordering Todd Blanche to do this — the same way Trump’s efforts to demand GOP officials find 11,780 votes for him in 2020 was or should be illegal.

Another story allowing an anonymous DOJ official to explain why DOJ was violating every norm to investigate something that is not a Federal crime,

The subpoenas, most if not all of which were issued to Democrats, were part of an effort to quickly establish the facts in the case, taking advantage of federal authorities and investigative tools not readily available to local law enforcement authorities, a senior Justice Department official said.

… Quotes Republican Benjamin Ginsburg (who opposed Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election), without — again — explaining why. States run elections, not the Feds.

“It’s performance art this close to the election,” said the Republican election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg. “I don’t see a federal crime.”

He also said he does not believe the federal government can prove it has standing in the case.

And then, again, when reporting how Alaska US Attorney Michael Heyman publicly announced an investigation while declining to describe any crime, NYT again treated this as a both-sides issue.

Mr. Heyman said the inquiry kicked into high gear after The New York Times reported that aides to Mary Peltola, Mr. Sullivan’s Democratic opponent, helped enlist the other candidate, Dan J. Sullivan. But he declined to say what crimes — if any — were being investigated.

“You’re assuming that there is a crime being committed,” he told a reporter who asked what the wrongdoing in question was, adding: “I’m not going to go into the details about what specific crimes we’re investigating.”

Democrats and former officials have accused the department of pursuing a political goal in the guise of a legal one: to publicize a scheme, sordid but not illegal under state law, to energize Republicans ahead of next week’s midterm elections.

Mr. Heyman said his office was acting in good faith to protect the integrity of the election.

This is not a both-sides thing. It is Donald Trump engaging in the same criminal ploy he did in 2020. And the NYT is a giddy participant in it.

Patrick Healy, through your stupid editorial choices, you are playing the same role in a criminal conspiracy to steal an election that Fox News did in 2020. This is not “a great story all the way around.” It has become an attempt to overthrow democracy.

That’s not journalism.

Update: As Harpie noted below, Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed this case, on the grounds that there is no legal way to do what DOJ wants.

The State seeks dismissal of the Amended Complaint “so that Alaska can proceed to administer its elections consistent with state and federal law.”74 And the Court finds that further amendment would be futile because this Court lacks the authority to order that certain ballots cast by Alaskans be segregated so that federal law enforcement officials can conduct an unspecified investigation of the voters who cast them. As such, the United States’ Amended Complaint is dismissed without leave to amend.

DOJ has already noticed an appeal, claiming (as Trump did in 2020) that this is just procedural.