The Susan Collins Effect

“Part of it is she’s an incumbent, and part of it is it’s an image that’s cultivated by her PR people and by the Maine media to give the impression that she’s something she’s not.”

On the afternoon of July 21, the Portland Press Herald, Maine’s largest newspaper, posted a routine story about its senior senator: “Susan Collins calls oversight hearing over Trump’s $33B ask for Iran war.” The next day, Dan Aibel, a reader in New York, noticed something odd: the headline didn’t match the URL for the story, which mentioned Collins “signaling support” for the funding. At some point, it appeared, the original headline had been changed to bolster the idea that Collins was pushing back on an unpopular war rather than preparing to continue funding it. Beyond that, the headline was of questionable accuracy: though questions of oversight did arise during the hearing, it had been a routine proceeding. Aibel, a vocal online critic of Collins, called Kirby Wilson, the Press Herald’s politics editor: Had someone adjusted the headline? Yes, Wilson told him, he had—at the request of the senator’s staff.