Media Watch

Maine is about to get Schecht-ed upon

Former Cape Cod Times Editor Cliff Schechtman moves north
New Press Herald Editor has some baggage

Reprinted with permission of Down East.

Look what the wind blew in: The Maine Press Association’s email newsletter of Sept. 22 (it’s not yet posted online) carried the word that the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram will soon have a new managing editor. Cliff Schechtman will take over the position on Oct. 17, replacing Angie Muhs, who’s moving to MaineToday Digital (a marketing business owned by MaineToday Media, the parent company of the newspapers) overseeing all online content.

     EDITOR'S NOTE:

For a decade Cape Cod Times Editor Cliff Schechtman led that newspaper's 'editorial Jihad' against America's first offshore wind farm proposed just after 9-11.
   His loathsome and unprofessional deeds whilst there included running a plagiarized PR release from an anti-wind farm group as an Editorial for the newspaper.
   That group is funded primarily by oceanfront trophy home owners with links to the oil industry.

Schechtman has had a long and interesting career in journalism. From 1993 to 1995, he served as editor of the Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., a paper run by Richard Connor, today the CEO of MaineToday. Schechtman left there for the Cape Cod Times, where he was editor in chief for a decade before moving to Newsday on Long Island. He was named associate editor of that publication last year.

Schechtman’s resume is heavy on the investigative pieces he oversaw, covering such issues as National Guard bases that contaminated local drinking water supplies, dangerous gaps on Long Island commuter railway platforms and prying public document out of the sheriff’s office. But there’s no mention of the way he directed reporting on a controversy that will likely have implications here in Maine.

Cliff's misdeeds revealed

In 2005, one of Schechtman’s ex-staffers wrote a piece for the Providence Journal accusing him of skewing coverage of plans for off-shore wind turbines near Cape Cod. That criticism was later picked up by other publications, which claimed he followed orders from his publisher and other rich and powerful Cape Cod residents, who didn’t want their ocean views obscured by wind turbines. He’s said to have emphasized negative news and avoided stories that reflected positively on the project. A book on the subject accused him of being an activist on the issue and of blurring the lines between news and opinion.

This column originally appeared in Down East on September 24, 2011 here.