Gov. Mills’ admin accused of paying Maine news outlet $120K for positive coverage

The nonprofit news group that owns the Portland Press Herald received nearly $120,000 to publish what critics call flattering state-sponsored articles about the Democratic administration’s use of federal education dollars.

State records reviewed by the Maine Wire revealed the nonprofit Maine Trust for Local News (MTLN)is publishing articles that purport to encourage “goodwill” toward Maine’s government school system as well as the state Department of Education’s (DOE) management of federal education funds.

The report said the state documents “disclosed the no-bid contract awarded to the nonprofit on Friday, Sept. 20.” According to the contract, the Mills DOE will pay MTLN $117,300 for what the government is calling a “marketing campaign.”

“The payment will cover the publication and promotion of six articles portraying the Maine DOE in a flattering light,” the report noted. “It’s unclear whether the state-sponsored ‘news’ content will be written by someone from the Maine DOE or employees of the Maine Trust for Local News newspapers.” 

The Mills administration provides a “detailed description” of its “need for the goods, services, or grant” in a section of the procurement form. 

“This campaign with MTLN will meet the DOE’s need to ‘effectively tell the story of Maine’s use of federal emergency relief funding,’ center our priorities of inspiring ‘trust in our organization, and our public education system,’ and fulfill our missions ‘to promote the best learning opportunities for all Maine students’ and inspire ‘trust in our schools.’ 

A report at the Maine DOE reveals the department has received more than $1 billion in federal emergency relief funds since the start of the COVID pandemic in March 2020. 

The funds for the Mills administration’s “marketing campaign” are being taken from these pandemic-era relief funds, reports the Maine Wire. 

The Mills administration stipulates in the contract that MTLN “carries with the DOE’s constituents, to achieve these goals, resulting in an increase of goodwill for Maine’s public school system.” 

While the Mills administration appears to be using its marketing campaign to bolster trust in Maine’s government schools, recent data nevertheless suggest a rather grim picture, one that includes deteriorating reading and math scores and a surge in behavioral and mental health problems among students. 

A recently published report by the Maine Policy Institute found that while students in Maine’s K-12 public schools were once among America’s top academic performers, they are now among its lowest “due to top-down educational mandates from Augusta and Washington that stripped power away from local school boards and families.” 

The procurement document adds that the six state-sponsored articles to be published by MTLN “will speak to Maine being ‘a great place to teach and learn’ by sharing the success stories of Federal Emergency Funded programs.” The Mills administration also expects that MTLN “will promote these articles on their websites through native display ads.” 

In the contract, the Mills administration justifies the selection of MTLN for publication of its flattering state-sponsored articles by MTLN’s standing as “the largest news publication in Maine,” with a “larger Maine-based audience than any comparable outlet.” 

“There is not another organization in Maine that can create a campaign of this size or nature,” the document notes. 

MTLN is a subsidiary of the National Trust for Local News, which lists among its supporters George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Gates Family Foundation, and the Google News Initiative. 

In August 2023, MTLN purchased the Press Herald newspaper and more than 20 other daily and weekly Maine publications.  

The MTLN website boasts its “guiding principles” include “local editorial independence and accountability to the public.” 

Additionally, MTLN touts “our local newsrooms’ staff are the only people who decide what stories to pursue, the timing of those stories, and their content.” 

“However, in this case, it appears as though the nonprofit is taking payment and direct instruction from the state government on what stories to publish, and the content of those stories,” observes the Maine Wire.