New Jersey

ABC's World News this week failed to mention the development that former New Jersey Democratic Senator and former Governor Jon Corzine is mired in a scandal involving $600 million in missing funds from the financial firm MF Global which he headed until today.

The CBS Evening News and the NBC Nightly News so far have not mentioned Corzine's Democratic Party affiliation as they ran full reports on Tuesday, and on Friday both shows updated viewers after Corzine's resignation.

On Friday, Brian Williams related that a "prominent criminal defense lawyer" had been hired by Corzine as the NBC anchor read a brief item:

Does the New York Times fear a Chris Christie presidential run?

On Thursday reporters Michael Shear (pictured above) and Richard Perez-Pena issued the New Jersey governor a pre-emptive reality check in response to his speech at the Reagan Presidential Library: “Not All Buy Christie’s Assertions of Bipartisanship – New Jersey Governor’s Critics Say Acrimonious Dealings Accompany Accomplishments.” But the Times provided a lopsided portrait, either by leaving out the offensive things Christie’s opponents have said about him, or actually quoting Democrats insulting Christie as if that somehow proves Christie is offensive.

On Saturday, New York Times metro reporter Richard Perez-Pena treated as a serious breach of decorum a relatively mild metaphor New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie used in front of reporters in “This Time, Christie’s Tough Talk Draws a Wave of Criticism From Democrats.” The text box: “The governor uses violent imagery while talking to reporters about a state senator.” Yet the Times has almost completely ignored much harsher and explicit “violent imagery” used by Democratic politicians against Republicans.

Using harsh terms to attack his critics has been a regular feature of Gov. Chris Christie’s 15 months in office, and Democratic officials, wary of his and the voters’ wrath, have usually offered only a muted response.

But this week, when Mr. Christie, a Republican, used violent imagery in talking about a Democratic lawmaker -- a widowed grandmother, to boot -- Democrats saw an opening, criticizing him en masse and demanding an apology.

Matt Bai’s upcoming New York Times Sunday Magazine cover profile of Chris Christie, New Jersey's attention-getting Republican governor, has its questionable moments, but the overall tone was far more temperate than a teaser the Times used to promote it, featured on the front page of nytimes.com Thursday evening.

The segment of Bai's long story the Times chose to highlight is one that just happens to feed into the liberal complaint that President Ronald Reagan stigmatized welfare recipients as "welfare queens." (Bai's reference to "welfare queens" in the text is milder in context.)

The teaser reads: "The governor of New Jersey became the most celebrated Republican in America by tagging public-sector workers -- especially teachers -- as 21st-century welfare queens."

New York Times reporter David Halbfinger filed from Trenton, N.J., Wednesday on Gov. Chris Christie’s recently unveiled budget proposal (“Christie Declares ‘New Normal’ in Proposing Tight Budget”) and again displayed a pro-Democrat double standard.

Only last week Halbfinger penned a favorable profile of Connecticut’s Democrat Gov. Dannel Malloy, who devoted half the interview to running down, in Halbfinger’s words, the “blustery and bellicose” Christie, whose clips of his back-and-forth engagement with union members have won him a conservative fan club.

Halbfinger’s treatment of Christie was far less friendly than the tone he took toward Gov. Malloy:

David Halbfinger’s Wednesday New York Times profile of Connecticut’s newly elected Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy favorably compared him to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is winning fans for his insistence on budget discipline and his outspoken challenges to unions: “In Tackling Connecticut’s Finances, New Governor Criticizes Peer’s Approach.”

Reporter Halbfinger let Malloy hypocritically pat himself on the back for civility while taking pot shots at Christie. Halbfinger played along, portraying Christie as “blustery and bellicose” compared to the “polite” Democrat Malloy, flatteringly portrayed as closing a deficit while spending “much of his energy finding ways to spare the most vulnerable" and considering tax increases.

This past weekend, intrepid journalists at the New York Post and NorthJersey.com released information they unearthed about proposed Ground Zero Mosque "organizer" Sharif El-Gamal and frontman Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, respectively, that the wire services, the New York Times and the national TV networks would likely have run with by now had the items related to a major church or synagogue.

But since the news has to do with what has turned into the PC crowd's cause celebre and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's personal pet project, you may not see the stories covered anywhere else.

The arguably more important story of the two concerns the tax problems of Mr. El-Gamal (pictured above via the Post) and his company, because they directly related to the GZM's property. The story by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein went up early Sunday morning:

Mosque big owes 224G tax

The mosque developers are tax deadbeats.

New York Times reporters David Herszenhorn and Jackie Calmes reported on Obama's politically calculated visit to the Tastee Sub Shop in Edison, N.J. in Thursday's "Obama Trumpets Party's Small-Business Bona Fides."

The paper's political team let Obama fully sell himself as a down-home populist by completely skipping (in the print edition) the fact that Obama would be departing from a town in New Jersey to two glitzy fundraisers in the Times's home town Manhattan. The Washington Post, on the other hand, did notice that Obama later traveled by helicopter to a fundraiser at the Four Seasons in Manhattan, then went on to Vogue editor Anna Wintour's townhouse for another.

Calmes filed a report on the fundraisers Wednesday night for the paper's "Caucus" blog: "After an afternoon of populism, lunching with small-business owners in New Jersey and gabbing with the opinionated ladies of ABC-TV's "The View," President Obama ended his day on Wednesday at separate $30,400-a-person fundraisers here in Manhattan."

But those politics-as-usual details didn't make it into the print story, leaving room for these vital nuggets: Obama "ordered a 'super sub with everything,' to highlight his party's small-business agenda....Mr. Obama ordered a six-inch 'super sub' -- he declared that at nearly 49 he can no longer eat the 12-inch variety -- and sat down at a table with the owner, Dave Thornton, and the owners of three businesses in nearby towns."

Almost instantaneously, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) vetoed a just-passed tax hike. Thus far Christie has stuck to his conservative guns in a not-so-conservative state.

Make sure you visit this post at the new Eyeblast Blog for the full details and to weigh in on whether or not Christie is a conservative superhero.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has grown tired of a media double standard on politicians who use "combative tones" and made sure the reporter demonstrating the double standard knew it. Watch as Christie slams the reporter:

Make sure you read this post on the new Eyeblast blog for more information on Christie.

Cam Edwards at NRANews.com passed along a New Jersey Star-Ledger story showing how gun dealers are held in low esteem. Matt Carmel of Maplewood, New Jersey was rejected when he applied to sponsor a little-league baseball team:

Carmel, a licensed gun dealer, applied to sponsor a team in the local Babe Ruth/Cal Ripken baseball league, using the name of his business — Constitution Arms.

He was rebuffed.

"Arbitrary, capricious and unfair," Carmel said of the perceived slight. "I don’t like being pigeonholed."

But what really makes the story maddening (and worth wider attention and commentary) are the sponsors that have been allowed:

The New York Times’s November 5 “Political Points” podcast recited a full 30-second excerpt from Gail Collins’s Wednesday column blaming not Obama, but bad Democratic candidates, for the party’s huge losses in governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey.

The paper’s chief political reporter Adam Nagourney agreed that New Jersey and Virginia weren’t necessarily predictive. Four minutes in, Adam Nagourney emulated Collins by also throwing the two losing Democrats under the bus, while repeatedly warning people not to overstate the results:

Remember that we’re talking about here are two states, not a lot of voters, one congressional district in upstate New York. Micro-wise, one thing we do want to pay attention to here is, and again, don’t overstate this -- independent voters who backed President Obama in Virginia and New Jersey last time went to the Republican gubernatorial candidates this time. Now, does that mean that they didn’t, that they’ll vote for, you know, whoever votes against Obama in 2012, or for Democrats, or Republicans congressional, for Republicans next year? No. I don’t think so.

The G.O.P. had two big victories yesterday in off-year elections, winning the race for governor in New Jersey and Virginia for the first time since 1997. The New York Times's coverage was dominated by three themes used to explain away the success of Republicans:

The Republicans won by appearing moderate.

The congressional race in upstate New York revealed deep divisions within the G.O.P.

These off-year elections don't mean much anyway (except when Democrats win).

1) Republicans Won by Moderating:

Even after wins by two conservative Republicans, the Times spin was that moderation had prevailed, arguing that both New Jersey Governor-elect Chris Christie and Virginia Governor-elect Bob McDonnell won by trimming their social conservative stands.

In a Tuesday web post before returns were in, the paper's chief political reporter Adam Nagourney said that even a win by Virginia conservative McDonnell would be a victory for moderation:

Continuing a well-established pattern, the broadcast network evening newscasts all failed to point out the party affiliation of the major New Jersey office-holders amongst the 44 people the FBI arrested Thursday for corruption. As the AP pointed out, all but one are Democrats:  “Among the 44 people arrested were the mayors of Hoboken, Ridgefield and Secaucus, Jersey City's deputy mayor, and two state assemblymen. A member of the governor's cabinet resigned after agents searched his home, though he was not arrested. All but one of the office holders are Democrats.”

Nonetheless, CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Deborah Feyerick saw a bi-partisan scandal. In the 5 PM EDT hour of The Situation Room, though five of the six elected officials (including all three mayors and the deputy mayor) are Democrats, Blitzer announced: “Dozens of public figures, including mayors, are caught in a stunning corruption sweep. They belong to both major parties.” From Newark, Feyerick reported “nearly 30 politicians and public officials, Democrats and Republicans, were rounded up in what prosecutors called the largest sweep of its kind.”

On CBS, reporter Kelly Wallace noted: “This is all part of a ten-year public corruption investigation that has already yielded two other high-profile indictments. Officials say some politicians don't seem to be getting the message.” Neither have the media about reporting party affiliation as both of those earlier “high-profile indictments” were of Democrats: Former state Senator Wayne Bryant and Assemblyman Joseph Vas.

Joe Strupp at Editor & Publisher reports the revolving door between the media and government spun wildly out of the New Jersey Star-Ledger: "at least 16 reporters and newsroom staffers at The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., most of whom left the paper in the past year's massive buyout, are now working for public officials or state agencies the paper covers...With 151 newsroom staffers taking buyouts last October, out of 330 total, that figure represents about 10% of the departed reporters, although some left prior to that round of buyouts."

Topping that list is Deborah Howlett, a former statehouse reporter who is now Gov. Jon Corzine’s communications director. However, this is not Howlett’s first job in politics. We at MRC reported in 1990 that before joining USA Today, Howlett, spent four months in 1983 as Press Secretary to Oregon State Senator Margie Hendricksen, a Democrat who later opposed moderate-to-liberal GOP Sen. Mark Hatfield. The Almanac of American Politics blamed Hendricksen's loss on her "consistently liberal views" which, as The New Republic once noted, include favoring unilateral nuclear disarmament.

As the 1980s wound to a close, Howlett sneered at the Reagan '80s in a November 27, 1989 USA Today "news" story: "The '80s were the years of excess. We swaggered through the portals and grabbed as much as we could. We were greedy and gluttonous. As long as we wore starched shirts, we could belch at the dinner table. And Ronald Reagan led us."

In another of a never ending line of self-congratulatory but quickly fading news paper journalists, Newark Star-Ledger writer Paul Mulshine has bravely taken it upon himself to warn us all that we'll miss him and his kind when they are gone. By his kind, of course, he means print journalists.

Mulshine assures us all that, Mencken-like, he feels that the masses are idiots that cannot even pronounce pundit much less spell it well enough to become citizen journalists on the Internet. He is certain that without the assistance of professional journalists we lowly citizens will never be able to find out what's going on in our local governments. This is because, he says, bloggers won't take the time and haven't the ability to, "sit through town-council meetings and explain to you why your taxes will be going up."

Of course, he is completely wrong. Left and right there are many such bloggers doing just that on a daily basis.

The Associated Press's Ed White used almost 700 words in his story (link is dynamic; story in form found at 5:04 p.m. is also here) about the latest developments relating to Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick of Detroit, and failed to name his party affiliation even once.

Even beyond that, though he did tell readers that Kilpatrick faces a criminal trial for perjury, misconduct, and obstruction of justice, White failed to note that calls for Kilpatrick's resignation, which began in earnest with City Council's 7-1 vote in March, continue to mount.

According to White's report, Kilpatrick:

Old Media business reporters have a definitionally-incorrect habit of labeling single industries or economic sectors as being "in recession," when the term, as defined here, can only describe national economies or the world economy. Two examples of this are New York Times reporter David Leonhardt's description of manufacturing as being in recession in February 2007 (laughably incorrect, in any event), and the Times's employment of the term "housing recession" 25 times since October 2006, as seen in this Times search (with the phrase in quotes).

But if I wanted to be consistent with this routine form of journalistic malpractice, I would characterize the newspaper business -- at least in terms of the top 25 in the industry's food chain -- not as being in recession, but instead as going through a deep, dark, painful, protracted depression.

It's a sad story from New Jersey, where an errant shell fragment killed a little girl's cat. But Bettnet can't believe the verbal incompetence of the Associated Press in describing it. Their headline: "Misfired artillery crashes into girl’s bed."

A piece of artillery that was apparently misfired by the military crashed through the roof of a New Jersey home miles away Friday and injured a young girl's cat, which had to be euthanized, officials said.

Picatinny officials told The Star-Ledger of Newark they were investigating. The base had been conducting tests Friday, and it wasn't immediately clear what type of artillery hit the home.

In a post mockingly titled "Watch out for flying artillery," blogger Domenico Bettinelli mocked the reporter's complete lack of dictionary skills:

Former Atlantic City Mayor Robert Levy (D) pleaded guilty today to lying about his military service in order to obtain financial benefits to which he was not entitled. Levy is a Democrat, but keeping with AP tradition, his party affiliation was not disclosed in Geoff Mulvihill's 8-paragraph article "Former Atlantic City Mayor Pleads Guilty." (h/t NewsBusters reader Martin Edward)

NewsBusters Warner Todd Huston, Richard Newcomb and I wrote about Levy in early October, when he went AWOL from his mayoral office as federal authorities were concluding their investigation.

However, as we've noted on NewsBusters repeatedly, Republican politicians facing criminal charges or sexual scandal are labeled by party affiliation by AP reporters.

On October 21, the New Jersey Family Policy Council held a protest against "same-sex marriage" in state capital of Trenton, but no one in the media seemed to notice the hundreds of citizens who showed up. On October 27, 150 protesters in Camden, New Jersey protested the Iraq War. Yawn? Not if you’re the Camden Courier-Post, which covered the liberal protest, and ignored the conservative one.

Reporter Lavinia deCastro wrote:

About 150 people stood in the rain in front of the Walt Whitman Arts Center in Camden on Saturday morning to participate in an anti-war rally that started in South Jersey and ended in Philadelphia. It was part of a nationwide "Day of Mobilization to End the War in Iraq."

The Camden paper also had a promotional story on Saturday, before the rally.

It's time for 'Name That Party' again. The besieged mayor of Atlantic City, Robert Levy, resigned today after allegations of claiming false military benefits, according to his lawyer. The lawyer also gave a reason for Levy's disappearance.

Attorney Edwin Jacobs said that the mayor had been undergoing treatment for substance abuse and mental health issues since city officials last heard from him Sept. 26.

However, according to the story in the Los Angeles Times, there were even larger reasons for Levy's disappearance- he was under investigation by Federal officials for falsely claiming military benefits to which he had no right. The Times reported,

Federal officials have been looking into whether Levy, 64, lied about his service in order to increase his veteran's benefits. The mayor was in the Army for 20 years -- serving two tours of duty in Vietnam -- and received numerous medals, awards and citations, Jacobs said.

Democratic mayor Robert Levy, accused of being a phony soldier of sorts, went AWOL on September 26, failing to report to work on behalf of the citizens of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Reported the AP in an October 9 article:

Levy has been mired in scandal for nearly a year.

Last fall, the Press of Atlantic City reported that the Vietnam veteran's claims that he was a member of the Green Berets were untrue. He apologized.

But federal authorities have been looking into whether the 64-year-old Levy made that claim to increase his veteran's benefit payments.

Hmm, no party label? Even though this is not just resume embellishment but a possible case of veterans benefits fraud?

Imagine this scenario: A Republican Mayor of a famous city lies about his service in Vietnam and is caught at it but before that revelation comes to light he was already in trouble as he was about to be recalled by the citizenry for commonly being absent at city council meetings. What's more he also presides over a city council that has several members under investigation for sexual misconduct, drunk driving and at least one recent council member who is in jail serving a conviction for bribery. Imagine how the MSM would howl over the Republican "culture of corruption?" And yet, this scenario that I describe actually exists with but one small alteration in the particulars. The mayor in question actually exists. His city council is as corrupt as I describe. Only the mayor is a Democrat instead of a Republican... not that the MSM seems to have noticed. Once again, the AP seems to have forgotten to mention the party affiliation of a wretchedly corrupt Democrat who is under fire for his perfidy.

Rutgers University is known as the birthplace of college football, but in the last few weeks it’s seemed more like the deathplace of sportsmanship. On September 7, Rutgers hosted Navy’s football team. What respect was shown in the wake of the Midshipmen’s forthcoming service to the country and the approaching September 11 anniversary? The rowdy student fans of Rutgers hurled obscenities at Navy, thoroughly embarrassing their college and their town.

Rutgers won the game, but lost any sense of honor and decency. Navy was booed and peppered with "You suck!" chants when they stepped on the field to start both halves. When Navy kick returner Reggie Campbell came up limping after a tackle, students chanted, "You got f--ed up! You got f--ed up! You got f-ed-up!" Toward the end of the second half, Rutgers students in began to serenade an adjacent section of Navy fans and uniformed Midshipmen: "‘F-- you, Navy! F--you, Navy! F-- you, Navy!’"

See below for an update in coverage:

The indicted former Newark Mayor and current NJ state Senator Sharpe James sure is mysterious. According to the New York Times, WNBC and via the AP, the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo, Philadelphia Inquirer and the UK's Guardian, among others, James seemingly does not belong to a political party. Maybe he belongs to the same non-party as Rep. William Jefferson who was indicted on corruption and bribery charges earlier this year (hat tip to a NewsBusters reader):

Strangely, after a little digging, I discovered that James is a Democrat and that according to the prosecution, some of his alleged expenses included costly trips to Jamaica, Rio de Janeiro and Puerto Rico on the taxpayer's dime, as well as letting a girlfriend buy city property at bargain-basement prices.

For some reason, the media seem reluctant to identify that James is a Democrat and even those articles which do, bury his affiliation up to 11 paragraphs down into the text as the AP did on ABCNews.com. Even Wikipedia. minimized James' connection to the Democrats.

A cartoon in the May 13 "Sunday Briefing" on page F2 of the Washington Post furthered a left-wing talking point against "Big Oil" that a comprehensive study by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) debunked last year: that oil companies artificially manipulate gas prices by squeezing supply.

A cartoon from the Newark Star-Ledger's Drew Sheneman depicts a man fueling his car asking a cigar-smoking "Oil Co." representative, "Why do gas prices always go up right before the summer vacation season?" "Coincidence," replies the oil executive, as he stands atop the fuel line, bottlenecking the gas on its way to the motorist's car. The price atop the pump reads $3.50.

The implication, of course, is that the petroleum industry artificially bottlenecks supply to jack up fuel costs.

But that's not true, previous probes into allegations of price gouging have determined, including a May 22, 2006 FTC study of post-Hurricane Katrina gas prices.

Among the major conclusions, the FTC post-Katrina found:

Yahoo picked up a fluff AP article that distorted Democratic NJ Governor Jim McGreevey’s 2004 resignation. It perpetuated the success of what should have been a politician’s attempt to cover allegations of corruption by using his closeted sexuality to distract an incurious and complicit media. This puff piece kept alive McGreevey’s pattern of announcing something socially startling to draw attention away from the incredible graft, scandal and alleged sexual harassment that would have otherwise defined his administration. When threats to McGreevey's reputation arise, he uses his status as a gay man to deflect unwanted attention, and the AP went along with it by reporting this latest “shocker” and omitting his political affiliation while identifying his opponents’ party (emphasis mine throughout):

Jim McGreevey has gone from altar boy to mayor to the nation's first openly gay governor.

From the moment he stood at a podium in 2004 and announced he was a "gay American" who was resigning because of an affair with a male staffer, people wondered what McGreevey's next act would be.

Now we know: He wants to become a preacher and a teacher.