NJ Herald continues its attack on reality

Let's be clear, the New Jersey Herald is not a non-profit entity representing Sussex County.  It is owned by the for-profit Quincy Media corporation of Quincy, Illinois.  It is mainly a broadcast company, owning radio and television stations throughout the mid-west.  The corporation's only holding on the east coast, one of two newspapers it owns, is the New Jersey Herald. 

This corporation makes its millions in profit off advertising revenues.  It is not the words written by the reporters or the news shows on radio or television that matter -- they simply get eyes on the page -- it is all those advertisements for vinyl siding, used cars, socks, and suppositories.  That is where the money is, let's be clear on that.  Let's also be clear that the Herald isn't published for the benefit of the community, it is published to make a profit by a for-profit corporation over 1,000 miles away.  The day it doesn't make money and they see no hope of it making money, it will be gone. 

The Herald is still pissed off at Senator Oroho for suggesting that property taxes could be reduced by not requiring state, county, and local governments to pay media corporations to place all those public legal notices and advertisements in the back of newspapers.  Governmental entities have their own websites on which they could publish all those notices and advertisements for free.  Forcing them to pay newspapers to do so appears redundant and it costs taxpayers millions in property tax revenues.  It's like a mandated direct government subsidy to the newspaper/advertising industry.

Has the Herald ever covered this subject?  Have they ever written about it?  This is millions in property tax revenue that could be saved.  Doesn't that at least warrant a discussion?  But instead of a mature, honest, above-board discussion about a way to save taxpayers' money and maybe use that money to cut property taxes, what we have instead is a hissy fit followed by the big hate.

So now the Herald is in hate mode.  Big hate.  They want to screw somebody, and to do so they will blatantly ignore the facts about an issue, and will fashion a narrative by selectively using the voices of others, while preventing some from being heard.  This is accomplished by publishing letters to the editor from people who are attacking the object of the newspaper's hatred, while not publishing others.  On the comments page, they permit some to post comments but not others.  Both the Herald staff and its attorney admit to doing this by applying selective "criteria" in determining who gets to post -- something unique to the Herald.

Sunday's Herald was a case in point.  The New Jersey Herald published the letters of three Oroho haters (Nathan Orr, Troy Orr, and Bob Klymaz) who often publish in the Herald.

One letter, by Assembly candidate Nathan Orr, takes aim at Watchdog itself and calls us "an anonymous blogger".  Now as every reader of this website knows, we are a collective and we print whatever is sent to us and withhold names only upon request.  We do so in keeping with the longstanding American tradition of anonymous speech.  Benjamin Franklin published his attacks against the establishment of the day, anonymously, and one of the central documents in our founding are the Federalist Papers, also written anonymously.  Indeed, no less than the United States Supreme Court has defended the right to publish anonymously.  In its 1995 decision in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, the Court ruled:

"Anonymity is a shield... It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular:  to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation."

Ask yourself this question:  What would have happened to the county worker who tipped us off about the unsafe work environment in its offices a couple years back?  We published, the Herald and others followed, and the situation was corrected.  If we had published the name, that employee would have been retaliated against and when the Herald reporter called, too scared to tell the truth.  The same goes for the scheme to sell the county dump and a dozen others.   

When citizens had information regarding the solar scam, it was Watchdog -- NOT the NJ Herald -- who brought their information to the FBI, the United States Justice Department, and Attorney General's office.  It was Watchdog -- NOT the NJ Herald -- that arranged those meetings. Where was the Herald? This website has protected the anonymity of dozens of whistleblowers.  Would candidate Orr have us turn whistleblowers over to be punished? 

Just last week, the NJ Herald was ignoring the upcoming solar presentation until we published and they followed in the nick of time to help make sure citizens turned out.  But where is the Herald's editorial about the NO-BID CONTRACT handed to the law firm that both George Graham and Gail Phoebus said should have been fired for their handling of the bailout?  There is none. 

It was left to Watchdog to point out this turnabout by Freeholder Director Graham, who is now the biggest cheerleader for the firm he wanted fired last year.  The Herald doesn't rock the boat with advertisers.

In his letter, candidate Nathan Orr makes much of the 11 percent he picked up in the 2015 Republican primary for Assembly, in which he edged out Marie Bilik for third place (Parker Space and Gail Phoebus won easily).  What candidate Orr doesn't realize, and any political scientist will tell him, is that in a highly contested, negative-filled primary like that was; one in which every candidate was being attacked -- except for Orr, who was being entirely ignored -- he served as a kind of "none-of-the-above" opt-out for voters.  People weren't so much voting for him, because he did nothing to communicate his message, as they were voting against everyone else.  In fact, Nathan Orr has tested so poorly in subsequent polling, that he is no longer tested at all.  It is a waste of a question because nobody knows him.  Sorry.

 

But that hasn't stopped Nathan Orr from giving us all the benefit of his "wisdom" on some very complicated issues.  Orr is fond of stating the obvious, such as "our Legislature should be decreasing taxes" and even more so of putting down others with snarky, juvenile comments.  Nathan Orr is Sussex County's Rachel Maddow.

Here are some questions for this candidate and public figure:  Have you worked out a detailed plan to solve any problem, even a little one?  Can you come up with even a minor reform and then follow it through:  Meet with your legislators, ask them to set up a meeting with the Department of Transportation, and show them your better way?  Have you ever gone down to Trenton to testify for or against a piece of legislation?  Any legislation?  Anything at all?  Do you get involved in the local government of your town?  On an economic development committee even?  Have you ever worked with a democratic body of any kind to learn how difficult it is to find agreement?

And while we're at it, let's pose those questions to the other letter writers who seem to have all the answers, but who somehow never show up to do any of the hard work to actually make it happen.  Frankly, the NJ Herald letters page is beginning to sound like a stream-of-consciousness play set in a bar. Everything is simpler looking through the bottom of beer glass.  "Come on Joe, let's have another, if we keep drinking like this we'll solve all of America's problems and the world's too!"

Nathan Orr is a particularly young version of an Ann Smulewicz type.  The comment pages of the Herald are full of this type:  People who are in politics but who lack the honesty to own up to it.  Instead, they push the idea that elected officials are some alien life form -- "bad", to their "good".  And corporations like Quincy Media exploit this to sell newspapers. 

They dehumanize fellow human beings so they can more easily urge others to destroy them.  So Steve Oroho, a neighbor, the football coach at Pope John, active in community organizations and charities, is portrayed as this evil alien being.  And they've done the same thing to farmer Parker Space, and military mom Alison Littell McHose, and businesswoman Gail Phoebus, and high school sports hero Gary Chiusano, and platoon leader Mike Strada, and businessman Jeff Parrott, and the list goes on and on.  All our neighbors, all people we know, all people who we can walk up and talk to anytime. 

The Nathan Orrs of the world don't talk to people, they talk at them.  They dehumanize them, turn them into "things" that need to be destroyed.  And corporations like Quincy Media exploit this to sell newspapers.  Maybe it's time we've learned more about the person behind the corporate label -- Mr. Ralph Oakley of Quincy, Illinois -- before allowing him to manipulate us into hating our neighbors?

Senate candidate Mark Quick tossed from bar

There have been some competing Facebook stories regarding what happened at the bar of the Marquis Room at the Lafayette House Wednesday evening.  What is certain is that self-declared Senate candidate Mark D. Quick ended up being asked to leave, after being warned several times about his foul and aggressive language by a female bar manager.

The incident happened while, in another part of the building, Senator Steve Oroho was conducting a workshop with local elected officials aimed at coming up with ideas on how to address problems of waste and inefficiency in transportation related construction.  The meeting was targeted by people who, frankly, appeared to want to disrupt it. 

So it was a good thing that it was kept private and professional, with nobody playing to the cameras, and nobody having to contend with screaming and cursing and threats of violence.  After all, Sussex County isn't Afghanistan.  Nor should it be.

Outside the meeting, about 20 members of the public had gathered to support "funding the TTF" (Transportation Trust Fund) or to oppose "the gas tax" (presumably A-12, which has nothing to do with Senator Oroho anyway).  Many of those who supported TTF funding worked on construction projects that had now stopped, so they in-effect, are laid-off from their jobs and not earning for their families.  Their opponents were led by former Green Party Assembly-candidate Ken Collins and his wife and supporters, plus former Reform Party Assembly-candidate Mark Quick and his fishing buddy Doug Thomas.

Political operative Bill Winkler stopped by the meeting but was informed that it was a closed session, where upon he went outside and found his friend Mark Quick hollering at the dozen or so members of the public who had shown up in support of funding the Transportation Trust Fund.  Mark was wearing a Space-Phoebus for Assembly tee-shirt, an act of commonality with Winkler, who managed successful political campaigns for both Republican Assemblyman Parker Space (in 2010, 2013, and 2015) and Assemblywoman Gail Phoebus (in 2012 and 2015).  Quick and Winkler travelled together to Atlantic City in February 2015 for Assemblyman Jon Bramnick's two-day statewide event.

Quick and Winkler had a chat.  Now as anyone who knows Quick knows, a "chat" with Mark Quick consists mainly of him talking very loudly in a kind of sustained rant.  From time to time, Quick will also mention how he wants to "shoot" or otherwise "kill" someone but, it must be added, when asked about this he insists that his use of these and similar words are simply metaphorical and part of his colorful charm.

As it was very hot outside in the sun, Winkler -- a somewhat fat, older man with a rapidly reddening bald pate -- suggested going to the public bar for a beer.  On the way in the pair said hello to Rob Jennings, reporter for the New Jersey Herald.  At the bar, they were joined by a friend of Winkler's who roasts coffee in his hometown of New Hope, Pennsylvania.  The two Pennsylvanians asked for Stella, while Quick opted for a powerful 7% beer aged in Jack Daniels whiskey kegs.

Quick announced that he was running for State Senate against Steve Oroho, and that he had the support of Parker and Jill Space.  When Winkler said that was nonsense (Oroho, Space, and Phoebus share a legislative office and staff), Quick insisted that the state committeewoman and recent delegate to the national convention was a big supporter, along with many local elected officials.  To be fair, anyone familiar with Quick is all too familiar with these kinds of boasts.

After the second beer, Winkler suggested they eat, but Quick wasn't hungry.  By then the bar manager had told him to quiet down a couple times, at one point, playfully splashing water on them from a glass, with her fingers.  Doug Thomas had joined them, and the talk had turned to fishing and the superior taste of river caught cat fish to those farm-raised.  There was a brief argument between Quick and the coffee roaster about pulling cat fish out of the river near Yardley, which the coffee roaster advised against on account of it being down-river from the Lambertville sewage plant.  Quick even got into it with his fishing buddy, when Thomas and Winkler spoke highly of Steve Lonegan, and Quick strongly disagreed.

Then Kelly Ann Hart appeared, said hello, and Quick got very loud about Hart's cousin, Roseann Salinitri, president of a local Tea Party group.  Quick doesn't like Mrs. Salanitri very much and the same goes, apparently, for Ann Kievit, Hart's mother, the widow of the late Mayor of Hardyston.  Quick called the women in Hart's family, "fat asses" for some reason.  He started yelling and it escalated into contact, that could have been the result of Quick tumbling from his bar stool.  At this point the bar manager told him that he had to leave and Doug Thomas quickly took him outside.  In fairness to Quick, he was drinking strong beer, his body-weight is certainly not Winkler's, he should have eaten, alcohol diminishes the hearing (which in Quick's case isn't good in the first place), but he was certainly not at his best for losing control and for talking very rudely to a woman. 

Winkler and the coffee roaster finished their beers.  It was now after 8 PM, the workshop ended, so the two, with Hart went to the other end of the Lafayette House to find that the meeting was winding down.  The doors were now unmanned, so Winkler and the coffee roaster snuck in the back. 

The meeting broke up a few minutes later.  Time enough for Winkler and Andover Committeeman Jack Burke to engage in a bear hug and have their picture taken together for the benefit of mutual friend Tom Walsh.  They were joined by Lou Crescitelli, chief of staff for Assemblyman Space and Assemblywoman Phoebus, who was the reason for Winkler's visit in the first place.

Has the NJ Herald become part of the story?

The New Jersey Herald has become a very dodgy newspaper.  It suppresses stories as a favor to major advertisers, as in the case of the Sussex Community College, and directly steps into campaigns to rearrange the "balance" or place a "thumb on the scale." 

The Herald doesn't follow a story, it sets a narrative and then writes the story to fit -- even if it's like putting a square peg into a round hole.  To ensure that its reporters stick to the narrative, it plays them off against each other for plum assignments.  The goal is to please the boss and you do that by screwing whoever he happens to have a hard on for.  And you can always tell who the boss has a hard on for. 

Lately, the man the Herald dreams about screwing is Senator Steve Oroho.  And not just because he's the only legislator in Sussex County who doesn't have a business that advertises with the Herald.  The Herald wants to be a political party boss, wants to pick winners and losers in politics, wants its butt kissed by candidates and office holders.

The Herald likes drama -- and when there is no drama they assign a reporter to manufacture it.  And that means stepping directly into campaigns and taking part, favoring one side over another. 

Here are a few instances when a Herald reporter has directly got involved in a political campaign, looking to destroy one side in favor of another.  It is a simple story -- one that can be told in just three text messages:

(1) Hey guys, I'm writing such slanted shit on behalf of your campaign, that if I keep it up, somebody is going to notice.

------ SMS ------

From: XXXXXXXXXX

Received: Apr 14, 2015 4:21 PM

I need to talk to you about XXXXXXXXXXXX. Simply put, there's no way I can retain my credibility as a journalist if I don't, in some way, address XXXXXX's reasons for voting to do the original solar project in 2011 without seeking voter approval then. If I don't, people will come to see me as a shill for the XXXXXXXXX campaign, and I can't have that happen.

(2) Hey guys, the candidates' debate is coming up.  How about it if the Herald lets your campaign choose which questions we ask your opponents?

------ SMS ------

From: XXXXXXXXXX

Received: May 18, 2015 4:11 PM

BTW, we're still trying to come up with a specific question for XXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXX. The list if questions is being finalized tonight. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

(3) Hey guys, I know the primary is over, but shouldn't we totally destroy your opponent so that he can't try a comeback in 2016?

------ SMS ------

From: XXXXXXXXXX

Received: Aug 1, 2015 1:21 PM

Do you know anything about a sexual harassment lawsuit or some such thing being filed against XXXXXXXXXX several years ago back when he was XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX?...XXXXX had mentioned something about it to me a while back, said she believes it was settled. I'd sure love to get my hands on it, though.

This is not journalism.  It is waging a political campaign.

Leaked Emails: Politico’s Ken Vogel Filed Story with DNC Before His Own Editors.  Like Hillary and the DNC, Sussex County has its own media corruption problem.

No-bid contract up at Wednesday Freeholder meeting

The forces who gave us the $80 million rip-off known as the solar scam have pulled-off another brilliant maneuver.  While orchestrating a hate campaign against Senator Steve Oroho -- and getting their dupes in the media and local government to focus on that -- they are bringing back the same lawyers who last year then-Freeholder (now Assemblywoman) Gail Phoebus said should have been fired for their mishandling of the solar project.

Instead of exposing this no-bid scheme, the NJ Herald has placed a media blackout on the Freeholder meeting -- scheduled for 6pm on Wednesday, July 27th -- and instead of reminding people to attend, suggested that they crash a private meeting being held miles away at the same time.

Below are the agenda items that the taxpayers of Sussex County should pay very close attention to:

 

The Herald drops the ball on solar

On Sunday, the Herald editorialized about a working session with Senator Steve Oroho and elected local government officials.  The meeting has been called by the Senator to discuss suggestions and ideas on how road construction and other transportation projects might be accomplished less expensively and more efficiently.  The Herald would like to turn this meeting into a media circus so that they might write some salacious story to attract advertising dollars.  Senator Oroho is right to make it about the work that needs to be done.

While editorializing because they want to make Senator Oroho's working session about them, the Herald has completely neglected the Freeholder Board meeting being held the same night.  It seems that, after hearing that Oroho was holding his workshop, the Freeholder Board decided that the same night was perfect for holding its long-awaited update on the Sussex solar scam.

Not only didn't the Herald use its editorial page the Sunday before the meeting to drive members of the public to this very important meeting -- the Herald tried to publicly lobby Senator Oroho to open his working session up to the public to draw away people from the Freeholder Board meeting and allow some on the Board to claim public disinterest in the outcome of the $80 million taxpayer-funded scam. 

The Herald failed to comment on the Freeholder's agenda which allows for no public discussion of the solar scam.  It is unbelievable that the Herald missed the opportunity to draw public attention to this, and to demand that public comment be allowed at a public meeting. 

We will be reporting on this in depth, on Tuesday.