APP.com’s traffic ranking plunges 25%

Traffic rankings for APP.com, the Asbury Park Press’s website are down 25% in the month since the Gannett owned media outlet started charging for reading content on its website, according to the web information company, Alexa.

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Asbury Park Press Laments Lack Of Competitive Primaries Yet Fail To Do Their Part

Yesterday the Neptune Nudniks ran an editorial lamenting the lack of competition in the primaries.

This morning The Star Ledger reported that there are five candidates seeking the two major party nominations for U.S. Senate, 44 candidates for 13  congressional seats (they should have said 12 seats or 24 nominations) and 8 candidates for three special election primaries for State Assembly.

There are two GOP primary races in The Asbury Park Press’s coverage area.  The CD-6 race between Monmouth GOP candidate Ernesto Cullari and Middlesex GOP candidate Anna Little, and the CD-4 race between incumbent Congressman Chris Smith and Terrence McGowan of Howell.

A search for “Anna Little” reveals that the former Highlands mayor’s name has not appeared on the site since February. “Ernesto Cullari” produced no results in a search of the site.   On May 14 a letter to the editor in support of McGowan in CD-4 was published.  Nothing else.  Congressman Smith has made international headlines recently for his work to secure Chen Guangcheng’s release from China.  Yet the APP is interested only in what Smith is doing for Lakewood’s schools, an issue that Smith’s office has no authority over.  APP.com also reported that a 71 year old Manchester woman drove her car into the side of Smith’s Whiting office last November.

This is not to say that the press should cover every candidate that collects signatures to get on a primary ballot.  Earned media should indeed be earned and so-called “fringe” candidates should be challenged to earn their coverage.  MMM is aware that it could have made the CD-4 race more competitive than the rout it will be with Smith getting over 80% of the vote.  However, McGowan did nothing to earn coverage on MMM.  The first we heard from anybody in the McGowan campaign was last week when we were invited by a reader to a meet and greet a couple of hours before it started.

But there is no excuse for the APP’s lack of coverage of the CD-6 race where the competing candidates each earned the endorsement of a county Republican organization.  That is a story.

One could argue, and the Nudniks do as an excuse for their lack of coverage in their editorial, that the gerrymandered congressional districts make the CD-4 and CD-6 races uncompetitive and the end result of each election is a fait accompli. 

Where were they during the redistricting process?  They ran an editorial lamenting the gerrymandering after fact, but provided little coverage that would have increased public awareness before or during the process.

How do the Nudniks think that voters will get their information about the electorial process?  They are very supportive of pay to play restrictions that make it more difficult for candidates and parties to get their messages out, yet the APP does little to pick up the slack or provide coverage to to the electoral process.

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APP wants to know: Why no action on Lakewood?

Because The Asbury Park Press Is No Longer Relevant

The Asbury Park Press is outraged that Governor Chris Christie did not make the problems of the Lakewood school system a primary topic of his town hall meeting in Freehold yesterday.  The Neptune Nudniks are also upset that Congressman Chris Smith hasn’t returned their calls for comment or held a press conference about the Lakewood schools since the paper and pay site ran their series CHEATED about the problems in Lakewood schools last week.

Christie spent much, if not most, of his town hall meeting yesterday talking about education reform.  His focus was on tenure reform as a way to improve results in our failing urban schools and to stop paying “a Kings Ransom for failure” by flushing 15% of the state’s tax dollars into failing schools as New Jersey has done for decades.

If ever there was evidence that The Asbury Park Press has become irrelevant, it is their heavily promoted Cheated series, yesterday’s town hall meeting, combined with today’s rants by the Nudniks that Christie and Smith are not paying attention to them.

Why didn’t Christie talk about Lakewood yesterday to hundreds of residents in the APP’s coverage area?   Because no one asked him.  The governor was talking about education.  The APP had just finished a “special series” on the Lakewood schools.  Not one person in the audience of the town hall made the connection and asked the governor a question about Lakewood.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Will you pay to read The Asbury Park Press online?

It’s been a day since Gannett announced that they are going to start charging to read the news on their websites, including app.com, the site of The Asbury Park Press.

APP has yet to report that news.  Maybe they didn’t get the memo.

Will you pay to read APP.com?   Vote in the poll:

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Showdown at the Press editorial board!

By Dan Jacobson, also published in the October 13th edition of the triCityNews

So I’m running as an Independent for the state Assembly. And there’s been one campaign appearance I’ve been anticipating above all others.

The interview with the Asbury Park Press editorial board for their endorsement!

Yup, for almost 13 years I’ve been trashing that paper for their hypocrisy, moving out of Asbury Park…you name it. So fireworks were expected.

The interview took place earlier this week. All the candidates for both state Assembly and Senate in the 11^th District were there.

I don’t know who threw the first projectile. Maybe it was me. Maybe it wasn’t.

But I can swear to this: It wasn’t me who threw the chair. Fortunately, Senator Jennifer Beck is one hell of an athlete. She dove out of her seat like a third baseman snagging a line-drive to deflect the thing before it went crashing through the floor-to-ceiling window on one side of the conference room.

OK, OK. None of that happened. Dammit! You bet I’m disappointed it didn’t go down that way. I always envisioned the flying chair, the shouting. Denying I threw the first projectile. It would have been great.

But it was not to be.  Actually, it was quite a sedate affair. The seven candidates for Senate and Assembly only faced Press Editorial Page Editor Randy Bergmann and editorial writer Michael Riley. That’s it. Veteran reporter Larry Higgs was there to report on the discussions.

Bergmann is a surprisingly low-key guy, given how his paper’s editorials regularly infuriate me for their hypocrisy. Yeah, he was gracious. Big deal. I wanted fireworks.

As for Michael Riley, I know I blasted the shit out of him about ten years ago for some column he wrote. I’m sure he forgot about it – hell, I can’t even remember it at this point. So he was quite friendly. Screw him!

In addition, former Press food critic Andrea Clurfeld is now an editorial writer and board member. I’d been brutal with her in the past – for justifiable reason – about her food reviews. Never met her. Would have loved it. But she wasn’t there! I should have walked out right then.

Adding to the sedation is that the other candidates themselves are all very gracious and intelligent people. In fact, I like my opponents. It’s the whole Goddamn system that’s pissing me off. That’s what I’m running against.

(I face Republican Assembly incumbents Mary Pat Angelini and Caroline Casagrande, as well as Democrats Vin Gopal and Kathy Horgan. There are two Assembly seats. Beck is running in a separate race for Senate against Democrat Ray Santiago.)

I did have one interesting observation at the editorial board, however. Way back in 1986, I worked as a reporter for about a year at the now defunct Daily Register in Shrewsbury. And I’ve always loved old newspapers and newsrooms – like the one in the old Asbury Park Press building in downtown Asbury.

Journalists have always been characters. The old newsrooms and buildings matched them perfectly. So I mean this as a compliment: Looking across the table at journalistic veterans Bergmann, Riley and Higgs reminded me of those old-time newspaper characters. There aren’t enough around like them anymore. Hypocritical editorials or not.

And as much as I welcome the demise of the Asbury Park Press – because they’ve been such a destructive force in our region – there was something poignant about seeing these three guys in that quiet and sullen building. It’s a metaphor for the whole newspaper industry.

That Asbury Park Press newsroom was opened back in 1985 when they moved out to Neptune. That was the advent of a long-ago era, just as newspapers were transitioning into soulless corporate cultures at full gale. The ensuing corporate conformity, and of course the internet, would decimate journalism as we know it – and the excitement and character that came with it.

I thought back to the first editorial board meeting I attended in that same conference room. It was 26 years ago – when the building had just opened. It was my first run for the Assembly at the age of 23. (I lost that one, but won the seat four years later and served a term.)

Back then, the paper was locally owned by Don Lass and Jules Plangere, who both ran the place. Present at that long ago meeting in 1985 were the four candidates for the two Assembly seats, as well as a room full of editors. Must have been about seven other people there, including several senior editors. Plus the reporter specifically assigned to the race. (That practice of assigning a reporter to each legislative race went by the wayside years ago.)

I remember tons of energy in that brand new state-of-the-art newsroom. And a brisk and confident manner of all the editors in the editorial board meeting. They knew they were a force in the community, and they didn’t have to answer to anyone else. The future was exceptionally bright in their gleaming new suburban headquarters 26 years ago – they had moved far beyond their beautiful little building in downtown Asbury Park, the then struggling city of their birth they had just abandoned.

Of course, the Plangere and Lass families sold the paper to the Gannett corporation at the right time well over a decade ago. Today, Gannett papers are sucking wind, collapsing as advertising revenue and circulation plummet. The Asbury Park Press is no exception. It’s a joke.

And those at the Press – including the three journalistic vets sitting across from me earlier this week – answer to much higher, and much more remote, authority. Specifically, Gannett corporate headquarters down in Virginia. Who in turn answer to Wall Street analysts and the stock market.

That’s a big difference from answering to the two owners who had their offices down the hall. When slow economic times came, those owners could hold off on cutting people. They had no fear of Wall Street analysts and earnings reports. They owned the place. And they could invest in the journalism however they wished. It was their money.

In the end, I still hate the Asbury Park Press. But I’m more than ever convinced that it’s the corporate takeover of journalism that’s responsible. Gannett doesn’t give a shit about those three guys who sat across from me in the editorial board meeting – they’d lay them off in an instant if that’s what it took to satisfy Wall Street. That’s the system, man.

At this point, working for the Press is like working for a pharmaceutical or insurance company. And Bergmann, Riley and Higgs are definitely not corporate cogs by nature. They’re clearly journalists. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t know how they do it. I couldn’t. 

In the end, I’ve got to say that Press writer Larry Higgs was more than fair with the story. I actually saw the words “triCityNews” on the front page of the Asbury Park Press for the first time ever. They had to say what I did. That was fun.

Now if they’d just endorse me. Not that it makes that much difference with the voters. Who cares what the Press says?

It only makes a difference to me – I’d have a ball with the headline in this paper! And I could have a field day mocking myself in the process. Hey, I’m not exempt from taking hits in this paper – even from myself.

Don’t expect an endorsement though. That’s asking way too much of these hypocrites.

(The 11^th District where I’m running includes: Asbury Park, Long Branch, Red Bank, Ocean Township, Neptune, Neptune City, Interlaken, Deal, Allenhurst, Loch Arbour, West Long Branch, Eatontown, Shrewsbury Borough, Shrewsbury Township, Tinton Falls, Colts Neck, Freehold Township and Freehold Borough.)

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Diversify The Media

UPDATE:

Star Ledger reporter Ginger Gibson, a member of the Statehouse press corps tell me she is Mexican:

 I saw your piece about the diversity of the press corps. I just wanted to let you know, I’m Mexican. So it’s not all white guys in the press corps, there are some minorities. Just wanted to make sure you knew that.

I never would have guessed that, given Gibson’s fair skin and last name.  Another lesson about assumptions.

Yet the point of my piece still stands.  The press corps is far from 40% minority, and the Ledger editorial board is still FOS.

On Saturday The Star Ledger published an editorial calling on Governor Chris Christie to appoint minorities to the State Supreme Court.

The Ledger is lamenting the fact that since Christie took office both minorities who were on the court, Justice John Wallace and Justice Roberto Rivera-Sota,  have left the bench.  For the first time in twenty years there are no minorities on the court. “And yet more than 40 percent of the state’s population is black, Hispanic, or Asian.”

The Ledger took the diversity theme a bit further this morning with an article that sites a Star Ledger analysis which concludes Governor Christie is favoring white middle class senior citizens in selecting communities to host his Town Hall meetings.

This got me thinking about the diversity of the New Jersey Media.  Is the New Jersey press corp comprised of 40% of African Americans, Hispanics and Asians?   Not even close.

From my experience, without doing an extensive MMM analysis like the Ledger did of Christie’s Town Halls, journalism may be the least diverse industry in New Jersey.

The State House press corp?  Overwhelmingly white. 

NJ.com, The Star Ledger’s website?  Only one African American columnist who writes almost exclusively about Newark. 

Giving credit where it is due, Gannett’s papers have a diverse group of reporters, on the local levels.  They have an African American Executive Editor, Hollis Towns, at The Asbury ParkPress.  Their Statehouse Buerau?  Five white guys.  They would be wise to make Jane Roh part of that team.

News12 has a diverse staff. 

So what is with the progressives at The Star Ledger?  Should they be telling the Governor to take the speck out of his eye while they have a log in their own?

Are the folks at The Ledger hypocrites or has Gannett scooped up all the good minority writers?

I don’t know for sure, but I tend to think they’re full of poop.  They’re attempting to set the agenda for Christie’s Supreme Court appointments by using the race card.  As part of the vast progressive conspiracy, the Ledger likes an activist court that requires billions of dollars to be flushed into urban schools that produce morally unacceptable results in educating minority children.   If they can convince the public that race should be a criteria for selecting a Supreme Court Justice, rather than scholarship, judicial temperment and a philosphical committement to interpreting law, rather than writing it from the bench, The Ledger figures they can thrwart Governor Christie from “turning Trenton upside down” anymore than he already has.

The Legislature is very likely to remain in Democratic control after the coming election, which limits severely the reforms Governor Christie can make over the rest of his term.  Given the legislative map, a second Christie term will most likely also have a Democratic legislature.    That he will have the responsiblity to appoint the majority of the court in his first term, to reshape the court as he promised, will result in the real legacy of the Christie administration.

The Star Ledger’s lip service for diversity is nothing more then getting ready for that coming political battle.

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Henry Vaccaro Responds To The Neptune Nudniks’ Editorial

By Henry Vaccaro, Sr

I just saw an OP Ed story in the Press entitled “The Deadly sins of the Tea Party.

I take strong exception to that story.  In fact I resent it.

Had it not  been for the Tea Party Obama would have had a ” Clean” bill to raise the debt limit, without any spending cuts .

The Press has a very short memory.  Obama’s last budget called for Trillions in new debt. It was voted down in the Senate 94 to 0. We the United States of America are working without a budget. That budget proves that he had no intention of reducing the debt. Just more spending as usual.

The Press said “compromise.” I say “BULLS SHIT”. It’s about time that someone stood up for their principles. The Tea Party stood up to be counted.

At the Alamo, Col. Travis drew a line in the sand with his sword and challenged 180 men to cross the line if they were willing to fight and die for their freedom. They showed the world what Patriot’s stood for.

You the former Asbury Park Press have shown the world how bias the news media really is. You mention the Koch brothers “Oil barons and billionaires who have supported the Tea Party”. I did not see any mention of George Soros and the billions he has spent to further his and Obama’s agenda.

I am a proud member of the Tea Party; you have called us rowdy, rude and disruptive at town hall meetings. Maybe we didn’t like Obamacare being rammed down our throats, with all the backroom deals going on just for votes. There was NO open debate. Where were you the Asbury Park Press defending our freedom?

You say that it is time for the Tea Party to learn a lesson. We have learned a good lesson.

See you in 2012.

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APP Turns On Obama

By Art Gallagher

The newspaper formerly known as The Asbury Park Press (their print edition masthead now reads “THE PRESS”) has irrefutably revealed itself as a far left extremist publication.  In an editorial published on their website last evening, Obama caving in to GOP demands, the Neptune Nudniks have moved on to the left of the New York Times, the old Huffington Post, Daily Kos and Middletown Mike.

The Press called the President “weak,” “hardly a leader,” and said his speech Monday night was “too little, too late.” They said his speech “was not tough so much as it was petulance.”  As Dan Jacobson would say, hilarious, though hysterical would be more accurate.

“Left wing extreme, Art?” you might say, “that sounds like right wing rhetoric I might read on MoreMonmouthMusings.”  You’d be correct, except the nudniks are complaining that Obama “has alienated his base, gone back on what he held as rock-solid principles,” while drawing a “line in the sand” that is inside the Republican Tea Party right’s tent.  APP is now short for apparatchik.

The Press did get one important thing right in their rantitorial.  They correctly identified Obama’s reelection concerns and the only issue that is holding up a deal that would raise the debt ceiling, reduce the deficit and prevent a default.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, also not left enough for the apparatchiks, and Speaker John Boehner have already agreed on a plan that would raise the debt ceiling, reduce spending and not raise taxes.  Obama killed the deal because it only lasted for a year.  He doesn’t want to go through this again next summer only a few months before the Presidential election.

If Obama thought his economic policies and philosphy were popular with the American people, he would welcome having such a debate next year.  Instead, he’s willing to put the full faith and credit of the United States of America at risk rather than debate “redistribution of wealth”  and massive government expansion months before the American people decide whether or not to give him another four years. 

It is no accident that most of ObamaCare kicks in after the election.  This is more of the same.  Obama wants his lease on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave renewed before the American people realize what he has done to them.

The “Tea Party Republican” members of congress are controlling the debt ceiling debate because Obama is letting them control the debate.  If Reid and Obama agreed to Boehner’s proposal, Nancy Pelosi would deliver enough Democratic votes in the House to pass Boehner’s plan with moderate Republican support, thereby neutralizing the “Tea Party” Republicans who are uncompromising.

Obama would have to take a page out of Chris Christie’s book in order to make a deal like that.  And Christie says he’s not ready to be President.

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APP Plays The Race Card

By Art Gallagher

The ignorant fools on the Asbury Park Press editorial board have joined the left wing media chorus that will taint anyone who is critical of the Obama administration as racist.

In their editorial today, Fox resumes tired refrain, the disgraceful demagogues of Neptune smear Fox News, its viewers, or “devotees” as they call them, and “the right” as “bile-ridden,” stupid (“vacuous”), and racist.

The outcry over rapper Common’s appearance at the White House poetry night is what set off the race baiting yellow journalists of Gannett.

In case you missed it, Common is best known for his ” A Song For Assata” in which he glorifies JoAnne Chesimard, the former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army member who murdered NJ State Trooper Werner Foerster on the NJ Turnpike in East Brunswick on May 2, 1973.   In “A Song For Assata” (Chesimard changed her name to Assata Skakur) Common wrote and sang, “Your power and pride is beautiful. May God bless your soul.”

Apparently Fox News broke the story of Common’s White House appearance.  The APP race mongers lament that Fox couldn’t give Obama “even a week” to bask in the success of the Bin Laden killing before “bashing” the President again.

The news of Common’s White House invitation made national news, including in the APP and its sister rags, prompting a strong reaction, especially from the New Jersey law enforcement community.  NJPBA President Tony Wieners  issued the following statement:

New Jersey State PBA Denounces Cop Killer Support

New Jersey State PBA President Anthony Wieners denounced rapper Common appearance at the White House. Wieners who is in Washington to honor officers during Police Week called Common’s take on Chesimard “utterly ridiculous”. “Lets not rewrite history to glamorize a terrorist from the 1970’s” , he said. “ In 1973 Chesimard killed a New Jersey State Trooper and then in 1979 she took two of our members hostage in her escape from jail, that’s the facts. While she may change her name, she may even have songs written about her, but in the end she is a cold blooded terrorist. No one should be praising her or lending her support.“

Wieners noted the irony of the controversy over Common occurred during Police Week. He should be ashamed of his presence at the White House this week while the nation’s law enforcement community gathers there to add more names to its wall of officers killed in the line of duty. “This week each year is our annual pilgrimage to Washington D. C. to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster is on that wall. As we pursue modern day terrorist, let us not forget those who made sacrifices to pursue the terrorist of our past. Let those terrorist of the past know that we will never falter in our attempts to bring them to justice.”

The APP apologises for Common because he wrote the rap more than a decade ago and he has written songs that extol “self-respect, community and taking responsibility your life and actions” since he glorified Chesimard.  They bash the “Fox chorus” condeming Common’s appearance at the White House as “ignorant” and “empty headed” because “most Fox commentors and fans” don’t appreciate the virtuous raps that Common wrote.

Well the APP apparently didn’t appreciate this Fox commentator who likened Common to Shakespere and said his lyrics are being taken out of context.  They ignored this Fox commentator  who wrote a poem of her own that says the President should be working on more pressing issues instead of attending a poetry reading.

The APP got one thing right in their disgraceful editorial.  They said:

What’s good about America is the ability of artists to express themselves freely, even when we disagree with their viewpoint or positions. What’s great about America is that even the ignorant get a soapbox to spew their empty-headed rhetoric.

That last line is self-referential, even though the APP didn’t mean it to be.

America would be even greater if the traditional 4th estate maintained its traditional role of skeptics of the government charged with holding our leaders to account.  The APP and the rest of the leftstream media should refrain from playing the race card every time criticism of their darling in the White House sticks.

The media’s use of the race card to silence Obama’s critics was very effective in the 2008 campaign, especially after they successfully used it to smear even former President Bill Clinton’s criticism of candidate Obama during the South Carolina primary.  We’ve seen that the media will employ such disgraceful tactics again in support of Obama during the 2012 campaign which has already started.  This is yellow journalism of the worst kind, designed to silence legitimate critics and thwart debate.

The APP should be ashamed.  Its customers, readers and advertisers alike, should put them on notice that there will be consequences to such irresponsible trash.

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The Asbury Park Press Needs A Fact Checker

By Art Gallagher

The Asbury Park Press, aka The Neptune Nudniks  really needs to teach their editorial staff how to use google or they need to hire a fact checker who knows how to use google.  In this information age there is no justification for getting the facts wrong as often as the Nudniks do.

In editorial published yesterday about the Live Action video depicting a Planned Parenthood employee in Perth Amboy coaching Live Action activists posing as a pimp and underage prostitute how to avoid being caught trafficking underage sex slaves, the APP editorial  board inaccurately defended Planned Parenthood  They said:

To its credit, Planned Parenthood said it had promptly notified law enforcement authorities after the visit, and it also announced it had fired the clinic employee for violating some of the organization’s policies.

Planned Parenthood also said at least 12 of its clinics across the country had been visited by Live Action undercover operatives claiming to be sex traffickers. None of the clinics’ employees at the other sites took the bait.

Emphasis added.

That’s not true.  The Planned Parenthood clinics’ other employees, at least some of them,  did take the bait.  Live Action released four more videos on Friday morning  that show employees in four Virginia clinics cooperating with activists posing as sex traffickers.

If the Asbury Park Press editorial board didn’t know that, they should have.  At the very least they should have known that LiveAction was going to release more video footage.  They said they were going to.

Incidentally, this is why, in part, that I’ve been critical of Live Action for releasing their videos without including an acknowledgment of the fact that Planned Parenthood’s leadership reported their visits to the authorities a full week prior the video releases.  The mainstream media is both lazy and strapped financially. Their “news” is increasingly nothing more than regurgitated press releases and sound bites.  It’s a shame that their editorials are as well.

On a much lighter note, APP sports writer Steve Edelson started his latest blog post with the cliche “You can’t make this stuff up.”

Edelson’s post was about a Dr. Scholl’s Super Bowl commercial featuring Jets coach Rex Ryan and his wife Michelle of foot fetish video fame.

The press release about the commercial that Edelson received was made up.

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