Asbury Park Press: The editorial wing of the NJ GOP

gannett-wide (0.00 / 0)

i live within the Gannett-o-sphere (CamCo's Courier Post) and they seem a lot less inhibited about hiding their partisan bent.  not that i don't agree with em once in a while, but still.....

activist for hire.

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by: Jay Lassiter @ Sun Nov 04, 2007 at 19:57:55 PM UTC

APP: Front for State GOP (0.00 / 0)

Thankfully, it seems that the voters of N.J. aren't going to take the Asbury Park Press' blatant partisanship to heart -- we may very well survive the Beck challenge and pick up several South Jersey senate seats. The real test would have been whether the APP endorsed Democrats while Republicans were in power; after all, their reasoning is that change is better, and Democrats were out of power six years ago.

Of interesting note is the fact that only the Courier Post features more conservative syndicated columnists (6-1 margin) than the Asbury Park Press (3-1 margin) out of all state papers in N.J. Guess who the APP endorsed in every statewide and national race since at least the 2000 senate race between Corzine and Franks (where they endorsed Franks)? They endorsed the Republican in every contest each time, even serving as the only N.J. paper, to the best of my knowledge, that even endorsed Pres. Bush for re-election in 2004!

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm not giving the APP credit here), but, besides the Rosen endorsement, the paper did endorse the Democratic candidate for freeholder in Monmouth County this election.

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by: Martin @ Sun Nov 04, 2007 at 21:42:01 PM UTC

Monmouth (0.00 / 0)

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm not giving the APP credit here), but, besides the Rosen endorsement, the paper did endorse the Democratic candidate for freeholder in Monmouth County this election.

You're correct about the Monmouth County endorsement. After all the GOP corruption their own paper revealed in Monmouth, they really didn't have a choice but to endorse the Democrat.

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by: Juan Melli @ Sun Nov 04, 2007 at 22:08:48 PM UTC

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It could be personal (0.00 / 0)

Monmouth County has a crapload of right-wing Republican bloggers, some hard-core jackboots, who rake the APP editor and even more so the reporters over the coals.  Their attacks are personal.

I wonder if the inability to suck it up for the party in Monmouth isn't personal.

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by: Jim33 @ Sun Nov 04, 2007 at 22:49:05 PM UTC

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I wonder (4.00 / 1)

I wonder if and how the Asbury Park Press would editorialize on the behavior of a similarly sized statewide media chain doing the same kind of editorials in the reverse, endorsing Democrats merely for the purpose of stacking government with Dems?

Great editorial, Juan.  It provokes analytical thinking and serious intraspection on political coverage today. 

If we can no longer rely on the top editors to conduct a serious analysis of the candidates, can we depend on their news pages to be fact-based and unbiased?  It's not just how they cover any news, but what they choose to cover and where they choose to run it.  Can we know what news unflattering to their GOP has been ignored the past couple of months?

Some of their endorsees have been subject to their editorial wrath in non-election times because of ethical misconduct.  Assemblyman David Wolfe comes to mind for double dipping and Sen. Bob Singer for taking what amounts to a type of bribe (long complicated story there), I think Sen. Andy Ciesla has some skeleton in that closet too.

Yet, the endorsements came -- because the unethical incumbents are Republican and no other reason. 

It reminds me of the rationale on which Chris Christie operates.  Corruption is awful and worthy of harsh punishment -- when a Democrat does it, but Republicans get delayed, slaps on the wrist or out-and-out off the hook, i.e. John Bennett -- and he with an uncommon letter from Christie telling him he's off the hook. 

And with all the complaints about corruption in Ocean County's GOP and county/local government, Christie last week went on record saying there's no FBI investigation going on in Ocean County.  How could there not be?  That would be incredbile to me, if I didn't already know we've fallen down Alice's rabbit hole.

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by: Jim33 @ Sun Nov 04, 2007 at 22:36:18 PM UTC

APP disappoints but Gannett is still a star (4.00 / 1)

It is disappointing that the Gannett owned Asbury Park Press would compromise their editorial integrity by writing "it is important that voters fill as many Assembly seats with Republicans as possible".

You would think that they would make carefully deliberated endorsement decisions by weighing each candidate's individual strengths, weaknesses and policy positions.

But they have obviously chosen to take the blatantly partisan path. This does not help right the wrongs in our political culture. And that's a shame.

Nevertheless, the Gannett newspaper chain should continue to receive major kudos and appreciation for their dogged determination to uncover the rot of corruption in our state's politics. No journalistic enterprise in New Jersey has come close to the work of Gannett over the last few years in ripping the cover off of the systemic abuse of power and the siphoning of taxpayer resources for the self-interests of the greedy in public office.

I would hope that you do not allow the partisan indiscretion of the APP to cloud the outstanding investigative coverage that Gannett has produced.

Our state is all the better for their work, despite their Republican preferences.

It is good to remember that it is common for most newspapers to exercise a clear separation between their editorial page and their news department. Let's hope the APP builds a firewall between these two divisions in their newsroom.

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by: TerryMalloy-OnTheWaterfront @ Mon Nov 05, 2007 at 06:31:40 AM UTC

You guys really don't think... (0.00 / 0)

that if the situation were reveresed, so would the endorsements? I do.
Let's face it. It's been one party control in Trenton for 6 years. The state's a mess. There's been no real reform.
Although I'll agree they are right leaning, I think the APP is for splitting control more than they are for Repulcian ideology. Same with the Ledger. Even they came out for Beck, I don't believe the papers are overly right wing, but I believe they've lost faith in the Gov's ability to clean up the system and they see flipping one of the legislative houses as a necessary check on the balance of power.

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

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by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Mon Nov 05, 2007 at 12:26:20 PM UTC

if that were the case (0.00 / 0)

then what's the point of having the editorial board interview the candidates? If they're making decisions purely based on party identification, why not skip the formality?

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by: Juan Melli @ Mon Nov 05, 2007 at 12:46:53 PM UTC

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Forgive my ignorance... (0.00 / 0)

But I didn't realized that they interviewed the candidates for endorsements. I assumed they just review their records. And let's face it, if you really want to, you can write a justification for whichever candidate you want to endorse.
I really assumed that yes, they are endorsing Beck just because she is Republican and she is in one of the few districts that can effect the balance of power.

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

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by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Mon Nov 05, 2007 at 17:02:31 PM UTC

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The APP didn't do the same in reverse (0.00 / 0)

Didn't the GOP have the supermajority for quite a few years in the late '90s and early '00s?

I'm an APP subscriber and it did not call for Democrats as a party to win majority.  I can't  recall any Democrats it did endorse back then, but I am of a notion its editorials used to be more fact-based and not this shameless politicking.

In fact, at the peak of Republican reign, the APP editorial page focus was primarily national.  Editorial space was frequently used to lambaste President Clinton and Sen. Torricelli, who they gunned for in an effort to turn the Congress all-GOP.

So, although your thought was valid and one I subscribe to, as applied to the APP, it's not theoretical.  It's tested and unfounded, IMHO.

If you still disagree, maybe I or someone can do an online archive search to see if I can gather some data.

My reading of the editorials is that they are the result of its editorial board's interviews with all of those candidates.

Their rationale to support endorsement in many cases are inconsistent with previous criticisms of these incumbents. 

The incongruities are baffling.  There is a new publisher there.  I wonder if that's what accounts for the editorial incongruities.

I noticed politicsnj.com lists the longtime APP editor as #6 most influential in this election, or something.  I don't exactly see that as a feather in his cap, considering his paper is pushing "our choices" just a wee bit (ok, a whole lot) too hard to be mere "opinion."

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by: Jim33 @ Tue Nov 06, 2007 at 05:14:31 AM UTC

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