City Belt

MEDIA MASSAGE: THE WEEK IN MORONIC PRESS ABOUT NJ

Special Jersey City Edition
By Jon Whiten

Last week, I was in Washington, D.C., out to dinner with a friend and his co-worker. We were chit-chatting, talking weather, etc. You may recall there was a snowstorm. Indeed. Well, as they are wont to do, the DC-ites were complaining about not-all-that-Arctic temps and just generally being mezmerized by winter weather. At some point, I said something to the effect of: "You guys don't have it that bad. It's much worse in Jersey." To which the co-worker of said friend replied: "I think everything's much worse in Jersey, isn't it?"

MEDIA MASSAGE: CAN'T STOP, WON'T STOP?

Nj.com Misleads on Climate Change Study
By Jon Whiten

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The headlines screamed out, like manna from heaven for gas-guzzlers, McMansioners, and Bush administration "scientists" alike:

"Scientists: Global Warming Can't Be Stopped."

"Scientists Say There's No Way To Stop Climate Change."

This morning, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their widely-anticipated report on global climate change. The report (available here as PDF) found, among other things, that, "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level." The group of experts also said, with over 90 percent confidence, that human activity has been the main driver of said warming.

So what's New Jersey's largest news portal, home of the award-winning Star-Ledger, to do with such a drastic report?

If you guessed, "Misrepresent its findings," you're the big winner -- we've got a Hummer in the mail to you.

The Star-Ledger/Nj.com report, authored by Kitta MacPherson, leads by calling global warming "a runaway train that can't be stopped," before half-heartedly adding, "at least for a while." What the IPCC did in fact say was that we've fucked ourselves over for at least 30 more years of global warming as a result of our selfish actions, but, as the New York Times put it:

"The warming can be substantially blunted by prompt action."

So, it turns out there actually is a way -- many ways, actually -- to stop climate change. While my fellow City Belter Elizabeth recently took An Inconvient Truth to task for saying as much, there are personal actions that, if replicated on a grand scale (perhaps incentivized by government), can help stem the tide of global warming. But she was right to say that our ever-business-friendly federal government deserves most of the blame, and it is indeed killing us.

Rather than giving up, and encouraging everyone else to do so, perhaps Nj.com should help us understand how we can create change. Perhaps with an afternoon to put it all together, the report in tomorrow's paper will be a little less cynical -- and a little more correct.

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MEDIA MASSAGE: DEATH OF A FAUX-ALT

Exit Weekly to cease publication immediately

Media Massage learned today that the North Jersey Media Group, owners of the Bergen Record among other publications, has shuttered the majority of its "Specialty Publications" division, which includes the youth-oriented weekly Exit. Our source says the closure is effective immediately, and all Exit staffers have been laid off, just in time for the holidays. No word on if North Jersey Media Group's other "Specialty Publications" -- N.J. Cops, The Parent Paper, and Country Kids -- will also close.

North Jersey Media Group was not available for comment.

Honestly, we at City Belt were never too impressed with Exit -- as people who work inside the alternative press, Exit often felt like it was a labor of business, rather than a labor of love -- which it ultimately was: a top-down approach to alternative journalism, rather than a bottom-up one. The paper was improving, though -- becoming more substantial. But it looks like, as in so many other cases, business won out.

We should make it clear that we're not gloating or anything like that here -- we never really saw Exit as a competitor (our styles are just far too different). If anything, we express our sympathies to those staffers who got canned. At this point, it's unclear whether any severance pay was extended to those now ex-employees.

We can't help but wonder if this is related at all to the rumor that North Jersey Media Group had been approached about buying the New York Press, as floated a few weeks back in the New York Observer. I don't really see how this would make any sense, nor do I see why anyone would want to buy the New York Press, which seems like a business-side walking disaster, especially a newspaper chain that is struggling with its own roster of papers, like the aforementioned Record.

So, farewell, Exit, and good luck.

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MEDIA MASSAGE: WHAT MULCAHY MISSED

Editors' Note: This Media Massage column is a little later than usual, because it was, in its original form, a letter to the editor of the Star-Ledger. It was printed today. (For some reason, it is not available online.)

Robert E. Mulcahy, in defending the Rutgers' football program, ["Football helps Rutgers reach its goal," 11.1.06] points to "a small but vocal group of people who say they are troubled by the team's success." I consider myself a part of this minority, as someone who has repeatedly called into question the focus on football. Mulcahy argues that "the program" -- not the University as a whole, mind you -- "is successfully balancing athletic and academic success." He then goes on to site the academic success of student-athletes at Rutgers.

All this is fine and well, but what Mulcahy doesn't mention in his op-ed are the drastic cuts -- $50 million worth -- in academic programs, staff and student services (not to mention other sports), that are being felt all across the University. For Rutgers to cut so much academic funding while not cutting funding for football is bad enough. But for Rutgers officials to make the argument that the football team's success is somehow going to "help Rutgers reach its goal" of being a world-class public institution and not even address the cuts is disgusting.

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MEDIA MASSAGE: RAH FUCKING RAH!

Rutgers' football success is causing 'Scarlet Fever'; side effects include an inability to criticize the budget priorities.
By Jon Whiten

It was almost a month ago that Media Massage called your attention to a New York Times report on how "Football Brightens a Grim Year" at Rutgers. As the team continues to climb the AP rankings, the same bogus ideas keep popping up -- and you can bet your bottom dollar that it's only going to get dumber as the team continues its winning ways.

MEDIA MASSAGE: USING A 'SMEAR' TO SMEAR

CBS-2 Goes 'Behind the Scenes' With Sloppy Reporting
By Jon Whiten

Oh boy, television news is a fun place. Last night, New York City's CBS affiliate (CBS-2) gave us a piece by political reporter Marcia Kramer that was fascinating, but probably not in the way the network planned. It was a "Behind the Scenes" look at NJ's Senate race -- as anchor Jim Rosenfeld said in the piece's intro, "politics can be a dirty affair, but it's rare for the public to see exactly how one candidate tries to gain advantage over another. Tonight we take you behind the scenes to see 'The Anatomy of a Smear.'"

These types of pieces have become more common over the past decade, both on television news and in print, as reporters have finally begun to timidly grapple with political professionalism, spin from all sides, and very skilled news management from political campaigns. These segments are designed to lay the truth out on the table, in instances where one side is lying, rather than simply repeating that lie in the common "he-said, she-said" model of poltical reporting. In other words, this sub-genre of political reporting introduces real critical analysis into the reporting process, something folks of all stripes can agree is a welcome addition.

So when this analysis is faulty, filled with holes, and leads the viewer to conclusions unsupported by facts, such as CBS-2's "Anatomy of a Smear" was, it can be even more damaging than the spin and untruth in a so-called "regular" news segment. After all, this is where the public comes to see the truth laid bare, as it were.

MEDIA MASSAGE: FOOTBALL SAVES THE DAY?

By Jon Whiten

Let's get one thing clear, right off the bat: I love football. After preferring a slew of other sports for years, in the past five years or so, I've become quite the football fan. Without getting too off-track here, let me just say that the tension, drama and strategy in football is far and above any other professional sport.

But despite what the New York Times implied in a Sept. 18 story, football isn't always the answer.

MEDIA MASSAGE: EXIT WEEKLY HEADS TO THE RIGHT ON SALES TAX

Normally, North Jersey Media Group’s youth publication Exit Weekly is mostly filled with lifestyle pieces and other stories designed to reach that oh-so-coveted 18-24 demographic. We’d noticed that the majority of times the paper turned to news, it was with a heaping load of cynicism. I guess the thinking is, “the kids don’t give a shit, so why should we?” It’s much funnier and cooler not to care, or so we’ve heard.

MEDIA MASSAGE: FARMER GIVES JOE A HUG

Today in the Star-Ledger, national political correspondent John Farmer joins many of his colleagues in the mainstream press and throws his support behind Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's primary, which takes place tomorrow.

MEDIA MASSAGE: CAN THE STAR-LEDGER COUNT?

Editors' Note: Yet another regular City Belt feature makes it debut today -- Media Massage will be the spot for insightful media criticism and reporting on the New Jersey press.

In Sunday's Star-Ledger, the lead editorial, "Containing the Fire in the Middle East" took a strange tack -- it argued that the reasoning behind Israel's attack on Lebanon is false -- ie, waging war to make (or keep) peace does not work.