The people of Trenton are fortunate to live in a city with two colleges, two hospitals with 24/7 emergency rooms, and two newspapers that cover local government, education, and sports. Some local politicians, however, are taking direct aim at one of these blessings.
By a 4-2 vote, the Trenton City Council is taking the legally mandated advertisement of their proposed and official government actions, commonly called legal ads, away from The Trentonian. This move threatens the newspaper’s economic base. Council members behind this are not masking their selfish motives. They say it is because they don’t like The Trentonian’s reporting.
The New Jersey Press Association and the New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists strongly condemn the action of the Trenton City Council to withdraw legal advertising from The Trentonian. The Council’s action is a direct attack on the public’s right to know what goes on in City Hall and sets a dangerous precedent that tax dollars can openly be manipulated for political gain.
This year, the Trentonian’s reporters won awards from the NJ Society of Professional Journalists for digging deep into public records. The newspaper has won numerous NJ Press Association awards in recent years and has a Pulitzer Prize in its long history. If Trenton’s politicians don’t like what they’re reading in the newspaper, perhaps they should heed the words of Lt. Governor Sheila Oliver, who stated in a 2019 budget hearing that “Petty backfighting and politicism that is going on in Trenton City Hall must cease, and it must cease immediately…We are all adults. We all have a job to do.”
In our democracy, politicians may criticize newspapers all they want. That’s the beauty of the First Amendment and free speech. But those same politicians cannot use tax dollars to suppress the First Amendment press coverage they don’t like.
There are still many places in New Jersey served by more than one publication. Many get significant revenue from legal advertising, the majority of which is paid for by private individuals and businesses, funneled through municipalities. Must these newspapers now alter their reporting to the whims of the politicians they cover? Will reporters ask the tough questions, when the consequence can be economic blows that will lead to further layoffs among already depleted staffs?
What is legal advertising? These are the public notices you see about foreclosures, hearings, ordinances, and other government activities. After a flirtation with merely putting them online, the NJ Legislature chose to keep them in newspapers. This is in line with the trend back to printed paper ballots; the whole point of legal advertising is to create an unalterable record that the public can see — and can’t be changed online after the fact so a politician can alter reality to fit his or her agenda. Many newspapers do ensure legal ads reach as many people as possible by posting them on their websites and at the NJPA’s NJPublicnotices.com. But these are sites run by newspapers and the Press Association, not politicians.
The Council must keep politics out of legal ads and reinstate the ads in The Trentonian so that its readers can continue to monitor the actions of their local government.
NJ Society of Professional Journalists & NJ Press Association
