The end of The Star-Ledger’s print edition will also reportedly include layoffs… including its editorial board (including editor Tom Moran) and conservative columnist Paul Mulshine.
The company didn’t name them specifically but said “all employees.” They’re the remaining editorial employees at the Star-Ledger corporate entity.
— Matt Friedman (@MattFriedmanNJ) October 30, 2024
On a related note (I’ll explain in a minute), news of SL’s decision to clean house following the decision of multiple major news publications including the LA Times and Washington Post to skip endorsing a presidential candidate in 2024.
“One of the problems of the old legacy media is that many buried their heads in the sand and ignored massive changes in their industry to their detriment,” New Jersey Globe editor (and ex-SL paper boy) David Wildstein opined on X. That’s undeniably true, but that’s only part of the story.
Paul Mulshine has generated some solid content over the years. He’s welcome to write here if he’d like.
Don’t feel bad for Tom Moran. At all.
He’s an asshole, sure, but it’s worse than that, Save Jerseyans. Far-Left activists masquerading as journalists have ruined journalism. In doing so, hacks like Tom have contributed to the divisions roiling our nation.
Newspapers used to avoid taking controversial stands in favor of keeping advertisers happy. They focused instead on… well, reporting the news. As journalists emerged from colleges increasingly radicalized, and the rise of “new media” and social media created new fearsome competition, legacy papers like the Ledger suddenly went all-in on preaching to a devoted but shrinking choir of fellow far-Left consumers instead of finding innovative ways to produce a better news-faithful product.
Surprise! Pinning one’s hopes for the future on white liberals who aren’t reproducing was an anti-growth business model after all. If it was anything else, then Tom Moran wouldn’t be out of a job.
Few will now mourn the man who helped destroy a once legendary daily paper, least of all the politicians and their campaigns whose only sin was failing to kiss Moran’s ass and/or align with his worldview:
Here’s the last on the record comment I will have ever sent to the Star Ledger Editorial Department and @tomamoran. Wonder why they didn’t print it… https://t.co/x6CObxOYdJ pic.twitter.com/dyAb1tFULU
— Harrison Neely (@HarrisonNeely) October 30, 2024
We’re all better off without Tom Moran and his ilk. So is journalism itself.
Newspaper owners like Jeff Bezos (WashPo) and Patrick Soon-Shiong (LA Times) may understand this, at least to an extent.
“We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement,” Amazon’s Bezos opined in an editorial explaining his paper’s decision. “Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.”
Here’s hoping whatever comes next for NJ.com is more reflective of Bezos’s attitude than that the ex-editorial board chief who helped doomed his own paper to irrelevance.