When The Media Descended On Central Regional

This editorial might come off as strange since I’m the news editor of this publication. I read every single word in all seven newspapers we publish every week. Part of my job is to make sure that our stories are held to a certain standard.

Without naming names, due to professional courtesy, almost all of the stories I read about the Adriana Kuch tragedy had glaring errors, obvious bias, and even a lack of basic knowledge of how the world works.

I’m not going to use this platform to defend or condemn any member of the public or the school district. This is all going to be an insider’s look at how things went wrong in the media coverage.

If it bleeds, it leads: This is an unfortunate part of journalism. It’s a mantra you learn early in your

Jackson Residents Deserve Better

The open public meetings act in NJ was designed to create public access to the meetings of large government bodies at the state and local levels. NJSA10:4-6et seq section “Electronic notice requires governments to provide advance notice available to the public via electronic transmission of at least 48 hours, giving the time, date, location and to the education for this field. A bus crash is going to be on the front page, but a story about a kid doing something nice might be page 3.

That’s why so many reporters descended on Berkeley. Like sharks, they smelled blood in the water. This kind of ambulance chasing gives the rest of us a bad name. These reporters wouldn’t be able to find Berkeley on a map. And they won’t come back ever again, unless something bad happens, of course.

They might say they’re doing a good thing by shining a light on wrongdoing. But they’re not going to stay around for what happens next. They’ll have moved on to the next tragedy by then. For them, and the rest of their readers, Berkeley will be the place where this horrible thing happened and nothing more.

Bias: Most of the writers had already made their minds up by the time they arrived on extent known, the Agenda of any regular, special or rescheduled meeting which notice shall accurately state whether formal action may or may not be taken at such meeting.”

Jackson Township Council President Marty Flemming has been posting amending agendas well within the minimum 48 hour notice requirement. We have discovered that over half of the Jackson Council meetings over the last 2+ years have

We Welcome Letters To The Editor!

The Toms River Times welcomes all points of view for publication and provides this page as an open forum for residents to express themselves regarding politics, government, current events and local concerns.

All letters are printed as space allows unless deemed offensive by the editorial staff, and provided they are signed and include address & phone number for verification. Letters may not be printed if we cannot verify them. Names will not be withheld from publication.

While most letters are printed as submitted, we reserve the scene. In print, you can tell by their choice of words. On TV, you can tell by their tone of voice. They weren’t here to inform the public, they were here to condemn and play hero.

We’re human. We can’t turn our emotions off, especially about a very emotional topic. But we’re also supposed to step back from the issue and challenge our own convictions.

There was a lot of information going around, but these reporters selected which parts fit their narrative. They edited video interviews to make some people seem good and some people seem bad.

In reality, no one is a hero or a villain – not in this situation or in any other.

Being naive: I feel like a lot of these reporters need to get out of the newsroom and live life. They had no idea how the world really works. They don’t know what really happens in a school - in every school across America. Do they think online bullying is new? Do they think that violence doesn’t happen in every high school, every week of the year?

The reporters repeated rumors on Facebook assuming they were true. How can someone trained in the media have a complete lack of media literacy? There was a tornado of accusations – about the school, the family, the kids involved –and some of the reporters just took them as fact.

When the news of this tragedy first hit, the district stayed silent because it involved kids and an active investigation. Reporters said they were hiding things. Then, the superintendent tells his version of everything (which was the wrong thing to do), and reporters blasted him for sharing information about kids and an active investigation. You can’t have it both ways.

During the press conference,

Letters To The Editor

violated the 48 hour notice requirement. The majority of the amended agenda violations were posted the day of the Council meeting with some posted days after. This certainly makes it impossible for residents to determine what is going to be voted on prior to and during Council meetings.

a one-month timespan. This should not come as a surprise to us who live in New Jersey. I have lived in NJ 70 years. Living in Brick these past 50 years have shown me what chemical pollution has done to our planet Earth.

the reporters were literally shouting “what are you hiding?!” They know that the official isn’t going to suddenly open up. They shouted that for show. They were just playing up for their own cameras.

Preying on kids: The teens being interviewed were literally children. I watched as they were being paraded around, cameras shoved in their faces, told they were important, and then discarded.

One of the few rules these reporters actually managed to follow was to get names for the children speaking. This is a case that they shouldn’t have. A 14-year-old talking about cutting themselves because they’ve been bullied should not have their name in the paper for everyone to see. What do you think is going to happen to these kids when their bullies read this? Or when a future employer Googles their name? I admire these kids’ bravery, and society shouldn’t condemn mental illness, but that’s what’s going to happen.

Lack of compassion : Ultimately, all of these criticisms come back to one point: compassion. This was a horrible situation – that’s one thing everyone agrees on. However, when you craft a story, you have to have a goal in mind. What good will come of it?

Most of the articles I read didn’t care about the people involved. You could tell by the way they played up the violence of it. They loved the salacious details. They just wanted the clicks.

The reporters can say that they did all these things because they care about the children, but in reality they were just preying on a bad situation and making it worse.

Chris Lundy News Editor

Donate To

The NRA New York Attorney General Letitia James filed the lawsuit against them alleging “financial misconduct” that added up to a loss of more than $64 million over a three-year period.

In these times, when our freedoms are being taken from us right and left, it is important to support one of the only organizations that is fighting for us.

right to edit or reject letters. The weekly deadline is 5 p.m. Thursday. Mail typed letters to: PO Box 521, Lakehurst, NJ 08733, fax 732-657-7388 or e-mail news@jerseyshoreonline.com. Letters may be limited to one per month per writer at the editor’s discretion. The opinions expressed in the Letters To The Editor section do not necessarily reflect those of the staff, management or sponsors of Micromedia Publications/Jersey Shore Online. Letters to the Editor are the OPINION of the writer and the content is not checked for accuracy.

This issue was ignored when brought up at the December Council meeting and again at the February 14th council meeting. Council President Marty Flemming’s response “they will take it into consideration” is not good enough. Each violation could be subject to a $100 fine.

Raymond Cattonar Jackson

Water Pollution Is Killing The Whales

I am responding to your article in the Brick Times about the … dead whales that have washed up on the New YorkNew Jersey coastline within

One-third of our oceans are polluted and one-third of our land is polluted. It doesn’t make any difference if you live in New Jersey or California or Maine or Florida. All of our land on this planet is polluted.

Scientists have been telling us decades now that man is destroying himself by polluting the very air we breathe, causing diseases and sickness to ourselves and our families. We must stop this offshore wind development project, such as wind turbines that Governor Murphy wants to build. This does not help the environment. This causes harm to the endangered whales and the other sea creatures.

Rudy Ziadie Brick

That’s why they want to take down the National Rifle Association. They don’t want us to have our freedoms.

The attorney general in New York is suing them. They are spreading a story that (the NRA) is crooked. They want to shut them down!

The Democrats are claiming the NRA did fraud, giving money to family members instead of using it for legislation, and other stuff. Well, you know what they say – it takes one to know one!

The NRA is under attack from the outside because the left knows that it’s strong. That’s why you should donate to the NRA. Your money will go toward helping 2nd Amendment policies. It will make sure pro-2A senators and congressmen are in office making decisions for us!

Of courses this is a political attack. The NRA said it was a “baseless premeditated attack on our organization and the Second Amendment freedoms it fights to defend... we not only will not shrink from this fight – we will confront it and prevail.”

The lawsuit tried to dissolve the NRA but luckily it was blocked this time. They’ll be back again and they’ll keep trying to dissolve it time and time again.

NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre has said that the NRA’s legal troubles have cost the organization $100 million.

That’s why we need to donate to the NRA in order to keep them in the fight for us. We need to give them the strength and money to fight for us.

Steve Alben Manchester

Anti-Drug: Continued From Page 1

The governing body is all Republican, but Lamb and Rodrick are a different segment of Republicans. Maruca and the rest of the council are on the other. Generally, votes are split along these lines. For example, Lamb also voted against the introduction of an ordi -

Whale:

Continued From Page 1 asking questions,” DeVoe said. It wasn’t just these two women who helped bring attention to it. That was Valentine, a whale that got her name because she washed up in Manasquan on February 13, DeVoe said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association said this whale’s death might have been caused by getting hit by a boat. NOAA has said that there’s no direct link to the wind turbines being built off New Jersey’s shore. As climate changes, animals move to places where they can survive better. In this case, the whales’ prey has moved closer to shore, which means that the whales will follow them, and be closer to humans. They said 40% of the whales have had evidence of boat strikes or entanglement. DeVoe and other concerned citizens spoke, as did Cindy Zipf of Clean Ocean Action, Bonnie Brady of the Center for Sustainable Fisheries, Point Beach Mayor Paul Kanitra, Seaside Park Mayor John Peterson, and Congressmen Jefferson Van Drew (R-2nd) and Chris Smith (R-4th).

The whale population has been growing, and the waters are more clean than they’ve been, DeVoe said. “How can we go backwards now?” nance that would require rental properties to have lead paint inspections while the rest of the council agreed with it. The second reading and expected adoption of that ordinance would be at their March 7 meeting.

Recently, a letter was signed by 30 mayors all along the coast calling for an immediate moratorium on all offshore wind activity pending a thorough investigation by federal and state authorities. The officials represent the communities of Atlantic Highlands, Avon by the Sea, Barnegat Light, Bay Head, Beach Haven, Berkley, Brick, Brielle, Brigantine, Deal, Harvey Cedars, Linwood, Little Egg Harbor, Long Beach Township, Mantoloking, Margate City, North Wildwood, Ocean City, Point Pleasant, Point Pleasant Beach, Sea Girt, Seaside Park, Ship Bottom, Spring Lake, Stafford, Stone Harbor, Toms River, Ventnor City, Wildwood, and Wildwood Crest.

According to the letter, they are concerned that the acoustic surveys used in the windmill process could damage their senses which would hurt their feeding and migration.

The environmentalist have strange bedfellows in conservative politicians, at least with this topic. Some right wing commentators have posted conspiracy theories that the scientific community is covering up whale deaths to advance windmills. This has led to some marine mammal groups receiving threats, according to a Time article published the day before Valentine’s Day.

In other news, the township will be building pickle ball courts at Bey Lea. A contract was awarded to Sports & Tennis Construction, LLC for this project and to repair the existing tennis court. The contract is not to exceed $27,800.

Development

A few notable developments were approved by the Planning Board recently.

A 22,338-square-foot office building was approved at 277 Route 70 and a 34,080-square-foot office building was approved at 2290 Lakewood Road. Berkeley Development Group and

Jesus Is Lord Church were approved to subdivide a 15-acre site at 2250 Massachusetts Avenue into 25 lots and build a 1,700 square foot community center. The church is currently located at 2236 Massachusetts Avenue.

Three self storage buildings totaling 91,765 square feet were approved at 255 Route 37, taking up 4.34 acres. This is the area to the west of Good Friend Electric.

609.857.6000 • PO Box 211 • Lanoka Harbor, NJ

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