WyBlog

Why I should cancel my subscription to the Star-Ledger, and why I can't

We only have one major newspaper for our area of New Jersey — the Newark Star-Ledger. They're the last guy standing (teetering, actually) after all the other dailies went the way of the dodo bird. And they've always been unabashedly knee-jerk liberal, and politically correct to a fault although they generally saved their editorializing for the editorial pages.

But now that Tom Moran has taken over running the show the Ledger has really gone whole hog into the loony-left fringe. Tom Moran loves him Teh Ghey. Whenever 2 or more gay guys get together to whinge about whatever it is that gay guys whinge about, a Star-Ledger reporter is there, and we get to read about it on page 1.

If I wanted to read the Village Voice, I'd subscribe to the Village Voice. Which would at least get me the benefit of reading Nat Hentoff, a guy who actually has original thoughts, unlike Bob Braun or Paul Mulshine or Tom Moran whose mindsets ossified during the Eisenhower administration.

These past few weeks they've really kicked the advocacy masquerading as news agenda into high gear because Ray Lesniak is determined to add New Jersey to the legacy of Sodom and Gomorrah. Every day they print at least one, and sometimes a baker's dozen, of advocacy pieces touting the cause of gay "marriage".

Enough already! How's about a little news with your cheerleading?

I cringe every morning when I open the paper, wondering if today is the day Moran moves the "men seeking men" ads from the classified section to the front page.

So, why don't I cancel my subscription?

Well, they're the only game in town. Sure there's the Bergen Record, North Jersey's only other paper, but they don't have any Essex County presence. As minimal as the Ledger's coverage of Caldwell is, it still outshines the rubbish printed by our weekly town paper (named The Progress but almost always referred to as "The Regress" around town).

And the Ledger still has decent sports coverage. Their sports section is miraculously free of the Frank-Rich-effect (injecting political allusions into everything from restaurant reviews to birth announcements like The New York Times does every day). It's football season and their sports writers cover the Jets better than anybody else.

Finally, there is a third reason to keep home delivery of the Ledger — they're the only source for a type of information that's sadly necessary for folks my age. Obituaries. For the most part the funeral home racket does not post death notices online, and for those that do the listings aren't conveniently collated in one place. Even the obituary section on NJ.com doesn't include all the obits printed in the paper. I guess they charge extra for the online posting and some families don't pay for it.

So Star-Ledger, you and I have a love-hate relationship (well, maybe more like a "hate-need relationship"). Besides, if I don't have a morning paper, what am I gonna read in the can?

Posted at 11:28 by Chris Wysocki   []   Comments | Archived | Perm Link |
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