Today’s Star-Ledger editorial explains why fewer and fewer read it
/By Rubashov
In its editorials, the Star-Ledger has often referred to its predicament and has sadly complained about its declining readership. At the foot of everything its editorial board writes there’s a begging bowl: “Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.”
Editorials are something the Star-Ledger gives away for free. For the rare pieces of investigative journalism or in-depth news coverage – those are behind a pay wall – you need to give them money to read it. But nobody pays for the editorials.
And why would they?
The editorial board of the Star-Ledger is entirely predictable. Its writers are close-minded and lack any intellectual curiosity at all. As writers, they appear to lack the imagination to place themselves in the shoes of someone living outside the bubble they inhabit. They think in stereotypes. And they lie.
For example, in today’s offering by the editorial board, they claim it was Fox News that “fanned this whole firestorm” about school curriculum when, in fact (and as the personal testimony of parents reveals) it was the pandemic, the mandated school closings, and the consequent distance learning that did it. Parents saw what their children were learning. It was like taking a walk through the kitchen of an unhygienic restaurant. Nobody needs the media to tell you that you shouldn’t be eating there. It’s as simple as that.
If someone wanted to create a new bar game (along the lines of Quizzo) that gave players a topic and then asked them to guess the position on it taken by the editorial board of the Star-Ledger, it would be a dud. Nobody would ever fail to guess correctly. It would get boring – just like the Star-Ledger editorials.
The Star-Ledger is so predictable that it is boring even to the partisans it is trying to impress.
People enjoy reading different angles. They like an unexpected twist. That’s what makes mysteries so popular. Can anyone imagine Tom Moran as a mystery writer? What would the characters sound like in a Julie O’Connor novel? The average reader would have it figured out by page three.
We’re not sure if reading Star-Ledger editorials is a cause of dementia, but it can’t help. Maybe they should apply a warning label?
When they make an effort to get the reader’s attention, the editorial board relies on a prodigious amount of name-calling. A week or so ago, they were calling on people to travel to Pennsylvania to fight fascism. No kidding, like ISIS asks for volunteers to travel to Syria. But even after being jabbed with this fork, 99.9 percent of their readers went back to sleep. Hey, it’s not like Tom Moran is going to be there beside you when you get to Syria, er… Pennsylvania. He was just using a word he hoped would get your attention – if only for a moment.
The tone of the editorial board is a cross between a harridan, a karen, with a bit of church lady thrown in. As a rule, unpleasant, humorless, bathed in snobbery, pickled in certainty, always in a lather over something, screeching hysterically while trying desperately to remove an item unpleasantly lodged up the bunghole, and generally unhappy with life. Today’s editorial went further. It took on airs of official superiority. The editorial wasn’t only partisan, it went further and formally aligned the newspaper with the government. Now that is like Syria! Here’s what they wrote:
“Faced with the uproar over sex education in New Jersey, in which conservative critics continue to claim the state is ‘grooming’ children and stoke fears about the standards, the chair of our Senate education committee, Vin Gopal, took the high road.”
Our boys! Our flag! Our Senate education committee! By jingo!
No, it wasn’t the “high road”. It was the partisan road. It was the road of fear. There is as much “high road” in Trenton as there is “love” in rape. Everyone – from the denizens of “Trenton” to the average voter in every town and neighborhood across New Jersey – knows this. The editorial board suggesting otherwise is an insult to its readers.
The editorial board never once noticed that the legislation being pushed by “the chair of OUR Senate education committee” – Senator Vin Gopal – is in answer to a problem created by legislation that he earlier co-sponsored. And the editorial purposely obscured the controversy by focusing on the pretty words used in the language of the curriculum standards – instead of the realities of their implementation. The realities that parents saw first-hand and reacted to.
And the editorial board never noted the lack of transparency in the way Gopal’s “transparency” legislation was rolled out. In secret. In order to suppress public comment and – especially – comments from parents. He was shocked and angry when they showed up anyway.
Throughout the editorial, the Star-Ledger folks employ language in the way Pol Pot once did. It is the language in which the reality is the opposite of the words used to describe it. The word used is “transparency” but what it describes is opaque and unclear. The Star-Ledger, in common with government news organs throughout the world, promotes the literal view as opposed to the reality. It’s not a “death camp” – it is an “employment retraining center”.
Gopal lied when he claimed that the new curriculum has “nothing to do with ideology.” It is all about ideology, which is defined as “a system of ideas and ideals.” Gopal’s political allies at interest groups like Garden State Equality push their worldview, their “system of ideas and ideals.” Some would argue that aspects of it, such as the faith-based assertion that biological science can be altered by the exercise of individual will, give it a religious orientation.
There is nothing “wrong” in holding such a view, any more than it is to hold the view that water can be turned to wine or wine to blood. It is the imposition of these views that is at issue. The demand that we all have the same views and that it is the job of government to inculcate such views to all children – regardless of what their parents and taxpayers think about it. Gopal should stop lying about it. Talk about it, don’t lie about it.
But politicians like Vin Gopal never stop lying. It is their go-to drug of choice. And everybody knows this about them. And the media won’t cover that up. They can try, but they won’t.
As liars go, Vin Gopal is a politician.
