Score one for the Governor’s public relations team. For the last few weeks, they have been working overtime to fuel speculation Corzine was being considered as the Prez-elect’s Treasury Secretary.

While the Star Ledger was the first to report on the guv’s Treasury vetting after the election (11.05.08), more than a dozen stories ran in newspapers up and down the Garden State -- from the Herald News to the Courier Post. Other media coverage included CNBC and WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York, The Wall Street Journal, climaxing with last Friday’s Today Show appearance with Matt Lauer and MSNBC's Morning Joe.   

The Star Ledger got it right last April when it gave a thumb's-up to the NJN management plan to wean “the state's only public television station off the government dole” (Editorial 4/30/07).

The Ledger’s perspective – whose own management knows a little about diminishing revenue sources: “With Gov. Jon Corzine and legislators scouring the budget for savings on every line on every page, the NJN proposal should be embraced - wholeheartedly.”

The plan, championed by soon-to-be-ex NJN Executive Director Elizabeth Christopherson, proposed to transform NJN from a state licensed entity to a community licensed franchise.

At the time and more recently, some inside observers, off-the-record, claimed the station’s real management – the Governor and the legislature – do not have the political will to deal with the static from a unionized workforce.

In a surprise email message to all employees, Elizabeth Christopherson advised the NJN staff of her resignation as its longest-serving Executive Director, effective December 1, 2008.  

In the email released late Monday afternoon, Christopherson wrote:

“I wanted to call a staff meeting at this late hour to share the following news with you in person, but I know so many of you are getting ready for the news and working in preparation for tomorrow’s Election Day coverage.

So I am writing you this email because I want you to hear this news from me. I am scheduling a staff meeting on Wednesday at 2:30 PM., and will let you know where the meeting will be held.

It has been an extraordinary privilege to work with you at NJN and to have contributed to a mission so vital to our state. So it is with a heavy heart that I share with you that I will be resigning effective Monday, December 1, 2008.”

According to the Governor’s press secretary, Sean Darcy, the Governor was “surprised by the announcement.” Darcy stated the Governor did not ask for Christopherson’s resignation.

Tuesday night was the political equivalent of the World Series and Super Bowl. Only TV could keep up with the action and election returns.

And if you cared about the New Jersey races, NJN was the only TV station to tune to.

Get this: more than an hour after NJN had televised Democrat John Adler's acceptance speech in the state's 3rd Congressional District, NBC-10, KYW-TV and WPVI Ch. 6 over in Philly were still showing the G.O.P. candidate with the lead.  

NJN showed the Adler speech around 10:40 p.m.

“What's wrong with good old investigative reporting? Better to dig out the facts than rely on an unreliable machine.”

That’s the view of Paul LaRocque, a member of the Society of Professional Journalists’ (SPJ) Ethics Committee, who weighed in on the “first ever lie detector challenge” issued by the Star Ledger.

Although the challenge landed the Ledger in PolitickerNJ’s “Winners of the Week” spotlight, and 79% of those participating in our readers poll thought Senate President Dick Codey should hook himself up to a lie detector machine, experts in the industry saw it differently.

Although LaRocque saw nothing wrong with the media having a hand in making the news, he added: ”Lie detectors are not reliable. Any sensible candidate should refuse to take the test.”

I thought the Star Ledger got the union concessions and staff buyouts it needed to avoid putting the paper up for sale. But after watching the Ledger Live’s first-ever “lie detector challenge,” I would have sworn the Ledger had been acquired by the Trentonian.

Have we reached the point where quotes given to a news reporter may be subject to a lie detector challenge?

The recent “he-was-trying-to-pacify-me-with-money” and “not-in-a million-years” exchange between senate leaders Alex DeCroce and Dick Codey  stoked the latest flare-up controversy over the Democrats’ $120 million give-away grant program.

The real issue in this round is whether the Ledger’s lie detector challenge is a stunt designed to make some news or is it an appropriate role for the Fourth Estate?

Playing off Thursday’s Philadelphia Inquirer headline, New Jersey’s newspapers can’t exactly wash their hands of the “business as usual” culture that allowed the so-called ‘MAC account’ to flourish for two years.

If you look at past news stories about the MAC accounts, a.k.a. Property Tax Assistance and Community Development Fund, the coverage did not exactly live up to Woodward and Bernstein standards.

Case in point.  Daily reporting coming out of Wayne Bryant’s federal corruption trial would now leave readers to believe that nobody in state government had final responsibility for overseeing the distribution of more than $120 million in ad hoc budget funds. That’s contrary to how it was once reported.

At times over the last two weeks, the testimony offered by one witness even contradicted what he had previously told reporters.

So it raises the question, how was the slush fund characterized by the press in past reporting?

The NJ 101.5 radio debate scheduled later this month was one Frank Lautenberg quickly agreed to - in fact his campaign was the first to confirm its participation.

Could it be that Lautenberg isn't really "ducking debates" as Zimmer charged and the media reported?  Or is it that Millennium Radio's flagship station has matured from Animal House to "Meet the Press" standing in New Jersey politics?

"We'd like to think if someone is running for statewide political office, it's become a right of passage to appear on our station," offered Eric Scott, the station's news director.  "We've done a debate in every major political race over the last 15 years.

One of those debates featured a no-show Lautenberg, with his opponent Doug Forrester debating an empty chair. 

The station also believes it has the best format for these face-offs and offers the "only true debate" during the election cycle.

In the studio the candidates have no choice but to get up close - - and sometimes, personal - - with Scott serving as ringmaster.

If you missed the first presidential debate you probably relied on the media to tell you who won.  

BTW, you're not alone. TV audiences for presidential debates have been shrinking for more than two decades. McCain-Obama Round 1 drew 30 million fewer viewers as compared to the Carter-Reagan debate in 1980.

These days the media relies on instant national polls to proclaim a winner.  

Often when a reporter uses phrases like "declined to answer questions", "had no comment for this article", and "did not respond to requests for an interview", it's usually not good for the person the story is about. 

At least it did not bode well for those who refused to answer questions posed by The Record's Jeff Pillets in a series of articles he wrote about EnCap that has recently earned him accolades from his peers.  The EnCap series was also "selected as a finalist in the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting," (The Record, 8/22/08).

So it seems like a double standard when North Jersey Media Group Vice-President/Editor Frank Scandale declined to confirm or deny any investigation of Pillets by the New Jersey State Police for allegedly swiping some documents from the Department of Environmental Protection.

Instead Scandale punted PolitickerNJ.com's inquires to the Attorney General Office's who also declined to comment. 

But of course.  That's standard operating procedure for law enforcement folks.  It's not for a newspaper organization.