To casual News 12 viewers—no jokes about the tens of them—Jim McQueeny appears as a fulltime newscaster, especially when he has served as a moderator for partisan political debates. But unlike other news analysts, he pays the mortgage working for clients actively wheeling and dealing in Jersey politics. His firm, Winning Strategies, has an extensive list of corporate and public clients. This creates an actual conflict: he books quests for his weekly cable TV show and asks questions without a full disclosure to viewers that he is a lobbyist.

READ THE POLITICKERNJ.COM 2007 YEAR-END REVIEW

Jim McQueeny is many things to many people. Only I'm not so sure the media always portrays him that way. In some cases, they may actually be contributing to the distortion.

Let’s start with his “unabashed fan” admiration for Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) that he touted in his Star-Ledger op-ed on Tuesday. In his own words, McQueeny told the readers he “served in the 1980s as his spokesman and state chief of staff and also regularly continuing to break bread with him ever since.” But the relationship is really much deeper than that.

Jim McQueeny is many things to many people. Only I'm not so sure the media always portrays him that way. In some cases, they may actually be contributing to the distortion.

Let’s start with his “unabashed fan” admiration for Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) that he touted in his Star-Ledger op-ed on Tuesday. In his own words, McQueeny told the readers he “served in the 1980s as his spokesman and state chief of staff and also regularly continuing to break bread with him ever since.” But the relationship is really much deeper than that.

Over the years, the Star-Ledger has sourced McQueeny as “a longtime Lautenberg adviser” and “longtime friend”. In 2002, the Ledger and The Record both reported on McQueeny’s high profile role in Lautenberg’s campaign inner circle. No one knows for sure what role he’ll be play during the current election cycle.

Whether or not you believe the Ledger adequately disclosed the Lautenberg-McQueeny relationship at the end of the op-ed piece, I for one think McQueeny disclosed himself.

That said, let’s move on to News12 New Jersey.

McQueeny calls himself a ”television political analyst” for the station. Well he’s certainly qualified for the job. That’s not the problem.

To casual viewers, McQueeny likely appears as a full-time newscaster, particularly when he has served as a moderator for partisan political debates. But unlike other news analysts, he pays the mortgage working for clients actively wheeling and dealing in Jersey politics.