>https://www.ridgewoodrepublicanclub.org/weblog/index.php
The Ridgewood News, a smaller, less important rag of the leftist North Jersey Media Group, declared war on the Ridgewood Blog (www.theRidgewoodBlog.blogspot.com) today. Dismissing the proprietor of that website and it’s posters as a bunch of anti government grumblers, the Ridgewood News promoted its own version of a blog. The promotion of their own blog underlines the real reason for the attack. The Ridgewood News is losing circulation to the bloggers and ad dollars are very dependent on circulation numbers. And another problem that is worrisome to the Ridgewood News is the fact that the Ridgewood Blog scooped them on a number of issues. The blog uses the input of the entire community instead of a small set of reporters looking for a story (and usually missing the elephant in the room). Having those types of resources is priceless and the paper knows it.The Ridgewood News editorial writer delighted in the fact that the Ridgewood Blog was banned from the computers of village hall. They pointed out that this did not surprise them as the blog used “anonymous” postings from people. Sadly, the paper missed the point again. Anonymous or not, a lot of people are upset with the way the village is being handled. Dismissing the posters as a bunch of anonymous crack pots misses the real story. Oh and by the way, the editorial in the Ridgewood News was unsigned.So the battle is joined. On the one hand is old media, with an ever shrinking stream of revenue and readers on one side, and new media emerging and engaging the public in a way that the news papers could never do. The real issue here is control of information. The Ridgewood News is no longer the only game in town. And if it keeps this attitude up, it won’t be in town much longer.
>From the 4/28/06 Ridgewood News editorial: “A posting made yesterday morning claimed that access to the blog from Village Hall had been blocked; if this is true . . . ” “If?” Duh? Why didn’t the editor have one of her staff telephone the Village Manager or Village Hall IT Director to verify or deny the claim instead of insinuating the information might be bogus? That’s the Ridgewood News’ biggest failure; no effort is made to follow up on leads. Blocking the Ridgewood Blog from Village Hall computers is a huge story. Has there been any other non-pornographic oriented web site blocked at Village Hall on orders from the Village Manager? Instead of putting this breaking story on the front page where it belongs, the Ridgewood News’ editor relegated it a line item mention in her contentious editorial. What a way to run a newspaper!
>You’ll never see the extreme leftists at the North Jersey Media Group condem pornography unless that pornography is banned from public librarys.
As is usual, the Ridgewood News missed two big stories here – that people are very upset with the way the village is being run and that government is attempting to stifle free speech.
On the first count, the Ridgewood News and it’s parent company the North Jersey Media Group is quite content with the way thing are. Being toadies for the power structure has it’s benefits.
On the second count, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Ridgewood News would hollar from the roof tops if the village manager banned their rag from village hall.
The paper is losing circulation and is desparate to regain it’s glory days by disparaging other voices in the village. Their sad attempt to maintain control over the flow of information has ended with new voices that have been surpressed by the paper for years.
And one more note – if you noticed the paper refered to Mr. Hutton in glowing terms. Has this paper ever exposed any of the scandals that this board of education or city hall ever stepped in? A 77 million dollar education budget and everything is just fine? Spare me the nonsense please. The dark fiber issue, the artificial turf issue, the constant attempt to take ratables off line to make way for “open space” the reelection of Mark Bombace, the man who tried to sell off pieces of property to valley hospitl as president and king of the BOE – are all scandals in the making – and the ridgewood news – asleep at the switch.
>I read the editorial in question. I interpreted ito say that while so many people have complaints, nobody seems to want to step up and run for office, where they might actually channel their discontent into constructive change.
As Mark Twain said, everybody talks about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it.
It’s amazing how some people can’t take leave of their own agendas long enough to comprehend what they’re reading.
>yes I love Mark Twain also
>”…nobody seems to want to step up and run for office…”
If you read the editorial and knew what was happening in the town you would know that the editorial was off base – there is challenger running against the incumbents but you would never know that from the Ridgewood News. As a news outlet, they’re worthless because their assumption – that no one is willing to step up – is false.
In this municiple election and the last two board of ed elections there have always been challengers. But you wouldn’t know that if you read the Ridgewood News – only letters to the editor written by members of the community have revealed that there are challengers running.
Covering elections, identfying issues and interviewing candidates takes work. We are less than eight days away from the election -does anyone know anything about the challenger?
>Both the Republican Club’s responses and the Blog proprietor’s come off as a tad defensive, no?
I saw nothing disparaging or dismissive of the Blog at all. It was about a “humdrum election season” in which only a couple of village residents decided to put their moneybags where their mouths are. Meanwhile the Blog was used as evidence that there’s a lot of dissatisfaction and unrest in the community…but you’d practically never know it when election filing time comes around.
That said, if some people who post on this blog read a bit between the lines of the editorial and found themselves being called busybodies, bellyachers, armchair quarterbacks or perhaps even outright cowards…the article came nowhere near saying any of those things. But, hey, if the Kenneth Coles fit…
P.S. How many of you would have known about the Oral Cop-ulation story you so love to comment about if you hadn’t read about it in that “leftist,” “rah-rah” “rag”?
P.P.S. As to the very existence of a “Republican Club” in a town with non-partisan elections…could that organization be any more irrlelvant? (I don’t care whose elephant it is!)
P.P.P.S. The Ridgewood Blog doesn’t need “rescuing.” It could, however, use a little balance.
>sallymiddle, how did you manage to read the editorial inside the newspaper and miss the council candidates story on the FRONT PAGE of the same issue?!?!?
>One challenger for two council seats. Sounds like a political groundswell to me!