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TAP Into Another Town’s News:

When our parents, Cort and Nancy Parker, bought The Bernardsville News in 1957, just about the only interstate highway in New Jersey was the New Jersey Turnpike.

But as reporters for the Newark News, then the state’s largest and most influential newspaper, they were aware of plans to build out a whole network of interstates that would, among other things, open up the bucolic farmland of Morris, Somerset and Hunterdon counties to development.

They knew that Bernardsville and surrounding communities, where Dad’s extended family had deep roots, would not remain idyllic, semi-rural hamlets for much longer.

Dad was 36, Mom 28, with three kids under age five and a fourth on the way. They were idealistic and energetic, and the thought of playing a role in how these communities handled the onslaught of suburbia spoke to their post-World War II idealism about “Big D” democracy and “being useful.”

Forty years later, when they both officially retired from the papers, Dad was characteristically modest in his remarks about how that all worked out. “I would say that we had mixed results in helping shape events” he acknowledged, but “we tried to do our part” which as he saw it – and as Liz and I continue to see it – is primarily to cover local government, without fear or favor.

Early Growth

After more than a decade of intense focus on improving editorial quality, accompanied by increasingly worrisome financial losses, the papers began to break even, but only after Dad acted on the advice of a sage family elder who introduced him to the concept of “economies of scale.”

In the newspaper world, circa 1970, that meant expanding your coverage area and producing more newspapers to keep the expensive press equipment from sitting idle.

And so the Recorder Publishing Co. expanded into Hunterdon, northern Morris and eventually western Essex counties. Savvy and loyal advertisers like Jim Weichert, the Turpin family, the Welsh Jeep dealership, and the late Steve Kalafer of Flemington Ford played a big role in our survival and eventual success.

More importantly, so did a dedicated staff of employees, led by Jim Parks and Lois Martin. Many of our colleagues have worked with us for more than 30 years. Linda Campbell and Phil Nardone have worked at the papers for more than 50.

It was an all-consuming life for our parents, and Mom began to refer, only half in jest, to our house just up the road from headquarters as the “office annex.”

While Dad was shining a flashlight on the sometimes too-cozy relationship between some town officials and local real estate developers, Mom was developing what used to be known as the women’s pages into a powerhouse must-read section of the newspaper.

And she was cultivating a roster of well-educated, civic minded friends, such as Rachel Mullen and Marian Mundy, as book reviewers, food columnists, art critics and humor columnists.

Our parents were a real team, and Liz and I to this day marvel at what they accomplished during their stewardship.

For their four children, it was hard not to notice the excitement in their life, a true business and marital partnership. Unlike a lot of our friends who could not begin to explain what their father did for a living, we could: “Dad comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable.”

So it’s hardly surprising that two of their four children made the newspapers their life’s work.

Our Generation

Liz and I, who had both worked at the paper in various capacities growing up, came back to the business from different angles.

While I had been editor of my high school and college newspapers, Mom and Dad encouraged me after college to check out the business side of things, an area where they felt underprepared. So, dutifully, I got my master’s degree in business administration with a focus on media management.

Liz had considered law school while working after college at a small daily newspaper in Ohio. But when the powerhouse Asbury Park Press called, she jumped at the opportunity – and became known as the Mayor Slayer along the Jersey Shore for her investigative pieces back in the late 70s.

Liz came back to the papers first, in 1982, in response to the retirement of Art Swanson, the papers’ long-time managing editor. I still had a few more wild oats to sow in NYC and, after five years on Wall St. evaluating other managers’ performance, heeded Dad’s call for help on the business side and came aboard in 1988, full of ideas about how to expand into what were then real growth markets.

Some pretty savvy businessmen also saw those opportunities, and we had quite a time of it fighting off the Forbes operation and other very well-financed competitors.

But our readers, advertisers, and colleagues were loyal to us, and hold them off we did. We doubled the size of the business during the next decade and into the early 2000s. We went from 6 to 14 paid newspapers during this period.

The advent of the internet and social media proved to be a more daunting, if less personal, challenge.

And coincident with the hollowing out of our local downtowns wreaked by the rise of the digital platforms as well as Amazon, the primary engine of our local economy, the residential real estate market, essentially flatlined for almost 20 years.

We were no longer a growth company in a growing state looking for new markets while fending off deep-pocketed competitors. Instead, by the time of Superstorm Sandy in 2012, we were a “dead tree” business coping with a lousy state economy, fighting to survive hurricanes, floods, as well as the internet.

Keeping An Eye

On The Ball

That ordeal started over a decade ago. But, unlike a lot of other newspapers in New Jersey, we’ve survived, because we stuck to our knitting. Sending a reporter to cover town meetings week in and week out is expensive, and many of our daily newspaper brethren, looking to cut costs, gutted their editorial staffs.

They justified those cuts by citing numerous reader surveys purporting to show that “no one cares about local government.” Readers were said to prefer more “soft” news – i.e more news of the Kardashians! But it turns out that social media can satisfy that particular need, and at lower cost.

And the dailies’ circulation has vanished – along with the promise of digital advertising that fueled the hopes and dreams of online newspaper start-ups.

Thanks to some judicious outsourcing of production functions and the loyalty of our readers and subscribers –and the support of a tremendously dedicated and understanding staff – we’ve been able to stay focused on our core mission.

In almost all our communities, we are now the only news organization consistently covering local government and school boards; we are the proverbial “last man standing.”

Despite those infamous reader surveys, it turns out that enough civic-oriented people do want to know about their schools, their government, and their taxes. They want that news on a regular basis, not sporadically. And they want their newspaper to play it straight, with equal opportunity provided for both sides of an argument.

Most importantly, enough people are willing to pay for that service so we can keep the presses rolling — for which we are mightily grateful! By the way, most people do still prefer to read their newspaper in print, although we offer everything on digital platforms as well.

If Liz and I were 20 years younger, we would continue the good fight – but time is a thief, and a year or two ago we discovered that we are no longer young. We also discovered that the pool of buyers for our newspapers was, and is, distinctly unappealing.

So-called vulture capitalists like Alden Capital, which is operated by a recent graduate of the nearby Pingry School, have a role to play in capitalism – but not community journalism.

We did not want to sell to a hedge fund that would strip the company of its cash flow and then discard the carcass before heading on to the next acquisition.

Newspapers are a quasi-public utility, certainly a public trust, with a unique role in our democracy, particularly now when local elected officials can be a bulwark against the national polarization that is threatening to tear our democracy apart.

No one truly ever owns a good newspaper; at best you get to be its custodian, a steward of a community trust.

Liz and I hope you agree that our family has been a good steward for the past 65 years. We have certainly worked hard to gain and retain your trust.

Like our parents, we too have tried to “do our part,” to cover these wonderful local communities without fear or favor.

We are passing the baton of stewardship to the Corporation for New Jersey Local Media and we are confident that they, too, will have a good run!

What is happiness? It’s where we want to be but do we really know exactly what it is? Wouldn’t it be great if it were something we could teach our children?

That’s what’s happening at Centenary University and in just two weeks they have received over 130 applications from people looking to master the field of “happiness” with the world’s first Master of Arts in Happiness Studies this October in a fully virtual format.

What exactly is happiness? How exactly do we get there? Is happiness the default we end up at if we solve all our problems? Is it our favorite food at every meal? Is it love? Is it a warm gun like the Beatles sang?

There’s an old song from the play “No No Nannette” that goes “I wanna be happy but I won’t be happy till I make you happy too.” Does our happiness really depend on whether someone else is happy? I hope not because it’s hard enough in today’s world to make you happy, let alone someone else.

In order to make someone else happy, don’t you have to be happy first? Like when you’re on a plane and the masks drop you’re supposed to secure air for yourself and then take care of your loved ones. Before you can make anyone else happy, you’ve got to be happy yourself.

So how do we do it? Centenary University is going to try to teach us how. But we shouldn’t have to wait until we’re college age.

Happiness if it can be defined and taught needs to be taught as early as pre-school. Forget critical race theory and standardized testing which can be dealt with in other posts, if happiness is what we want for our children, then let our schools show them not only what it is, but how to get there.

On the other hand, while we’re waiting for that we can make some time through the drudge and aggregation that sometimes is our day and our lives to focus on what it takes to make us happy. Once that goal is set and defined, we can find a way to get there.

Then and only then, like when the masks drop on the plane, can we make you happy too.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Steve Trevelise only. Follow him on Twitter @realstevetrev.

You can now listen to Steve Trevelise — On Demand! Discover more about New Jersey’s personalities and what makes the Garden State interesting . Download the Steve Trevelise show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now:

What is happiness? It’s where we want to be but do we really know exactly what it is? Wouldn’t it be great if it were something we could teach our children?

That’s what’s happening at Centenary University and in just two weeks they have received over 130 applications from people looking to master the field of “happiness” with the world’s first Master of Arts in Happiness Studies this October in a fully virtual format.

What exactly is happiness? How exactly do we get there? Is happiness the default we end up at if we solve all our problems? Is it our favorite food at every meal? Is it love? Is it a warm gun like the Beatles sang?

There’s an old song from the play “No No Nannette” that goes “I wanna be happy but I won’t be happy till I make you happy too.” Does our happiness really depend on whether someone else is happy? I hope not because it’s hard enough in today’s world to make you happy, let alone someone else.

In order to make someone else happy, don’t you have to be happy first? Like when you’re on a plane and the masks drop you’re supposed to secure air for yourself and then take care of your loved ones. Before you can make anyone else happy, you’ve got to be happy yourself.

So how do we do it? Centenary University is going to try to teach us how. But we shouldn’t have to wait until we’re college age.

Happiness if it can be defined and taught needs to be taught as early as pre-school. Forget critical race theory and standardized testing which can be dealt with in other posts, if happiness is what we want for our children, then let our schools show them not only what it is, but how to get there.

On the other hand, while we’re waiting for that we can make some time through the drudge and aggregation that sometimes is our day and our lives to focus on what it takes to make us happy. Once that goal is set and defined, we can find a way to get there.

Then and only then, like when the masks drop on the plane, can we make you happy too.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Steve Trevelise only. Follow him on Twitter @realstevetrev.

You can now listen to Steve Trevelise — On Demand! Discover more about New Jersey’s personalities and what makes the Garden State interesting . Download the Steve Trevelise show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now:

SUMMIT — A retired drama teacher and theater director was indicted by a grand jury on charges he sexually assaulted six male students between 2003 and 2017.

Ronald E. Wells, 70, of Summit, was initially charged in June with molesting a student at the Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School while he modeled costumes, according to Union County Prosecutor William A. Daniel.

During the investigation, several former students came forward reporting incidents that went back as far as 2003, according to Daniel.

Wells is now charged with one count of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, two counts of second-degree sexual assault, four counts of third-degree aggravated criminal sexual contact and six counts of third-degree endangering the welfare of a child.

All of the students were between the ages of 12 and 14 at the time of their assaults.

Wells retired at the end of the 2017-18 school year, according to the school district.

Daniel said Wells is currently on pre-trial release pending his post-indictment arraignment in Union County Superior Court on April 18.

Anyone with information about these or similar cases should call Summit police at 908-277-9380.

Dan Alexander is a reporter for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach him at dan.alexander@townsquaremedia.com

Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.

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MONTCLAIR — A deadly crash involving a bicyclist and NJ Transit train in Montclair killed a highly-regarded media critic — as identified by such celebrity admirers as Jon Stewart and Hillary Clinton.

Eric Boehlert, 57, had written for Rolling Stone, Billboard, Salon and Media Matters, as well as founding PressRun.Media. He was a frequent commentator on such cable news channels as MSNBC and CNN.

The fatal incident happened Monday around 9:40 p.m., near Montclair’s Watchung Avenue station, as reported by Montclair Local.

Montclair-Boonton Line rail service was suspended in both directions for a stretch of time following the incident.

The identity of the bicyclist remained under investigation as of Wednesday, according to an NJ Transit spokesperson. However, the news of Boehlert’s passing spread quickly across Twitter.

“Rest In Peace Eric Boehlert. Greatly admired his passion and tenacity,” Stewart said on Twitter.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hilliary Clinton also tweeted, “Eric Boehlert’s death is terrible news. I’m devastated for his family and friends and will miss his critical work to counteract misinformation and media bias. What a loss.”

Fellow journalist, Soledad O’Brien called the loss ‘crushing news.’

She sent condolences to Boehlert’s wife and children, and called the fallen author “a fierce and fearless defender of the truth.”

Boehlert did a Media Matters interview with Montclair State University in 2014, as seen below:

Erin Vogt is a reporter and anchor for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach her at erin.vogt@townsquaremedia.com

Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.

NJ Diners that are open 24/7

Media critic and journalist Eric Boehlert has died following a bike accident in New Jersey. He was 57.

“Rest In Peace Eric Boehlert,” tweeted Jon Stewart. “Greatly admired his passion and tenacity.”

Hillary Clinton tweeted that she is “devastated for his family and friends and will miss his critical work to counteract misinformation and media bias. What a loss.”

The Press Run founder and editor, who lived in New Jersey, was remembered by broadcast journalist Soledad O’Brien as “a fierce and fearless defender of the truth.”

“Adored his kids Jane and Ben, his dogs, biking and running and basketball and good friends,” wrote O’Brien in a Twitter thread. “Eric was an amazing friend. He fought to rescue journalism and democracy, which need saving. … Brutal to bad media on twitter, sweetest guy in real life. A terrible loss. We’ve lost an awesome human being, handsome/cool/witty dude who kicked ass on our behalf.”

MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell called Boehlert’s passing “deeply tragic.”

“Eric was brilliant and relentless,” he tweeted.

Boehlert previously worked for Billboard, Media Matters, Rolling Stone and Salon.

“We are heartbroken to share that our beloved friend and former colleague Eric Boehlert has passed away,” Media Matters said in a statement shared via Twitter. “His passing is a real loss for truth and will leave a void in the broader media landscape.”

“This is an awful loss,” tweeted author Mark Harris. “Eric Boehlert was a remarkable and staunch advocate for greater honesty in the press, a remarkable Twitter presence, and a man of conscience who knew how to call bull—- and who to call it on. Condolences to all who knew him.”

“Stunned by the news @EricBoehlert has passed away,” tweeted journalist Aaron Rupar. “I was just reading him yesterday and cited something he wrote in my newsletter. we can never take tomorrow for granted.”

Reports say Boehlert was fatally struck by an NJ Transit train in Montclair, an incident NJ Transit confirmed to the Daily News. A train struck a male cyclist Monday at about 9:40 p.m. in the Essex County township, about 20 miles northwest of New York City, NJ Transit told The News; it was unable to confirm the identity of the victim.

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Montclair police did not immediately respond to The News’ request for comment.

Boehlert is survived by his wife, Tracy, and two children.

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