Real Progress Montclair Battle With NYT Heats Up

Peter Zorich, who ran for a council seat last month on the Real Progress Montclair slate, said that the slate, headed by mayoral candidate Karen Turner, has sent a letter to the New York Times. The letter below is to outline the slate's complaints concerning an article written by reporter Kate Zernike about Montclair on May 7, the day before the local election.

Here is that letter:

Dear Mr. Brisbane,

On the evening of May 7, the New York Times posted a story about the Montclair, New Jersey municipal election on its website.  This story subsequently ran in the May 8, print edition.  By publishing a story on the Montclair elections on the eve of voting, the New York Times intentionally inserted itself into the election and positioned itself to influence voting on May 8.  Given the timing of the article and its importance to the election, we were surprised that the New York Times editorial staff did not hold the article to the high journalistic standard for which the New York Times is known.  Instead, what was printed reflected either the reporter’s need for sensationalism and/or malicious intent.   While we object to the timing and the overall malicious nature of the article, we would like to bring the following three issues to your attention and the corrosive effect it had on the local election: 

 1.    The reporter included many factual inaccuracies to support her basic storyline. These inaccuracies could have easily been verified prior to publishing the article. It is our opinion that the reporter (who resides in Montclair) did not verify her facts because doing so would not further her own political agenda. We outline these inaccuracies below

 2.    The reporter does not disclose her own clear conflicts, which are outlined below, and she goes out of her way to distort events and takes comments out of context to leave the reader with a false impression of the campaign and at worst, exploit perceived class and race divisions in an effort to enhance her storyline as well as her own political views

 3.    The article could and should have been published in advance of the election to give the candidates adequate time to respond to the assertions before voting took place.  It is our view that the timing of the article was deliberate and in furtherance of the reporters personal and political views.

In the end, what concerns us most is that the author, Kate Zernike, a Montclair resident, wrote a misleading article that inserted political affiliations, race, and class into a non-partisan race.  She also used her article to highlight class and race issues in a way that was insidious and false, thereby doing damage to the overall election process and fueling division in our community.

In the note that follows we detail our concerns with the article and ask that the New York Times both clarify its standards with respect to the article and that it publish corrections.

 Factual inaccuracies in the article

 §  The article states that Ms. Turner called for a re-examination of school busing in Montclair.  This is incorrect. She never said this. The implication by Ms. Zernike is that Ms. Turner would dismantle Montclair’s magnet school system, which many residents hold dear.

§  The article states that Ms. Turner wants to privatize the libraries.  This is incorrect. Ms. Turner never suggested this.  She does want to pursue the possibility of public/private partnerships with technology firms, Universities like Montclair State University, and local businesses to improve programs and usage at the library, and potentially bring in new revenue.  A public library that pursues partnerships with the private sector is very different than a privatized library.  .

§  The article says Ms. Turner questioned whether Montclair should use NJ Transit instead of our magnet school bus system.  This is incorrect. Ms. Turner never advocated using the NJ transit system to transport students. Ms. Turner clearly stated in her campaign that her position was full support for the Montclair Schools system of busing as noted above.   The Montclair Board of Education did examine the idea of using the NJ Transit system as a way to reduce costs but it is in no way a position of Ms. Turner or her slate.

§  The article states that Ms. Turner was late to an NAACP debate because she “got lost”.  This is incorrect.  In fact, Ms. Turner had been to the same venue three nights earlier and was late the night of the debate because she was running behind on a busy campaign schedule.  The implication was that Ms. Turner doesn’t know her way around Montclair’s fourth ward and therefore was insensitive to and unaware of the needs of the African-American community in Montclair.  

 Inherent conflicts, distorted events and comments out of context

 §  The author of the article, Kate Zernike, is a resident of Montclair and we believe that her inaccuracies and misrepresentations demonstrate a negative bias towards or against one or more of the slates.  Nowhere in the article does Ms. Zernike disclose her residency.

§  The author highlights the debate over funding for the town-financed Pre-K and one candidate’s assertion that it might be too expensive given other options.  Ms. Zernike does not disclose that she has a child in the Pre-K and that Ms. Zernike’s husband was gathering signatures for increased funding for the Pre-K.

§  The article distorts the context of Peter Zorich’s response to Katherine Weller-Demming’s assertion that building affordable housing on the Wildwood properties (a two-acre plot in town) is a matter of “social justice.”  Ms. Zurnike leaves out that the discussion revolved around a single piece of property and implies that Mr. Zorich’s argument that “the social justice argument just doesn’t fly” applied to affordable housing in general.  Mr. Zorich fully supports affordable housing, just not on the Wildwood properties.

§  The article also makes mention of Mr. Zorich’s work for Fox News and Lou Dobbs but Ms. Zernike fails to mention his work for MSNBC and CNN.

§  The article quotes Cary Chevat who compares Ms. Turner and her slate with the Tea Party, a pejorative term in liberal Montclair, and a very inaccurate description of Ms. Turner.  The article does not identify Mr. Chevat as a party operative who had already publicly endorsed Ms. Turner’s opponent, Robert Jackson, and was likely working on Mr. Jackson’s behalf.

§  Ms. Zurnike relies on an assessment that Mr. Jackson and Harvey Susswein (a third mayoral candidate) would split the liberal vote thereby handing the election to Ms. Turner.  More thorough reporting would have uncovered that Mr. Susswein and Ms. Turner were seriously considering running together on a slate focused on fiscal responsibility and change in the town’s approach to management but couldn’t agree on the makeup of the slate.  The themes Mr. Susswein and Ms. Turner focused on during the campaign were very similar and in the end, Mr. Susswein and Ms. Turner ended up splitting the change votes.

The New York Times is a highly influential paper nationally and internationally and is extremely influential in Montclair, which is home to a number of employees of the paper and a voice of authority for many of the town’s residents.  By publishing the feature article on the eve of the election, the editorial staff made a conscious decision to influence their readers as they went to the polls.  Given the importance of this decision we are extremely disappointed in the poor standard of journalism to which Ms. Zernike held herself.  We would like to understand how this happened and see corrections published.  Finally we ask, has the New York Times ever published a story of this nature on the day of a small town municipal election, knowing full well that the story could have a dramatic influence on the outcome of that election?

 Sincerely, Karen Turner, LeeAnn Carlson, Peter Zorich, Chris Swenson

Meanwhile, another letter [below] was written by Zorich himself.

Zernike has responded to Zorich's letter. Here is her response.

Dear Mr. Zorich,

I stand by the article on the Montclair election, as I have in response to the previous letters, blog posts, and videos from your slate. Your assertions of factual error are not justified. The statements or events in question are ones I witnessed over several weeks of attending debates, interviewing, and reading responses to questionnaires, etc. The article was read, checked and double-checked, as are all Times stories, by several layers of editors who flag anything they believe is unbalanced or unanswered. If there were a belief that your slate was not given a chance to answer any points, any number of editors would have raised it.

Your allegations of bias or conflict of interest, on my part or anyone else's, are not supported by the actual facts.

I cannot understand your suggestion that someone cannot write about an election where they live because they have a stake in the outcome. If that were Journalism 101, as you say, then every news organization in America would have to use non-American citizens to cover the presidential election.

I am sorry that this argument continues, a month after the article appeared. I wish you could see the article as I did, not as a “nefarious” effort to affect a local election, but as it was clearly described, as a microcosm of the national debate on spending and taxes, and how it has shaken up the established order.

Best wishes,

Kate Zernike

June 3, 2012

Mrs. [Kate] Zernike,

I have worked in the news business for 20 years and I have to say I found your Montclair election eve article in the New York Times professionally embarrassing and personally insulting.

Your clear bias, blatant distortion of facts and outright falsehoods were egregious enough; but for the New York Times to release such an obvious hit piece the day before the vote was a clear effort by you and the Times to affect the outcome of Montclair’s municipal election.

You would think that a New York Times reporter would get some simple facts right and at least pretend to subscribe to the basic tenets of journalism. Not in this case. Consider the following:

1. You refer to Cary Chevat simply as a “local political activist” and then use his flippant remark that Real Progress Montclair is the town’s “Tea Party” faction. But you unbelievably fail to disclose that Mr. Chevat was an early advisor to our opponent Robert Jackson’s campaign, helped put his slate together and just days before the election had very publicly endorsed him. Either you were unaware of Chevat’s endorsement or you decided to not report the information. I’m not sure which would be worse. Of course, spinning a Tea Party narrative the day before the election would be terribly damaging in progressive Montclair - and that was the point.

2. You misrepresented Karen Turner’s position on Montclair’s Pre-K, falsely suggesting she wanted to cut the funding. In fact, Karen and the Real Progress Montclair slate were advocating giving MORE money to the Pre-K than the current council. Did you know that? You also failed to disclose that your own children attend the Pre-k and that your husband was actively participating in fundraising efforts for the school.

3. You falsely reported that Karen Turner wanted to privatize Montclair’s Public Library system. Exactly when and where did she say that? Karen and the Real Progress Montclair slate had discussed finding additional sources of revenue, including private/public partnerships, to help maintain current library funding levels. At no time did we advocate having a private entity take over the public library. Is that distinction too complicated for readers of the New York Times?

4. You took one of my quotes on affordable housing completely out of context leaving the impression that I am against affordable housing in general, which is categorically false. The “social justice argument doesn’t fly” comment was part of a specific discussion about the plan to put affordable housing on the Wildwood property, a plan that was highly controversial and opposed by most residents.

5. Your false claim that Karen Tuner was late to the NAACP debate because she got “lost” was an obvious attempt to reinforce political attacks made by Karen’s opponents that she is out of touch with the African-American community. Again, who told you that? Who was your source? Give me a name. You can’t. Karen had been to that exact location just days prior and was late only because of scheduling. But why let the facts get in the way when you are playing the race card? This kind of character assassination is appalling and normally reserved for anonymous blog posts.

6. Predictably you can’t write a nonsensical story about Montclair’s “Tea Party faction” without a Fox News mention. While I am proud of my 10 years at Fox, you of course make no mention of my work at MSNBC, Bloomberg or CNN (except of course if you count Lou Dobbs). That was particularly clever - Fox News, Lou Dobbs and Montclair - what doesn’t fit, right? And, no, mentioning my family’s Democratic ties does not provide sufficient balance.

7. You never mention that you live in Montclair and have a personal interest in the outcome of the election. Even a cable news guy like me knows that is Journalism 101.

It is impossible to believe that you wrote the article with a straight face or that the New York Times, by posting the article when it did, was not party to your nefarious political efforts. What a shame that you and the Times have so little respect for Montclair residents.

Next time you should ask Andrew Rosenthal to find space on the editorial page -we both know that is where this journalistic folly belonged. This is not about who won or lost the election, this is about setting the record straight.

Peter Zorich