Corzine Administration response to manipulated image of the Governor in Sunday’s Asbury Park Press

TRENTON – Corzine Chief of Staff Bradley Abelow today released the below open letter to the editors of the Asbury Park Press in response to a fictionalized and manipulated image of Governor Jon S. Corzine that appeared on the front page of their Sunday edition. To view the front page image, courtesy of the Newseum, click here:  http://www.newseum.org/media/dfp/pdf25/NJ_APP.pdf

An open letter to the editors of the Asbury Park Press:

Discussion and debate are critical in the formation of public policy, and often the information to fuel that debate comes from fair and objective offerings from the free press. That being said, I feel that many readers of the Asbury Park Press share my view that you did the readers – and your own reporters – a tremendous disservice with the accompanying fictionalized image in Sunday’s story, “Hocking the Highways.”

While working with photo editing software may be a useful tool for assembling gag photos or correcting minor imperfections, using it to manipulate the Governor - any governor - into a sinister character is not what we would expect from a responsible media organization.

As we enter the important debate on how best to restructure New Jersey’s finances to better serve the public, the free press must do so without their own opinion or agenda. Images that are nothing more than editorial cartoons morphed into photographs are fine – for the editorial page. But placement of such images on the front page of the Sunday edition demonstrates a blatant disregard for objective reporting. For that, I believe you owe your readers an apology and a renewed commitment to presenting the facts in an unbiased, straightforward manner rather than telling them what they should think.

Sincerely,

Bradley Abelow

Chief of Staff

New Jersey Office of the Governor

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Photos and audio and video clips from Governor Corzine's public events are available in the Governor's Newsroom section on the State of New Jersey web page, http://www.nj.gov/governor/news/