InsiderNJ’s Fred Snowflack Provides Slanted Coverage of the Culture Wars — Joining Others in the NJ Press Corps

Looks like more slanted coverage of the culture wars by the NJ press corps.  This time it’s InsiderNJ’s Fred Snowflack.  We’re starting to see a pattern.  

In his piece “Judicial Integrity and the Culture Wars,” Snowflack has this lede: “Sexualization of children … lies by the parent’s rights lobby … astonishment in Hanover.”  The clear implication is that the parent’s rights side — the “conservative” side, as Snowflack says — in the culture wars is lying.

And, lo and behold, Snowflack believes the “liberal” (his word) side is telling the truth.  He approvingly cites a New Jersey Public Education Coalition (NJPEC) digital ad, deeming it a “public service announcement” and thereby implying that the NJPEC ad was providing valuable, truthful information to the NJ public.

This is where Snowflack got his “lies from the parent’s lobby” lede.  He reports that the NPEC ad opens with “Do you like being lied to?”  Snowflack declares the point is obvious: “conservatives are as wrong as can be when they say the majority of parents oppose the state’s health curriculum.”  Apparently, NJPEC filed open records requests asking how many parents opted their kids out of sex ed classes, and in the 25% of school districts that responded, only 3% of parents had opted their kids out.  He then draws from this narrow (and likely unverified) data point his sweeping conclusion that conservatives are lying in the culture wars.

But how can Snowflack draw such a sweeping conclusion about the culture wars without noting the much publicized Monmouth poll that was covered by his own publication?  Based on much broader data and more relevant to conclusions about the culture wars, the poll showed that large majorities of parents and adults support the “conservative” policies that NJPEC (with an assist from Snowflack) seeks to discredit.  Here are the numbers:

1. 81% of parents — including strong majorities from across the political spectrum — support requiring school to notify parents if their child changes gender identities at school.
2. 75% of parents — including strong majorities across the political spectrum — oppose teaching about gender identity in grades 1-5.
3. 64% of adults oppose allowing birth-gender boys to play on girls sports teams.  Almost 3x the percentage who support it.
4. 58% of adults oppose allowing bathroom use by gender identity.  More than 2x the percentage who support it.

The clear message from the Monmouth poll is that the policies that “conservatives” support are supported by the vast majority of NJ citizens and parents.  No lying going on here.  How inconvenient.  So Snowflack simply ignores it.  

On the other hand, Snowflack chooses to take NJPEC’s mendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman at full face value.  As Sunlight has documented, Gottesman has a “liberal” agenda and has repeatedly lied to advance it.  Look no further than how Gottesman got his “Hundreds if Millions” moniker by making a blatantly false claim to the Star-Ledger.  Again, how inconvenient.  But Snowflack ignores all this, too, using NJPEC’s (likely unverified) claims to reach his sweeping conclusion: One side — the “conservative” side — is telling lies and the other side — the “liberal” side — is telling the truth.

Why the slanted coverage?  We detected the same slanted coverage of the culture wars by the Bergen Record’s Mary Ann Koruth.  We saw InsiderNJ’s Jay Lassiter listed by the culture-war-fighting, “liberal” Super PAC NJ21United as “friendly media.”  We’re starting to see a pattern of slanted coverage of the culture wars by the NJ press.  

The NJ public deserves an unbiased press corps who report the news without fear or favor.  That’s why we have the 1st Amendment.  Sadly, the NJ press corps is falling well short of that.  Why?