Blogfinger

Shouldn’t the Coaster have an editorial lifeguard on duty before printing letters full of lies?

By Paul Goldfinger,   Editor Blogfinger.net

The Washington Post.  “Letters to the editor are edited for clarity, fact-checked and sometimes trimmed to fit the space available in the newspaper. ”

Editage  Insights:   ” Letters to the editor are generally checked for factual accuracy, evidence based criticism, and tone before they are published.”

3/3/23:

In the 3/2/23 edition of the Coaster, the Coastericans allowed a letter to the editor which contains seriously outrageous and dangerous innuendoes and errors .  It is by someone  named Bryant Acciani who claims to be from Neptune.

These are the items in his letter which are objectionable,:

a. “On Monday was the Township Committee workshop meeting where a parking permit proposal for the neighborhood of Ocean Grove was voted down. The real parking plan, hinted at during  public comment and social media, was to eventually expand permit parking to all of Ocean Grove. Limiting access to the beach to only residents who live within that neighborhood. Having not gotten their way, these parking proponents enacted a scheme to purposefully overcrowd the room past capacity.  With residents yelling “civil disobedience” and “we’re doing a sit-in the rest of the meeting was cancelled.”

b.  He then refers to a civil rights program which he attended at the Arts Center about racism in America and said, “With that in perspective,  I watched people who live in a neighborhood that is 90.5 % white and as an average home price of over $700,000 invoke the civil rights movement, during Black History month, because they want easier parking.  It was tone deaf and distasteful.”

The Coaster should never have published this letter because it is full of distortions  and lies. The content is so bizarre that fact checking and editing would be a waste of time.  If the Coaster would publish this  then you cannot believe anything that they print, and their  articles about OG are often inaccurate opinions written by writers who I suspect know nothing about the Grove other than to quote from interviews and press releases from Grovers with agendas such as Michael Badger at the CMA. You may recall that recently the Coaster ran 4 or 5 front page articles quoting the CMA as they defended their views about their pier construction.  That is not news; that is front page propaganda.

As for the letter above, the Coaster should tell us if they had a reporter at that meeting? If not, how could they evaluate this letter to the editor?

In fact the  Coaster seems to be lately cutting back on OG coverage other than when something explosive is happening.

The Coaster seems to have a chip on its paper shoulders when it comes to the Grove.   Printing this letter is unprofessional and deserves apologies from the editors to the people of Ocean Grove.

Note that their editors page says, “the Coaster reserves the right to edit letters to meet space requirements and improve clarity.”   But what about checking accuracy?

RAY CHARLES.  “Tell the Truth.”Oh baby (tell the truth)

Now come on (tell the truth)
Now come on (tell the truth)
Now come on (tell the truth)
Now come on (tell the truth)
Yeahhh hey (tell the truth)
And tell the truth (tell the truth)