Blue is the new pink. Blogfinger photo and news report. May, 2015.
By Paul Goldfinger, Complainer-in–Chief. @Blogfinger. This piece is from 2015 with a 2022 update on the bottom.
Ocean Grove is a fairly complicated place when it comes to news, so when other media get it wrong, and that often happens, we complain. In fact Blogfinger.net is the leading media source of Ocean Grove news, so we keep our eyes open.
For example, when the Asbury Park Sun got the facts wrong regarding why FEMA refused to pay for our boardwalk, we made a fuss.
The Asbury Park Press almost never publishes news about Ocean Grove . They used to send a reporter to those interminable Neptune Township Committee meetings, but they no longer do so, probably because their reporter may have slipped into a coma due to boredom during one such session. Besides, who wants to go there when the Mayor might yell at you and call a cop. Ask Jack Bredin about that!
Even the National Geographic, when reporting on our zip code in the 1990’s, made us look like the religious retreat that we were in 1870. I sent them a letter.
And the Tri-City News could care less even though OG might be considered one of the “Tri-” in the hood. But it’s just as well that they do ignore us. A few years ago I complained to their editor Steven Froias, a Grover, about their lack of OG coverage , and he said that it wasn’t true. Really? Well, that’s no loss.
Just last week, we had to critique the Coaster when it made a bunch of errors in their front page story about the new Ocean Grove NERP. (North End Redevelopment Plan.) They found that story when the Township handed them some talking points, but even then, there were mistakes.
In today’s issue of the Coaster they seem desperate to write something about Ocean Grove, so they have two photo stories about pink ribbons in the Grove, including one on the front page.
But guess what—they even got those stories wrong. In both photo captions they tell us that “May is Breast Cancer Awareness Month”—– but actually, October is; May is brain cancer awareness month, and that color is gray.
Did the Coaster or Meridian get their diseases or their colors mixed up? It’s a good thing that Blogfinger is around to keep the facts straight and the road paint white in OG.
2022 update: Perhaps you have noticed recently that the Coaster is beginning to pass us by. Maybe we are too boring even for them.
We do get lengthy reports every meeting of the Home Groaners Ass. written by the Coaster stenographer. We heard that the HGA will be having a “forum” in January 2023 identifying a new group in town called “the non-religious.” I can’t wait to hear what that’s all about and why such a meeting could be helpful in town.
It seems that the “forum” will be a set-up designed to embarrass the Camp Meeting Association. It will bring two groups together for what? And who will represent the “non-religious,” and who says that the CMA will show up?
What will it be? A debate? An argument? a consultation? A new direction in town?—fuhgetabout it.
Yes, the CMA deserves perusal and, when appropriate, public criticism if their public policies might be bad for the future of the Grove, but to frame it as some sort of religious or “non-religious” confrontation is without merit.
The Coaster never reports on culture issues in the Grove. They never report on anything without a press release from somebody with an ax to grind; eg Michael Badger of the CMA or one of the five gay caballeros at the Neptune Mother Ship.
And now the Coaster is avoiding Grove news unless they must pay attention to something like an invasion of Martians on Ocean Pathway. Or, if we ever get our first Bartender of the Week, they will be on the scene.
And they are even avoiding us for the “question of the week” department. We are not even allowed to tell them what we are doing New Years Eve.
Now their fine journalist Don Stine is gone, so there is a replacement who so far is doing pretty well, if only they would let her do some real reporting in the Grove. And maybe she would ask some probing questions in town. Blogfinger would welcome that and maybe we will avoid calling them “Coastericans.”
TAYLOR SWIFT. “Today was a Fairy Tale.”