We should all be pulling for Aaron Morrill.

He could have done the easy and profitable thing.

He could have kept in a mayor’s good graces, taken down or softened critical news, and made sure he had steady access that allowed for the content and clicks that drive revenue for the Jersey City Times.

Instead, he chose to do the painful thing that American democracy has always demanded for its survival.

According to the Center for Cooperative Media, New Jersey now ranks dead last in the nation, with only five reporters for every 100,000 residents. The Star-Ledger has shut down its print edition, and after 157 years the Jersey Journal closed its doors. All of this is happening as laws that protect transparency, like OPRA, are being dismantled.

Franchise chains once seemed like the solution, but their business model depends heavily on staying in the good graces of public officials and corporate interests. Push schools too hard with tough reporting, and they risk losing access to student-produced content — the very content that drives clicks and ad revenue. Lean too hard on municipal leaders, and business contacts get nervous, while the prized title of “official newspaper” can slip away.

The result is a symbiotic, unhealthy relationship between reporter and government, with ripple effects across the state. In our own community, there are countless examples of franchise outlets bending so far that they function more like public-relations arms for those in office — willfully ignoring the voices of critics and facts that contradict the narratives we see in press releases.

This is not journalism. It is profiteering and propaganda at the expense of one of our most treasured democratic expectations: a free and critical press. Some outlets, like the Jersey City Times, are fighting back to address New Jersey’s growing news desert. Their case isn’t just about one city — it’s about whether independent journalism in this state will be allowed to exist without fear of being silenced when it does its job.

After publishing a story challenging Mayor Steven Fulop’s claims on crime rates, the Jersey City Times was removed from the press list. For two years, they were shut out from receiving releases and access to press conferences along with official events. In 2023, the Times filed a federal lawsuit against Fulop, his press secretary, and the city, arguing that imposing this kind of selective access violates the First Amendment and New Jersey’s constitutional guarantees of equal treatment.

Writing the truth about government is hard — especially if it’s how you put food on the table.

The folks at the Jersey City Times and Yale University’s Newmark Fellow Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic are among the few threads holding together the idea that journalism is a vital, if informal, branch of government.

Regardless of whether you like Mayor Fulop, his actions are dangerous — especially for New Jersey.

We should all be pulling for Aaron Morrill … because if he loses, we all do.

John, Shauna and Laura

NJ21st Editorial Team

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