Feb. 11, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Guy Baehr, Associate Director
Rutgers Journalism Resources Institute
(732) 932-7500 x 8024
gbaehr@scils.rutgers.edu

The Dan Rather/Fox News Effect:
What Local Newspaper Reporters & Editors Must Do
To Cope With The Public’s Distrust of “The Media”

NEW BRUNSWICK The public's growing perception of bias in the national media is trickling down to the community level and creating a new challenge for local newspaper reporters and editors, says Scott Muller, news editor atthe Herald News of Passaic County.

Muller, who served as the North Jersey Media Group Journalist-in-Residence at Rutgers University last semester, will address how local journalists should deal with this growing problem in a Feb. 16 talk at Rutgers University t o journalism professionals and students.

By tradition, the journalist-in-residence gives a short lecture on a subject of his or her choosing at the end of the semester. Muller said the idea for his talk came out his experience and conversations he's had over the years with colleagues covering local issues.

Muller joined the Herald News as an assistant news editor in February 1999 and was promoted to news editor in January 2001. Prior, he was the New Jersey editor at The Express-Times in Easton, Pa.

The talk, sponsored by the university's Journalism Resources Institute, will be held from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the student lounge of the School of Communication, Information and Library Science, 4 Huntington St.

As theNorth Jersey Media Group Journalist-in-Residence, Muller taught an undergraduate course in reporting and writing for the Department of Journalism and Media Studies and had the opportunity to take a tuition-free course at the university related to his work as an editor.

North Jersey Media Group owns the Herald News and The Record (Bergen County, NJ),with a combined daily circulation of 181,000, along with 38 weekly newspapers, all serving northern New Jersey. The company started the journalist-in-residence program at Rutgers in 2003. Its journalist-in-residence for the current semester is Jan Barry, a long-time reporter at The Record.

North Jersey Media Group also supports journalists-in-residence at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in upstate New Yorkand at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck.

North Jersey Media Group has provided fellows at Syracuse and Rutgers universities for the past four semesters and at FDU for the past two semesters.Only the Syracuse fellowship is a full-time position, with the university providing housing for North Jersey Media Group's Visiting Professor. In all three programs, North Jersey Media Group continues to pay salary and benefits to its teaching fellows.

John V. Pavlik, chair of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies and director Journalism Resources Institute, said the North Jersey Media Group program is valuable for students because it gives them a chance to learn from highly qualified professionals. He said the end-of-semester lecture attracts both students and working journalists from around the state.

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