Jackson Township has re-launched a second official website, JacksonTwpNJ.news. Carrying the official Township logo, providing links to the Township's official social media pages and a copyright attributed to Jackson Township, the new website appears to be a public relations ploy aimed at rallying support for Mayor Michael Reina and his Council allies and also acts as a news curator that includes “advertorials” unrelated to Jackson Township.
Advertorials are advertisements giving information about a product or service in the style of an editorial or objective journalistic article. Featured today on the Township's website are advertorials dealing with telling your anesthesiologist about weight loss medications that you may be taking, reinventing your laundry experience through technology and also a Spanish language article about suicide prevention.
Featuring headlines such as “Jackson Township Council has announced that it will be adding one more member to the Jackson Municipal Utilities Authority”, “Ban On-Street Parking Near Busy County Road Intersections” and “Open Space Committee Focused on Preserving More Land in 2024”, the articles/press releases carry the byline Christian David.
David's official title in Jackson Township is “network administrator/webmaster” where his duties include the administration of the Township's internal computer network and maintenance of the Township's website. Although there has been no official change in those duties, David now appears to be a public relations officer as well. That didn't sit well with one Township resident.
“Why do we need two websites in our town and why is one of them dedicated to promoting Reina, Kuhn, Sargent and Burnstein?” asked one Township resident. “Also, the Township has a public relations firm under contract, why are they paying a Township employee to do the same work?”
Another resident demanded answers about whether or not the Township was operating a for-profit website given that it includes the advertorials.
“Is someone making money off of this website? If so, who?”
A third resident wanted to know why the articles written by David don't also include the advertorial tag since all of those articles are clearly intended to promote Reina and his Council allies at the expense of two Council members not aligned with Reina. That resident said that the website is “nothing more than propaganda”
Residents might also be perplexed by the number of articles and advertorials appearing on the website that are unrelated to Jackson Township. A quick count of the homepage this morning revealed that there are a total of 7 articles dealing with issues concerning Jackson Township residents while there are a total of 20 that are totally unrelated.
The unrelated articles include state and national news, national sports, business and finance and health topics that do nothing to enhance the quality of life for Jackson residents.
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