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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Time Chris Christie Shut Down a Public Television Station That Did a Tough Story on Him
The Time Chris Christie Shut Down a Public Television Station That Did a Tough Story on HimBy Vanessa Grigoriadis - nymag
1/14/14
<snip>
Theres a fair amount of Schadenfreude this week among the New Jersey press corps, as they wait for the other shoe to drop in Chris Christies Bridgegate scandal and wonder if its Michael Drewniak, Christies press secretary and his id, as one official calls him. Drewniak is on the hot seat after it emerged last week that he got dinner with former Port Authority official and Christie friend David Wildstein two days before Wildstein resigned. If Drewniak cant explain what he did at dinner with David, hes going to be gone, because the press corps in New Jersey hates him with a passion, says a Democratic strategist. If you put him on the train to D.C. this week and turned the lights off it would be like Murder on the Orient Express hed have 50 slashes in him. You can only be a jackass for so long before everyone wants to knife you.
As a reporter, its hard not to feel your stomach turn while sifting through the documents released from Governor Chris Christies office last week, as Drewniak brushes off reporters inquiries about the closures (Fuck him and the S-L [Star Ledger], he wrote, and then called a reporter a fucking mutt). Christie's office wasn't always this way: When he was nominated to be U.S. Attorney by George W. Bush in 2001, remaining in the job until he became governor, he was adept at befriending reporters.
But as governor, that changed. He became like an angry dictator toward the press, says a former Corzine aide. The reporters who did his bidding, hed reward, and the ones who asked hard questions, hed call morons and idiots, and stick Drewniak, a vulgar guy with serious anger issues and no impulse control, on him. Drewniak is Mr. No to reporters he doesnt like. He just chokes off access to documents You want to see this? No. Christie stopped calling on reporters he didnt like, like Ginger Gibson at Politico, and is well known for calling one an idiot and screaming at another about being the thinnest-skinned guy in America."
In August 2009, Zack Fink, currently the statehouse reporter for NY1 but then a reporter for New Jersey Network, the PBS channel in New Jersey, developed a source who told him about a $46,000 loan that Christie had given Michele Brown, a subordinate that hed promoted in the U.S. Attorneys office, to pay her mortgage. This raised questions immediately about Christies ties to the U.S. Attorneys office while he was running for governor, and was followed by a string of terrible press for Christie, including a story in the New York Times that said he didnt report the income from the loan on his personal financial disclosure forms. (Brown was eventually forced to resigned, though Christie rehired her when he became governor something that is perceived as a middle finger to those who revealed their relationship.)
When Zack Fink broke the story about the undisclosed loan that Christie had made to Michele Brown, it was without a doubt the most important story of the 2009 race, says Lis Smith, who was a press secretary for Corzine during the campaign. Corzine was down double digits in the polls then. None of our campaigns attacks were gaining any traction. Once Zack wrote that story it opened the floodgate to a whole new range of stories that hadnt been out there before how Christie ran the U.S. Attorneys office, how Michele was using the attorneys office to benefit Christies campaign, even a traffic incident with Christie and Brown where Christie acted in an abusive and vindictive manner.
In 2011, Christie announced in his budget address that he was going to shut down NJN...
<snip>
More: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/01/christie-an-angry-dictator-toward-the-press.html
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The Time Chris Christie Shut Down a Public Television Station That Did a Tough Story on Him (Original Post)
WillyT
Jan 2014
OP
I think not. CC was a 3-year h.s. class president and captain of the baseball team.
WinkyDink
Jan 2014
#12
Christie cannot survive attacks from far right and the entire left on a national level -he's a goner
tomm2thumbs
Jan 2014
#16
malaise
(267,797 posts)1. I just watched a discussion on this with Rev Al and the journalist
who questioned him on the subject.
SummerSnow
(12,608 posts)3. I bet he was teased in school....alot
malaise
(267,797 posts)4. You're right
He shuts down any criticism immediately and with the tactics of a bully.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)13. Which is the opposite of "being teased."
WillyT
(72,631 posts)5. Ironic... It's All About Projection With These Guys...
Christie stopped calling on reporters he didnt like, like Ginger Gibson at Politico, and is well known for calling one an idiot and screaming at another about being the thinnest-skinned guy in America."
From the OP.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)12. I think not. CC was a 3-year h.s. class president and captain of the baseball team.
Ninga
(8,266 posts)2. Legs?! Crap,the Christie story is growing legs longer than a giraffe! He will
fall with a thud heard around the world.....
WillyT
(72,631 posts)6. Kick !!!
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)8. Kicked and Recommended! nt
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)9. He sure was nice to reporters...
in the recent press conference, although I couldn't hear one question they posed. Did anyone else?
Stuart G
(38,359 posts)10. k and r, no text..
MADem
(135,425 posts)15. That's just astounding...but at the same time, not surprising. nt
tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)16. Christie cannot survive attacks from far right and the entire left on a national level -he's a goner
I think the harshest attacks will be from the extreme right... watching them talk about it on some of their programs, they will NEVER forgive him for the Obama hug. To them, it is burned in their tiny brains now and it will not be forgotten. This stuff just gives them more reasons to chop him to pieces.... they were going to do it anyway.
For the general voting block, this scandal stuff is just more fodder for the Republicans-Can't-Be-Trusted story... even the supposedly moderate ones. Great news for Democrats.