Greatest State Ever

Here is one of the classic early 1990s WNBC “We’re 4 New York” promo composed by Edd Kalehoff. New Jersey gets a brief mention with Jersey Shore at about 55 seconds in, but only after they mention Greenwich in Connecticut. It is still a bit better than what happened with the original 1992 version, which didn’t even mention the Garden State. But the original is truly a classic and you get to see Chuck, Sue, Len, Al Roker, Carol Jenkins, and the late great Ralph Penza, which sort of makes up for the short shrift of New Jersey. This is what happens when almost all of the state’s TV coverage comes from next door! Although we should mention that WNBC does have the best New Jersey coverage of any of the New York stations including the “Yeah we’re a New Jersey station” WWOR.

How did WCBS salute New Jersey in 1981?
With about ten seconds of film - a plane landing at Newark Airport, what we think may be the State House in Trenton, and a highway bridge!
Yeah, that really sums up New Jersey!

This happens almost every time it snows. Fox 5 seems to include school closings for places in New Jersey that are outside its viewing area. A year or two ago we saw closings for schools in Cape May County which is over 100 miles away from New York. The one pictured above isn’t so bad, since it was one of about three or four listings for Camden County. Given that Lindenwold is about 95 miles away from midtown Manhattan and in another television market it seems like they were either padding their school closing listings or have no idea where things are in New Jersey.

We should also mention that Fox, through some backroom dealings to get around little things like the law, owns the only VHF television station licensed to New Jersey - WWOR which is licensed to Secaucus in Hudson County and has upped their New Jersey coverage in a half arsed attempt at appeasement and stuck a picture of the George Washington Bridge on its website and subway ads.

Of the New York TV stations, WNBC, seems to have the best New Jersey coverage with two reporters on the New Jersey beat - Brian Thompson, and the great Pat Battle. They have actually broken some big New Jersey stories, they cover things other than fires or crime, plus their colleague Jonathan Dienst was the one who broke the Fort Dix plot story, despite it being in the back yard of the Philadelphia stations.

Still, getting shafted when it comes to important news coverage from most of the big TV stations is par for the course for viewers in the Garden State. We are guessing the Philadelphia stations are even worse, since they have some horrid unwatchable excuses for newscasts down there.