¶ The Laboratorium (3d ser.)

I live in New Jersey, where the campaign for Governor is unusually active. There are six candidates in the Democratic primary, and most of them are in serious contention. We have been inundated with flyers, often multiple identical copies of the same one. Although many of the candidates hold similar positions on many issues, they have attempted to distinguish themselves from each other in a heated race.

On May 1, I received an email from a site called The Jersey Dispatch, linking to and including an article titled “Sherrill’s Affordability Policies Look Suspiciously Similar to Gottheimer’s”. Here are the opening paragraphs, which are representative of the whole:

As New Jersey voters count down the remaining weeks to the June 10th gubernatorial primary, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) is facing increasing criticism over her lack of policy plans and detail – and how closely her sparse platform mirrors plans that fellow Democrat and declared gubernatorial candidate, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), released months ago.

Since announcing his candidacy last year, Gottheimer has led the field of six candidates on affordability–voter’s biggest issue at the polls. He has embraced the slogan of “Lower Taxes, Lower Costs” and promised to cut property taxes by nearly 15 percent for homeowners and small businesses across New Jersey.

Early this year, Gottheimer released a comprehensive tax cut plan and lower costs plan that tackled everything from property tax relief to the cost of childcare and utility bills. Late last month, Sherrill rolled out a strikingly similar platform, drawing criticism for what some call a lack of original vision and detail.

Although the article is mostly written in the bland institutional tone of professional journalism, something about it felt off to me. My curiosity was additionally piqued by the fact that the Jersey Dispatch reached out to me. I had never heard of it until the “Sherrill’s Affordability Policies” email hit my inbox.

When I clicked through to the Jersey Dispatch site, I was struck that multiple articles there were similarly pro-Gottheimer or anti-Sherrill. Examples include “Steve Sweeney Criticizes Mikie Sherrill Over Votes Against First Responder Protections”, “Josh Gottheimer Unveils ‘Lower Costs Plan for Jersey’ to Combat Rising Expenses”, and “Gottheimer Joins International Association of Firefighters to Advocate for First Responders”. These political pieces were interspersed with more prosaic local news, like “Southern Ocean Medical Center Nurses Vote to Authorize Strike Over Staffing, Contract Demands”.

When I looked more closely, my sense that the Jersey Dispatch is not a typical local news site grew. Here are a few of the things I noticed about it:

• Articles about the Democratic primary for governor appear to constitute half or more of its content. All had the same partisan orientation: praising Gottheimer, criticizing Sherrill, or both.
• Many of the stories are bylined only to “Staff Reporter”. The only named writer I have been able to find is “Linda Thompson”. (It’s a common name, so I couldn’t find anything else online that I could confirm related to the same person.)
• The site has no index or search. Although there are at least some articles that don’t appear on the front page, there is no way to browse to them.
• The home page has five empty grey advertisement blocks. These aren’t actual ads; they are striped grey square with the word “Advertisement” and their dimensions (e.g. “300x300”). Their alt text reads “AD: Sample Ad” and they are static images on the Jersey Dispatch site. They are inserted by JavaScript code in which the image URLs are hard-coded.
• The contact information at the bottom of the page is “MM Holding LLC • NJ • 08736”. This is not the legal name of any registered business entity in New Jersey.
• 08736 is the ZIP Code for Mansaquan, New Jersey, in Monmouth County. But the email came from “Jersey Dispatch · PO Box 207 · Newark, NJ 07101-0207 · USA”. The ZIP Code 07101 is in Newark, in Essex County.
• The “subscribe link” on the Jersey Dispatch home page leads to a session-expired error page. The “login” link goes to a page that says “Login for Restricted Access”, which isn’t quite what I’d expect a news site to say. When I filled out the signup form, I received a confirmation page saying “Your message has been forwarded to appropriate personnel”.
• The about us page contains no substantive information on who publishes, writes for, or funds the Jersey Dispatch. The page states that that the Jersey Dispatch was founded in 2025, but the page itself is dated “Wed, Mar 27, 2024”.
• The whois information for thejerseydispatch.com identifies Domains by Proxy as the registrant. DbP is a service that provides domain registrants with anonymity–an unusual choice for a news publication.
• When I attempted to create an account at the site, the confirmation email was sent from a Gmail account bearing the same name as a person active in local New Jersey politics. (I have not been able to confirm that the person is connected with the Jersey Dispatch or the Gmail account, so I have chosen not to publish the name.)

Making matters even stranger, the Gottheimer campaign has quoted the Jersey Dispatch in its own campaign literature. One flyer that I have seen attributes the words “His plan is not only feasible but backed by a very specific strategy to get it done” to a February 3 article, “Gottheimer Leading Dems on Lower Costs and Lower Taxes”. Interestingly, while the article overall is positive on Gottheimer’s plan, it’s not as positive as the flyer makes it sound. In context, the full sentence is, “Unlike vague campaign promises, Gottheimer asserts that his plan is not only feasible but backed by a very specific strategy to get it done.” That is, the words Gottheimer attributes to the Jersey Dispatch are a summary of his own statements, not an independent endorsement.

All of these oddities lead me to wonder what the Jersey Dispatch actually is. One possibility is that it is an astroturfing operation: partisan political content presented to make it seem as though it comes from an objective and disinterested news source. Another is that it is the work of a sincere Josh Gottheimer fan who has intentionally or negligently blurred the line between personal opinion-writing and journalism. It might be something else entirely. But for the reasons above, I am skeptical that it is now a bona fide news outlet, if it ever was.

I reached out to the the Jersey Dispatch, the Gmail account, the Gottheimer campaign, and the Sherrill campaign. The Jersey Dispatch, the Gmail account, and the Gottheimer campaign did not respond to requests for comment. The Sherrill campaign acknowledged the inquiry but did not provide a statement for publication. I will update this post if I receive a response from any of them.