Gov. Phil Murphy once said supporting local news strengthens our democracy, but his last budget proposal slashes state funding for it. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
Nearly seven years ago, Gov. Phil Murphy took a bold step toward reviving, strengthening, and transforming local media and civic engagement.
In August 2018, eight months into Murphy’s first term, he signed a widely popular, bipartisan bill establishing the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, an entity formed to provide financial aid to create and support trustworthy, community-based news.
“I believe the Consortium is a viable means to begin to combat the widespread proliferation of deliberately false or misleading information that threatens our democracy and contributed to getting President Trump elected,” Murphy said then.
State funding for the consortium has risen from $500,000 to $3 million.
Now, with nine months left until Murphy leaves office, his last budget plan proposes quite a different commitment to the consortium: zero dollars. His spending plan also includes a planned 75% cut in state subsidies to NJ PBS, which operates NJ Spotlight News. The state’s current budget provides $1 million in funding to NJ PBS; Murphy’s plan would slash that to $250,000.
March 16-22, 2025, is Sunshine Week, a nonpartisan collaboration among groups in the journalism, civic, education, government and private sectors that shines a light on the importance of public records and open government.
As I write this, transparency advocates nationwide are commemorating the 20th anniversary of Sunshine Week, an annual observance that highlights the importance of your right to know what your government is up to. For New Jersey citizens, the sunshine is slowly being blotted out by the Murphy administration, which also helped the Legislature take an ax to our public records law last year.
Murphy’s office declined to comment but noted the governor said when he presented his budget plan to lawmakers last month that it would include some belt-tightening. Even with Murphy’s proposed cuts, the state would spend a billion or so dollars more than it takes in.
“And while, yes, every responsible budget, including this one, requires hard decisions — like scaling back programs that we would rather increase funding for — we can, and we must, make those decisions while also keeping our promises, whether it be making the full payment into our pension system or fully funding our public education system,” he said.
I’ll remember this when Murphy signs a budget in June that will undoubtedly be stuffed at the last minute with hundreds of millions of dollars for lawmakers’ pet projects.
If you’re unfamiliar with the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, take a look at its recent grant recipients, which range from hyperlocal news site Montclair Local to conservative think tank Garden State Initiative to the New Jersey Coalition to End Homelessness. Its purpose is not to funnel money to corporate media; it’s legitimately interested in aiding news outlets, community groups, and other organizations that seek to broaden civic engagement.
(Full disclosure: While the New Jersey Monitor has not received any funding from the consortium, I have applied for some. My thoughts on Murphy’s plan to end state subsidies for it would be the same regardless.)
Chris Daggett, the consortium’s interim director, urged lawmakers this week to restore funding to the group (the Legislature has until June 30 to strike a budget that will get Murphy’s signature). Daggett told me that with the tsunami of change coming from Washington, D.C., local news is more critical than ever if we want to bridge the nation’s widening partisan divide.
“For me this is not about saving journalism, this is about democracy,” he said. “When people aren’t informed, they aren’t engaged, and when they aren’t engaged, democracy dies.”
Mike Rispoli works for the nonprofit Free Press, founded in 2003 to support independent journalism and protect public media. Rispoli — who sits on the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium board but stressed he was not speaking on its behalf — said he understands that states are making very difficult budgetary decisions right now.
But Rispoli said today’s media landscape, where the Trump administration is going after media organizations it doesn’t like and billionaire media moguls are putting editorial pressure on their newsrooms to protect themselves from the president’s onslaught, demands more.
“If people care about our communities and what they need in this moment, being able to make sense out of a very chaotic world, this is the moment where we need to be investing more into independent journalism, not less,” he said.
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