Former Star-Ledger editor now offering to place Op-Eds for clients

Former Star-Ledger editor Kevin Whitmer has opened a new consulting firm that openly touts his ability to place Op-Eds for clients, although he stops just short of naming his former employer as one of them.

“Our relationships also allow us to call on industry experts when a special touch is needed,” the new firm says on its website.

Tom Moran, the editorial page editor of the Star-Ledger, did not respond to a Friday afternoon question about whether his newspaper would openly identify Op-Eds written by clients of the Whitmer firm. As a result, readers and subscribers will have no idea if an opinion piece was printed as the result of a favor.

“This is just another pay-to-play scam,” said a former Star-Ledger reporter who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. “One of Kevin’s jobs was to call out influence peddlers. Now he is one.”

Whitmer was pushed out of his post at NJ Advance Media at the end of last year for not hitting revenue goals set by his employer, and for other reasons.

While Whitmer wrote his own exit announcement, he never suggested the split was his own decision.

“Kevin made himself the public face of the push for more revenue and he never disclosed that his own job was on the line if he didn’t make his numbers,” a current NJ.com journalist, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the New Jersey Globe in December.  “We all knew he was under a great deal of pressure.  His stress became our stress.”

But Whitmer’s situation was aggravated by business pacts with RWJ Barnabas Health and the New Jersey Cannabis Industry Association.

Whitmer, sources said, had made a deal with RWJ Barnabas Health to fund a position for a new reporter, who would in turn cover the hospital beat.  The company agreed to pay NJ Advance Media a certain amount, with Whitmer using some of the money to pay the reporter’s salary and a substantial balance left over was earmarked to enhance Whitmer’s bottom line.

The deal folded quickly when the terms of the agreement met some resistance at the newspaper.

The old-media newspaper Op-Ed game is severely limited these days.  With the exception of The Press of Atlantic City and The Trentonian, the rest of the state’s daily newspapers are owned by Advance Publications, where Whitmer worked, or Gannett.