Star-Ledger editorial page editor Tom Moran is facing allegations that he deliberately left out comment from Tom Kean, Jr.’s congressional campaign from a column he wrote about the 7th district race on Sunday.
Moran wrote that “Kean’s campaign wouldn’t comment” for his opinion piece, but emails show that he did receive a response.
Emails show that Moran first reached out to Kean campaign manager Dan Scharfenberger at 1:05 PM on Thursday.
“It’s Tom Moran from the Star-Ledger, hope all is well with you and yours in this storm,” Moran wrote. “I am writing a column about the Kean Malinowski race and understand you are campaign manager for Kean. Would he be game for an interview later today or early tomorrow? He didn’t talk to me at all during the last campaign, but I thought I’d ask anyway.”
Scharfenberger responded to Moran twice, including a statement on 3:35 PM that day. But Moran didn’t include any part of the statement in his column and instead claimed that there was no comment from the Kean team.
“When Malinowski mouthpiece Tom Moran says ‘Kean’s campaign wouldn’t comment” in his latest hatchet job, what he really means is that (the response) didn’t fit his narrative,” said Harrison Neely, a Kean campaign advisor.
Kean declined to seek the Star-Ledger endorsement in his 2020 race against Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes), citing Moran’s caustic columns about him and criticizing the newspaper’s failure to report on the race.
“Tom Moran has written three opinion pieces that are factually incorrect and include various character attacks,” said Kean at the time. “As Mr. Moran has biased himself before the endorsement process has begun, this campaign has no confidence in his ability to have an honest conversation.”
Moran did not immediately respond to an 8:36 PM request for comment.