JERSEY CITY — City Hall in Jersey City released a press release Monday evening headlined, “CRIME DROP A 30 YEAR LOW /Still Big Secret, Media Refuses to Report it”
The release noted as follows:
Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy and police department officials are holding a news conference to announce record-setting crime statistics at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, January 27, 2010, at City Hall.
The press conference is being called to address the news media’s refusal to print and broadcast this positive story regarding crime instead of the usual “if it bleeds, it leads” type crime story.
Mayor Healy will show how police and community efforts are paying off with 30-year lows in major crime categories, facts that were widely distributed nearly a week ago, yet all media outlets refused to acknowledge.
The conference is scheduled due to the lack of response from media to cover such positive new items regarding the Jersey City – the state’s second largest city.
The city had previously released a press release touting their crime drop, which was posted on the Hudson Reporter website (www.hudsonreporter.com) first thing this morning. The release was received Friday.
The release came on the heels of two point-blank murders of young men in one day a week earlier, a story that was addressed in the Jersey City Reporter as part of a larger story of the city’s rising murder rate. Last year, there were 28 murders in the city, up from 26 the year before. Many of them were of men under the age of 25, part of what some officials believe is a gang retaliation trend that has continued for more than a year.