CLAUDE BRODESSER-AKNER

Print. Radio. Podcast. Video.

JOURNALISM

Emmy-winning journalist Claude Brodesser-Akner covered New Jersey's governor & statehouse politics for The Star-Ledger & NJ.com from 2014 to 2019. He's now developing a podcast about unexplained aerial phenomena for Pineapple Street Media. Previously, he covered the entertainment business & marketing for Ad Age, Variety, New York magazine and Vulture. He also created the NPR/KCRW public radio show, "The Business," which he hosted from 2004-09.

CLAUDE BRODESSER-AKNER

Print. Radio. Podcast. Video.

JOURNALISM

Featured
I went to a Trump rally last night and mingled with the crowd. Here's what happened.
I was nervous. I was going to my first Trump rally since he'd been elected president, and I wasn't going to play my usual part. Typically, we political reporters are penned up behind barricades, urgently attempting to fact-check the president while trying to avoid eye-contact with the thousands of supporters who cheer as he hurls insults at the press.
NJ.com
Featured
Murphy just spent $13K to install a door for his wife's office. What's going on behind it?
If you need a metaphor for the first 80 days of Gov. Phil Murphy's governorship, consider this the one. In one of his first acts as governor, Murphy spent nearly $13,000 to install a new door for his wife Tammy Murphy's office, NJ Advance Media has learned. Well, not just a door. A doorway, too, so that a conference room just down the hall from the official governor's office could become a private office for first lady, according to receipts obtained under the Open Public Records Act.
NJ.com
Featured
For cash, name the candidates for N.J. governor
The race to replace Governor Chris Christie is about to come to a close? NJ Advance Media State House Reporter Claude Brodesser-Akner hit the streets of Westfield armed with cash to see who could name the candidates for the state's highest office. By the way there are a total of 7 candidates including Democrat Phil Murphy and Republican Kim Guadagno.
Is Phil Murphy already running for president? Experts say take a look at the signs
In poker, it's called a "tell" -- an involuntary change in a player's behavior or demeanor that gives clues about the hand he's really playing. Lately, experts say Gov. Phil Murphy has been "telling" a lot about possibly running for president in 2020. "I want to make a quick statement about some actions taken by the Trump administration," Murphy, a Democrat, said during a May 8 press event at Rutgers' Newark campus to announce new financial aid for New Jersey's unauthorized immigrants.
NJ.com
Is Central Jersey A Real Place?
With the help of NJ Governor Phil Murphy and Jon Stewart, Stephen seeks to answer New Jersey's most divisive question: Is there a 'Central Jersey?' Subscribe To "The Late Show" Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/ColbertYouTube. For more content from "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", click HERE: http://bit.ly/1AKISnR.
An arrest, a wrecked SUV and a medevac flight: A perilous 5 months for Gov. Murphy's son
In a small, walnut-paneled district courthouse more than 200 miles from New Jersey, prosecutors earlier this month moved to dismiss a low-level complaint pending since last fall against the 20-year-old son of Gov. Phil Murphy. Joshua Murphy, a former student at Tufts University, had faced charges of underage drinking and disorderly conduct, according to court records.
NJ.com
Mary Pat Christie caught in distracted driving crackdown ordered by governor's attorney general
A statewide crackdown on distracted driving ordered by Gov. Chris Christie's attorney general earlier this year led to a surprising catch in New Jersey's first lady, Mary Pat Christie, NJ Advance Media has learned. To her credit, unlike others with influence in Trenton, the first lady did not play the "Do you know who I am?"
NJ.com
Are you prepared for the August 21 solar eclipse?
NJ Advance Media's political reporter Claude Brodesser-Akner interviews a science educator from the Liberty Science Center to help everyone prepare for the solar eclipse.
PHOTOS: Christie, family soak up sun on N.J. beach he closed to public
People hoping to visit Island Beach State Park this holiday weekend were not allowed in because of the state government shutdown Gov. Chris Christie ordered amid the state budget standoff in Trenton. But there was one family there: Christie's. They are using the summer beach house provided by the state for a weekend down the Shore.
NJ.com
They spent $1M of your money on Bridgegate. Now they want a refund.
The co-chair of the Legislature's committee investigating the Bridgegate scandal is demanding the panel's own lawyer refund $1 million to taxpayers, saying the high-profile legal firm had a conflict of interest. And both leaders of the panel told NJ Advance Media they intend to replace the Chicago-based Jenner & Block as their special counsel if lawmakers reopen their probe into the George Washington Bridge lane closings.
NJ.com
Trump wants 800K police officers trained to fight terrorism, Giuliani says
Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump may soon call for the federal government to provide the nation's 800,000 police officers with training in anti-terrorism intelligence gathering, according to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, an adviser to the candidate. "I am suggesting that the federal government take on as a mission the training all of our 800,000 sworn police officers so they can notice the precursors of terrorism," Giuliani told NJ Advance Media on Tuesday.
NJ.com
Will Christie's new Trump job allow any time for N.J.?
Gov. Chris Christie on Wednesday said he "can't say" how much time he'll need to devote to planning the presidential transition of likely GOP nominee Donald Trump. But the leaders of the last two Republican presidential nominees' transition teams told NJ Advance Media the demands are extraordinary, prompting some GOP state lawmakers to openly question whether that will leave Christie enough time to be an effective governor.
NJ.com
The gun rights case Chris Christie can't ignore
Dashcam video of the N.J. traffic stop that's become a heated Second Amendment debate On the evening of Sept. 20, 2013, Highland Park Police Dept. stopped Steffon Josey-Davis, 23, of North Brunswick for an expired registration. Before providing his proof-of-insurance card, Josey-Davis informed police officers that he had his legally-owned firearm in his glove compartment.
NJ.com
Innocent Bystanders
Of all the murders committed in New York City in 1964—636, to be precise—only that of Catherine Susan Genovese launched a whole subfield of social science: There had to be an explanation for why 38 people could see the 28-year-old barkeep attacked outside her Kew Gardens home and yet did nothing. The answer researchers came up with, the so-called bystander effect, was hardly reassuring in its implications for human nature.
New York Magazine
The Insanity Attack
The definition of insanity, as Albert Einstein once famously put it, is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last week in a preemptive strike against President Obama’s proposed jobs bill. He was unsheathing a now-voguish truism among right-wingers: Freshmen tea-party senator Ron Johnson also trotted out Einstein’s maxim to attack Obama’s plan, as did Georgia Republican congressman Lynn Westmoreland.
New York Magazine
Propaganda Revisited
For decades, historians and filmmakers hoping for a glimpse of how Jews really lived during World War II have had to rely, perversely, on Ghetto, an unfinished 60-minute Nazi propaganda movie found moldering in an East German bunker after the war. Little is known about the reasons for making Ghetto, which was shot over 30 days in Warsaw during May 1942, just as the death camp at Treblinka II was opening.
New York Magazine

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CLAUDE BRODESSER-AKNER

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I spent half a decade covering the governor of New Jersey as the senior politics writer for the Star-Ledger and NJ.com, from 2014 through 2019.

While serving as a reporter at Variety (1998-2005), and Advertising Age (2007-2009), I also created and hosted the award-wining KCRW/NPR radio show “The Business” airing on National Public Radio affiliates in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and New York City.

Today I'm applying the same journalistic rigor and curiosity I'd focused on the Trenton statehouse and on Hollywood's film studios to the U.S. military's recent encounters with unidentified aerial vehicles.

If you've served in the U.S. Navy on the U.S.S. Nimitz or U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt carrier battle groups between 2004 and 2015, especially during Operation: Inherent Resolve, I would especially like to hear from you.

If you're looking to reach me securely, or to send me sensitive information: I've made a new, 4096 bit PGP key. Fingerprint: AC30 2B36 6DA8 A164 FA35 50C1 6F90 6AFD 12A4 8BAF

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to chatting with you sometime soon!