Thursday – May 7, 2015 – 12:30 p.m.
Main Exhibit Hall (Palladium Ballroom A) of Caesar’s in Atlantic City

Meet expert New Jersey journalists at the 65th NJAC Annual Celebration of County Government.  Michael Aron, Nicholas Acocella, Kevin McArdle, and Matt Katz will engage in headline news discussions.

 

Michael Aron
Chief Political Correspondent

Michael Aron has been a journalist since 1970, starting at Seattle Magazine, then West Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Rolling Stone and New Jersey Monthly.  He started at NJN in 1982 and has won a number of broadcast awards, including a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award.  He went to college at Harvard, graduate school at Princeton, is a native of Philadelphia, lives in Montclair and has three grown daughters.  Mr. Aron has interviewed every New Jersey governor, state Supreme Court chief justice and legislative leader during his tenure, plus a number of presidential candidates. He has covered national political conventions, trade missions abroad and all the major political issues of the state.  He also hosts two weekly public affairs programs that feature discussion with news breakers and makers, Reporters Roundtable with Michael Aron and On The Record with Michael Aron.

 

 

Nicholas Acocella
PolitiFax CEO and author

Nicholas Acocella was born in Jersey City and after a life writing books about baseball, he finally settled down to cover New Jersey politics.  Since 1997 Mr. Acocella has been the editor, publisher and sole writer for PolitiFax, the weekly journal of politics in the state that is read by everyone in New Jersey politics.

 

 

 

Kevin McArdle
State House Correspondent

Kevin McArdle has been the State House Correspondent since 2002. He’s covered the resignation of former Governor Jim McGreevey, the Governor Dick Codey Administration, the Jon Corzine/Doug Forrester 2005 gubernatorial campaign, the State government shutdown of 2006, the near fatal car crash of former Governor Jon Corzine, the 2009 Jon Corzine/Chris Christie gubernatorial campaign and the Christie Administration to date including acting as pool reporter for Governor Christie has he toured the state (via helicopter and motorcade) in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene.  Mr. McArdle has won multiple Associated Press awards for spot reporting and received the Edward R. Murrow Award in 2008 for coverage of then-Governor Jon Corzine’s 800% toll increase proposal.

 

Matt Katz
State House Correspondent

Matt Katz was born in the Bronx and raised in Queens and Long Island, New York but nonetheless has covered New Jersey news since 2000 beginning with school and planning boards of Morris County.  Mr. Katz has covered New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for more than three years, first for The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he created The Christie Chronicles blog, and now for WNYC and New Jersey Public Radio, where he runs The Christie Tracker and tweets @mattkatz00.  He has written about Governor Christie for The New Republic, The Washington Post and POLITICO magazine.  Mr. Katz is now writing a book about the governor for Simon & Schuster.  Prior to moving to the Statehouse in Trenton he spent time in Afghanistan, writing a series on reconstruction efforts that won the Livingston Award for International Reporting for journalists under the age of 35.  In 2009 his four-part investigation about Camden set the stage for an end to the state’s takeover of city government.

 

 

 

Video Gallery

by Linda Gilmore, PIO of Atlantic County, and Justin LeFevre, PIO Assistant of Atlantic County

 

Reporter Roundtable – http://adobe.ly/1ATXPhM

PHOTO GALLERY

photos by Mike Hickman Photography