Some N.J. news absent from N.J. news show

When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced earlier this week that he would not seek the presidency, it was carried live on almost every major television news channel—except New Jersey’s own news channel.

As the only statewide news source in New Jersey, the former NJN was based in Trenton to more easily train its lens on state politics.

After more than 40 years in New Jersey, NJN was taken over in July by the New York public broadcaster, WNET, which changed it to NJTV and temporarily relocated it to New York City. Starting from scratch, the new news team has not yet hit its stride.

Critics and politicians have criticized NJTV for failing to feature live coverage during Hurricane Irene and Gov. Christie’s announcement.

“We didn’t walk into an existing facility, which has all the resources we need,” said Bob Males, executive producer of the nightly news program NJ Today. “Our remote infrastructure is not quite there yet. If we could do it again, we could figure out how to do it, and do it better. You can be sure, in future we will be doing better.”

NJTV will soon move back to New Jersey. Males said that in a few weeks, NJTV will announce the location of its permanent home in the state it is covering.