[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kickoff the program continuing to talk about media leadership with our good friend and colleague, Tom Bergeron, who's the founder, CEO and editor in chief of Business in New Jersey Every Day, otherwise known as BINJE, BINJE.

Good to see you, Tom.

- Good to be here.

- Tell us what BINJE is.

The website is up right now.

- So BINJE is essentially a business journal at heart, but we always describe ourselves as not what we cover, but who we cover for.

We're providing news and information about the business community, for the business community.

So it doesn't matter if you're a thought leader in a three person company or a 30,000 person company, we're giving you the information you need to run your business.

- Tom, you have covered business politics.

In fact, the convergence of business and politics plays itself out in the 2025 gubernatorial race between Mikie Sherrill, the Democrat, Jack Ciattarelli, Republican.

You actually were telling me before we got on the air, you were at an event last night, were they both there?

- They were both there.

- Okay.

The gubernatorial campaign, who becomes governor and business in New Jersey, you're on.

- Look, one of the key issues of the campaign is gonna be economic development in the state and the economic future of the state.

And both candidates laid out very specific ideas of what they wanna do.

Jack, perhaps a little bit more specific, talking about creating a department of commerce to help business in the state.

Jack very specifically talking about reducing the CBT or the corporate business tax.

He wants to essentially cut it in half to match Pennsylvania, going down 1% a year for six years.

Those and other ideas of reducing regulation, reducing taxes.

He said, you know, a lot of people feel you can't tax your way out of this.

You need revenue and his push is to create more revenue by being more business friendly.

- Tom, you talk to business leaders in the state.

How much do they talk about quote, tariffs, tariffs from Washington, tariffs from the Trump administration and its impact on business activity in the state and the overall economy?

- It came up a little bit last night, but you could have asked me about this on almost every topic.

The biggest answer that I get from business leaders is we have to see, we have to see, we have to see.

Things are changing so quickly.

Obviously if massive tariffs come in impacting their property, it's gonna have an impact.

But right now it's just been a lot of talk, forgive me, a lot of bluster.

They're waiting to see specifics that come out and when that happens, they'll be able to adjust.

Look, Steve, you've been doing this as long as I have.

All business leaders want is certainty.

And right now there's a lot of uncertainty.

- Tom, speaking of uncertainty, the graphic will come up right now, media leadership.

It's an ongoing series we're doing because the truth is we're a media organization.

We're trying to figure it out.

Producing this way, we'll continue to evolve and trying to find more economic, efficient ways of doing what we do.

You're doing the same thing only in a different platform.

How challenging is it to start up and to operate profitably your operation?

- Look, there's challenges in every business.

The media landscape certainly is different, but I view it more as an opportunity.

And you and I have both been around this block for a long time.

You have to understand that the media landscape has changed, right?

It's more niche publishing, you have to find your lane.

I don't believe that people don't want media.

I don't believe that people don't read.

People consume more information now than ever before.

The key is to find information that appeals to a certain level.

- Who would you say, like we struggle to ask ourselves on state of affairs and our other programs, who is our audience?

Sometimes it's challenging to figure that out, who's yours?

- My audience is the business leaders.

People in the C-suite, again, of companies of any size.

The people that are making decisions for their businesses, both internally and externally.

And it's that narrow focus that we have to go back to.

We constantly say, no, that's not a story for us.

This is a story for us.

So we wanna make sure that when people come to BINJE, it's information, it's news they can use for their business.

- You know, Tom, again, following up on this media leadership issue, one of the concerns I have along with countless other people in media, is not just the question of how much people trust us or not, and we're not a monolithic entity and our friends and colleagues and brothers and sisters in public broadcasting, we think they're the best, but they're challenged as well.

Along those lines, what do you believe we need to do as leaders in the media to frankly build back some of the trust that we have lost with all kinds of folks calling us publicly, often with a loud megaphone, the enemy of the people, which we obviously are not.

- Well, I think if anybody saw our work hours and our work ethic, they would understand that we're not doing this because we pick A and B.

To address the issue of supporting one side over the other, I always ask, I'm like, okay, so we're only gonna take advertising from side A instead of side B, and how do we pick which one's better?

So I think that's a little silly.

The biggest issue that we can do though is there's a lot of noise.

There's a lot of media.

Anybody with a website can produce information.

The key for media is to be truthful.

The key for media is to be straightforward.

Anytime we get too caught up into clickbait and catchy heads and catchy situations where you're trying to track people, it might work for one day or one event or one show, but it's a consistency over time.

Look, it's no different than your relationship with individuals or people.

It's what you do over time to build that trust.

So you're not gonna do it in a day, you're not gonna do it with a story.

You're not gonna do it in an event.

But if time and time again, people understand you to be knowledgeable and truthful and helpful, they're gonna keep coming back and you're gonna earn that trust.

The key is you can lose that trust in a second.

So you have to stay focused on making sure that you're accurate and straight down the middle.

- You know, but Tom, even though you're a business publication, you're concerned about the future of our quote unquote representative democracy.

How much do you foresee BINJE being engaged in writing about those issues, about our democracy in danger?

Graphic comes up, because that's a long standing series we've been doing as well.

Or do you say, no, this is business, that's politics since government.

- So look, our philosophy has always been, we will talk about any issue with the lens towards the business community for the business leader.

So when I cover Mikie and Jack at an event, whatever their social policy is, is very interesting and fascinating and important to the state.

But people aren't coming to BINJE for their social policy.

They're coming to business to learn about their business policy.

So we need to stay focused.

And in that regard, that's whereas the impact to democracy impacts business.

If you're talking about cutting funding to public broadcasting, okay, there's a business angle that's gonna hurt journalism, right?

A huge one, so that's what you're gonna get.

- And hurts the people we serve.

- 100%, 100%, but the key is to stay in your lane, let other people stay in their lane.

When media companies trying to be too broad based and cover everything, you're covering nothing.

- Last question, you've talked a lot and we've known you for a long time.

We've been business partners, we collaborate.

You are heavy into collaboration versus the pie is only so big, we've gotta get our piece, we're competing against each other.

You don't buy that thinking, do you?

- Not in the least bit.

And this goes back to when I was a sports editor at the Star Ledger.

Media, listen, we're all competing to break a big story, I get that.

But overall, we're all on the same team.

And quite frankly, that team's a lot smaller than it's ever been.

I don't believe that someone looks at one show versus another and says, I'm only gonna watch you and not B, we're gonna read by one publication, not the other, people are gonna go where they get trusted information.

And if there's 19 sites, that's all the better.

So my aim through all this collaboration, we're working out one with you and with other media companies.

We wanna make sure that people see all the good media is out there and show that we're doing this all together.

- We see it the same way my friend, that's Tom Bergeron, founder, CEO and editor in chief of Business in New Jersey Every Day BINJE, BINJE.

Thank you Tom.

- Pleasure to be here.

- Best to you and your team.

- Thank you.

- You got it, stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

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And by The New Jersey Education Association.

Promotional support provided by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

And by BestofNJ.com.

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