Ben Franklin once notoriously described New Jersey as a barrel tapped at both ends, referring to New York in the north and Philadelphia in the south, and consigning the Garden State to that depleted wasteland between the two. Whatever your view of that infamous dig, what is true is that every so often one of those cities donates a native son or daughter who makes a special contribution to our beloved New Jersey.

Such a person was political correspondent Michael Aron, a native of Philadelphia, who died in August, a professional who embodied excellence, precision of intellect and news judgment, work ethic, leadership, integrity, and devotion to the truth. Chief political correspondent for New Jersey public television news for over four decades, Mr. Aron worked at NJ Spotlight News, the news division of NJ PBS, its predecessor NJTV News, and the former New Jersey Network (NJN). Semi-retiring in 2020, he continued to report on elections and other special coverage for NJ Spotlight News.

In an official joint statement of mourning, PBS and WNET noted that “throughout his career and tenure at NJ Spotlight News, [Mr.] Aron interviewed every New Jersey governor, state Supreme Court chief justice and legislative leader, plus several presidential candidates. He covered national political conventions, trade missions abroad and all the major political issues of the state. He also contributed to such esteemed national and local outlets as Harper’s Magazine, Rolling Stone and New Jersey Monthly. Adding to his distinguished career, [Mr.] Aron was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in New Jersey Journalism at the inaugural Byrne Kean Dinner in 2021 and the League of Municipalities’ Distinguished Public Service Award in 2015, while also consistently ranking in the Top 10 on the PolitickerNJ and InsiderNJ Power Lists.”

Not having him around anymore hurts. The reporters who came up in the era of the Mr. Aron-moderated Reporters Roundtable took special pride in knowing him and working with him. He was always the hardest working, the most impeccable, the most substantive, the most inquisitive, and the one who seemed most genuinely curious and humbly appreciative of his colleagues. He somehow did all of this while maintaining an aura of genuine nobility. It’s difficult to describe now. This was a news reporter who would scramble around the halls of the Statehouse in his seventies with his sleeves rolled up to get a story, sit in his bureau cubicle with research notes and labor to get the voice-over just right, with specific, detailed information the public needed to know each night on a public television broadcast, who could also cooly and pointedly cross-exam gubernatorial candidates and, of course, occupy – with unique gravitas – the host’s chair for his shows, Reporters Roundtable and On the Record.

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