I’ve praised both New Brunswick Today and its editor Charlie Kratovil on this blog before. If, as I’ve put it elsewhere, “New Brunswick politics is an education,” Charlie Kratovil deserves an endowed chair.

New Brunswick Today was the newspaper that published the most extensive expose, back in 2024, of the outrageous scheme by Edison town officials (and the Edison Police) to intimidate Spanish-speaking migrants stopped at the Edison rail station, following their expulsion by Governor Greg Abbott from Texas. Kratovil was the only reporter to go out and sue to get body cam video of the entire incident, publish it in its entirety, and make explicit that what it showed was an extended violation of civil rights law. Subtract his reporting from the record, and the event falls between the cracks and vanishes.

It’s not the only such story. It was Kratovil who recently broke a major scandal involving the New Brunswick Parking Authority, forcing it to admit fault regarding its hiring practices, and New Brunswick Today that’s run the most hard-hitting coverage of Rutgers University’s decision to revoke an alumnus’s invitation to speak at a commencement ceremony because of his advocacy for Palestine. It’s also in large part through Kratovil’s efforts that the tragic death of Deborah Terrell at the hands of New Brunswick Police has found its way to wider attention, and Kratovil who’s organized the effort to commemorate her life. Just a small sample of stories off the top of my head.

As a general proposition, you can rely on Kratovil and his reporters to be on the scene reporting the facts long before the mainstream press has gotten there, and long after it’s lost interest. I always found it a welcome sight to see Kratovil at Middlesex County Council meetings–he was literally at every meeting–with his pointed questions, his follow-ups, and his insistence on getting answers. I’ve learned a lot from him in a very short and cursory acquaintance.

Kratovil speaking at a memorial event for Deborah Terrell, John Fricano Towers, New Brunswick, New Jersey; May 8, 2026

Unsurprisingly, New Brunswick Today is now on the receiving end of censorship via prior restraint. From a piece by Caitlin Vogus in The Star Ledger:

Weeks after a New Jersey judge ordered local newspaper New Brunswick Today to remove truthful reporting about a school security incident from the internet, the paper is still waiting for an opportunity to defend the public’s right to know.

Orders prohibiting publication are known as “prior restraints.” Under the First Amendment, they’re only allowed in the most extreme circumstances. But despite decades of Supreme Court precedent, some courts continue to grant them. And although these censorship orders are almost always overturned, the public is denied access to news and information every day they remain in effect.

Case in point: the prior restraint against New Brunswick Today.

In May, the paper published a security video from New Brunswick High School showing a school security guard confronting a student who tried to pass through metal detectors with an airsoft BB gun, causing the school to go into lockdown. The student was later criminally charged.

The New Brunswick Board of Education immediately demanded that the news outlet take down the video. On May 29, it took New Brunswick Today to court. That same day, a New Jersey court entered a temporary order against the paper requiring it to remove the footage. It also prohibited New Brunswick Today from even describing the video in writing or publishing other security videos it may receive.

It’s a telling excerpt, but read the whole thing. I often hear people responding to criticisms of the United States with the mantra that “at least we’re free to criticize our government.” The New Brunswick Today case proves that we’re not. Say the wrong thing at the wrong time and in the wrong way–or be the wrong person to say it–and the authorities will find a way to shut you down.

When they do, almost no one will notice and almost no one will care. You’ll bear the full burden of fighting your case; the case itself will be treated as a curiosity or anomaly if it’s noticed at all. Maybe you’ll win, maybe you’ll stay muzzled, but regardless, people will continue to insist that free speech prevails here, and that censorship is only something you find abroad. Well, publish a paper like New Brunswick Today and see how long that lasts. A hypothesis worth trying on is that we don’t have systematic censorship in this country because we have a mainstream press so docile that no one feels the need to censor it. It’s better PR for the government to let journalists pretend that they’re free to dissent. It’s not as though they will.

Friends and family speaking in memory of Deborah Terrell, New Brunswick, New Jersey, May 8, 2026

Unfortunately, the only resource I have to put at Kratovil’s disposal is mention on my blog. So here it is. I wish I could do more than say that it’s a cautionary tale. But that’s practically a given.

As a consolation prize, I’m going to try to induce Kratovil to do an interview in my Activist Interviews series–once I can carve out the time to interview him. With any luck, he’ll say something controversial enough to get us both shut down. And what a cautionary tale that’ll be.