Hasson’s Revenge

The inevitable has happened. Janet Hasson and the Journal News have gained revenge against the Rockland County Times and editor-in-chief Dylan Skriloff for the weekly community paper’s award-winning coverage of the daily newspaper’s infamous gun map debacle last winter.

Journal News publisher Hasson and her editors revealed on Friday, October 4-Skriloff’s 34th birthday-that the Rockland County Times editor and GOP/Conservative candidate for town supervisor of Stony Point has a misdemeanor on his record for possession of LSD, dating back to his college days in Albany.

Skriloff said, “Turnabout is fair play. I gave them a hard time, now they’re giving me a hard time. The fact remains that I stood up for Rockland County and Stony Point when the Journal News violated our residents’ sense of privacy and made them feel like criminals simply for exercising their right to bear arms.”

The award-winning, nationally recognized editor said he had no problem with the Journal News revealing the information. “Of course any public record of a candidate or official is potentially newsworthy and I even tip my hat at the humor of revealing this on my birthday,” Skriloff said.

Also on October 4, Hasson’s newspaper announced they were filing a lawsuit against Putnam County, seeking more information on local gun owners permits.

This spring, Skriloff won the Haverstraw Elks 877 Civilian Award for support of law enforcement for his coverage of the gun map controversy. Thousands of police officers had their addresses advertised via the Journal News’ gun map.

Skriloff’s coverage began by exposing the addresses and phone numbers of editors responsible for publishing the gun map. On January 1, 2013 Skriloff then made international headlines when he revealed that the Journal News had ironically hired gun-toting guards, some of whom were on their own gun map.

He also revealed that the Journal News’ Rockland County gun map was about 25 percent outdated and he continued to follow the financial ramifications of the gun map fallout throughout 2013, apparently raising the ire of editors and the publisher at the Journal News.

As of 8:30 p.m. on Friday night the Journal News put an unflattering photo of Skriloff on the top center of their homepage. The candidate/editor said, “I think they are now going a bit overboard and their enmity for me is utterly transparent.”

At 9 p.m. an editor at the Journal News altered the online article to remove information acknowledging tension between Skriloff and the competing newspaper. “Their story is getting less transparent by the moment,” Skriloff said. “It’s amazing with the Internet that you can watch a story mutate right before your eyes.”

  dylan skriloff, gun map, janet hasson, Stony Point