So here is a response I wrote to Mike Deak and USA Today that needs to know how such "journalists" are damaging their brand by violating their ethics code.
I never got a response from either.
Mr. Deak
Greetings Mr. Deak,
I'm Dan Kleinman. You just wrote a story about me and my businesses, that are not related to the ethics matter that I brought as an individual, that is partly false and possibly defamatory, neither is it journalistic.
Further, your news story was photographed and posted on Bluesky by former North Hunterdon-Voorhees High School school librarian Martha Hickson who added a description to a photo (ALT text) calling me "Dan Klownman." See:
Given your story's content, it appears to me to have been sourced from Martha Hickson, a person who harasses me on a near weekly basis and who disparages my businesses on a near monthly basis.
Is there a means by which people can officially request corrections in the Courier News? I'll provide you with some context and see if you voluntarily correct the story.
Here's the story:
"BOE is Cleared of Ethics Charges Over Book Banning," by Mike Deak, Courier News, 1 October 2025, p.1, above the fold.
"Eight present and former members of the North Hunterdon-Voorhees Board of Education have been cleared of ethics charges that they were influenced by special interest groups in a controversy over whether a book should be removed from the North Hunterdon High School Library."
That is deceptive. The book is really not the issue, only the underlying reason potential ethics violations were exposed, and those violations are the real issue. This is accurate:
"Eight present and former members of the North Hunterdon-Voorhees Board of Education have been cleared of ethics charges that they were influenced by special interest groups in a controversy over whether they were guided by a special interest group in violation of ethics laws, made advanced promises to vote a certain way before being elected, another violation of the law, and leaked information to certain members of the public, a third violation of the law."
The following is defamatory, and it's how you describe me to your audience, as if written by Martha Hickson who regularly defames me and my businesses for at least a year:
"For more than a decade, Kleinman, based in Chatham, has waged a national campaign on what he believes are inappropriate books and websites in schools. He is also executive director of the World Library Association, an alternative to the American Library Association which he has called 'terrorist friendly, child unfriendly, and dishonest/unethical.'"
"Waged a national campaign"? I am a parent responding to an approximately 60 year effort by a special interest group from Chicago, IL, American Library Association, to promote age inappropriate material to children. See:
Koganzon, Rita. “There Is No Such Thing as a Banned Book: Censorship, Authority, and the School Book Controversies of the 1970s.” American Political Thought 12, no. 1 (January 2023): 1–26.
World Library Association has nothing to do with this case I filed individually. Yet you introduce it by labeling it "an alternative to the American Library Association which he has called 'terrorist friendly, child unfriendly, and dishonest/unethical.'" That's defamatory. You definitely got that from the person defaming me and my businesses for years.
WLA was formed two years ago, yet your quote is from 2011, fourteen years ago. Further, had you yourself looked at the quote, you would have seen it was based on a New York Times story in which the patron privacy rights of one of the 9/11 terrorists who killed thousands of Americans were defending by ALA's "Office for Intellectual Freedom" and "Freedom to Read Foundation" leader Judith Krug after a Florida librarian turned in a terrorist's presence to the police. See:
"A Nation Challenged: Questions of Confidentiality; Competing Principles Leave Some Professionals Debating Responsibility to Government," by David E. Rosenbaum, The New York Times, 23 November 2001.
So it's an accurate statement to say ALA is terrorist friendly, and it is based on a New York Times story where the ALA leader defended the patron privacy rights of a 9/11 terrorist to use a public library computer to learn how to better kill more Americans. Had you had that context and been a real journalist, I bet you would have excluded that smear of one of my businesses.
Similarly, I gave extensive primary sources proving the other assertions I made long ago that are now presented by you without context in a way that disparages my business. Here are those sources, if they haven't aged out over time:
Contrast how you introduced me to your readers with how you introduced Martha Hickson: "Former school librarian Martha Hickson was given the American Library Association's 2022 Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity for her efforts to keep the books in the library."
Clear bias right there in your news story. I supposedly waged a national campaign assumedly falsely calling the American Library Association is terrorist friendly, which it is, while Martha Hickson is an award winning librarian, which she got from ALA to promote how she harmed school children with age inappropriate material that may even violate NJ 2C:34-3 Obscenity for Persons Under 18--the very law the school board explicitly overrode to follow instead the advice of special interest group from Chicago, American Library Association.
You didn't introduce me in a similar fashion. You could have said, for example, that Ernest Istook, the author of the Children's Internet Protection Act, described me as a "trusted source" on the issue of how the American Library Association misleads communities about public library law. See:
It's right at the top of my About Me page but you missed it because you wrote a hit piece, and that's not journalism. See:
Part of how media manipulates the public is by not presenting information it should. You have done that. And it shows again you got your information from Martha Hickson, not from any actual effort at real journalism.
Had you actually investigated the story, or even asked me for input, you would have known the attorney for the school board, Comegno Law Group, repeatedly violated NJ School Ethics Commission rules--even the Commission's attorney had to interrupt to advise that rules were being broken.
And where did you miss this information that is entirely relevant to the story? Right on the Commission's website, the minutes of the August 19, 2025, meeting. A journalist would have made that part of his story. Instead, I see only a megaphoning of the defamatory statements of Martha Hickson who then implicitly bragged about her getting you to write that story on her Bluesky account by posting it and using it as a platform to again call me Klownman. Here is the link proving the above directly from the NJ SEC site that you completely missed because you wrote a hit piece, not something journalistic:
And that violation of rules may have been a violation of the NJ Rules of Professional Ethics and it may have been the reason why the Commission decided as it did. But any potential of that is completely absent from your reporting.
You also missed that one of the Commission's members, Rich Tomko, was hired by the school's superintendent to consult on the Strategic Plan.
As I said earlier, part of how media manipulates the public is by not presenting information it should.
Mike Deak, I'm sure you'll be writing about me again. I'm forgiving. Next time pick up a phone and speak with me before blindly publishing agitprop from an American Library Association librarian.
It might be relevant, for example, that ALA helped Martha Hickson so completely pull the wool over everyone's eyes, so much so that the ALA President bragged about it in her yearly speech to ALA membership about how ALA tools provided to Martha Hickson helped her keep the 2C:34-3 book in the school library. See:
"ALA Details How It Controls Communities Nationwide: The Quiet Part Out Loud Now In Transcript Form"
(35:07):
And so we know that people are battling back and we are using that platform to pull people together. I was at a a conference and uh Martha Hickson was there who some of you may know as school librarian in New Jersey. And when she faced a challenge at her school through that UABB platform, and other forms of organizing, 400 community members came and joined her to sign, to to stand with her in that moment. [00:35:30] So the United Against Book baba Bans platform facilitates that. Our state chapters are using uh OneClickPolitics®, a tool that comes from our Chapter Relations Office and from uh the Washington Office to organize locally. We know that local organizing is what wins the day, that ALA can't come in and save places, but what we can do is provide the tools to the people who are on the ground doing that kind of organizing work. We continue to look for ways to expand our work in uh the Office of Intellectual Freedom.
"Mike Deak has worked in Central Jersey journalism for more than four decades. Our journalists adhere to the USA TODAY NETWORK Principles of Ethical Conduct For Newsrooms." See:
Not this time. You violated a lot of those ethics rules. Read them:
You violated ethics rules, to support a school board potentially improperly cleared of violating ethics rules. All to keep school children reading inappropriate material that may violate New Jersey obscenity law but doesn't violate American Library Association standards or lack thereof.
All of the above is my opinion.
------------
Dan Kleinman, Owner of SafeLibraries® brand library educational services
By the Way
By the way, since writing the above, I have learned the NJ School Ethics Commission may have some ethics problems of its own. We shall see.
In the meantime, one of the board members formerly under ethical review (Beth Kotran) is running to be reelected by lying about the ethics decision. I discuss just this at the 28 October 2025 board meeting, seen here:
Miller v. California (1973 SCOTUS)—the landmark obscenity smackdown. IT DOES NOT APPLY TO SCHOOL LIBRARIES. American Library Association says it does cuz it is one of the ways ALA indoctrinates and s•xualizes school children.
— Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries® (@SexHarassed) October 29, 2025
Watch me tell a school board to dump Miller:
1/2 pic.twitter.com/eKuIOUfgFB
—
URL of this page:
Join World Library Association:
WorldLibraryAssociation.org
Legal Defense for SLAPP Suits Against Free Speech
