News
Register Editor Remembers Groundbreaking Journalist
Arthur Z. Kamin, Fair Haven, was president and editor of The Daily Register and The Sunday Register, where Doris Kulman worked as a reporter, columnist and later as editorial page editor.
"She was an extraordinary, award-winning journalist," Kamin said." One of the best in the state of New Jersey. "Hers was a powerful and respected newspaper voice. Her byline on a news story carried great weight in the community. It always was the mark of pure, well-researched and well- written journalism."
"As a columnist and editorial writer," Kamin added, "Doris Kulman was in the forefront of social, civil rights, and women's issues in the county and in the state." She was the lead writer in The Register's drive to keep intact state and federal financial aid to women in the dependent children program when the aid was threatened at the county level. She even started her own small newspaper that focused on news of interest to women.
"Doris Kulman had a great ability to seek out and put the spotlight on phony, self-serving politicians and elected officials," Kamin continued. "She did this in the public interest to give citizens a better understanding of lawmakers, at all levels. who were not performing at their best and often in an unethical manner."
The Register was known as a watchdog newspaper with a conscience that waged editorial efforts to benefit the citizens of the county. The Register, with Doris Kulman as part of the writing staff, was instrumental in advocating the opening of Brookdale Community College and suggested the names of high-quality candidates that should be placed on the college's first Board of Trustees. Joseph C. Irwin, the late longtime Monmouth County Republican freeholder director, said Brookdale "never would have been born without the guidance and resolve of The Register and its editors."
The newspaper also was an important factor in maintaining the economic health of the region and giving the northern Monmouth area of the county a high quality of life that made it a model for the state. "Doris Kulman helped us to achieve this." Kamin said.
He called Doris Kulman a "strong newsroom team player who never was so busy that she couldn't pick up the telephone to take an obituary or write a fender-bender accident story to help out other staffers on deadline.
"New and young reporters - and even seasoned veterans - flocked to her in the newsroom." Kamin went on. "They knew there was a lot to learn from Doris Kulman, who was trained and schooled in the trenches of hands-on weekly and daily community newspapering with a competitive spirit to be the first with the story."
Kamin concluded: "Monmouth County and New Jersey journalism have lost a treasure and a pacesetter.
