PoliticsNJ.com site has a new owner

Jared Kushner is ready to invest.

In announcing his purchase of the political Web site PoliticsNJ.com, Kushner promised to bulk it up with two full-time reporters and credible commentators, including former Democratic U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli and former Republican Gov. Christie Whitman.

He declined to say what he paid Publius Group for the Web site, which has about 20,000 regular readers.

Kushner also owns the New York Observer, a politics-based weekly in New York, for which he paid about $10 million in 2003. His political editor there, Terry Golway, also will write a column for the New Jersey Web site.

"Profitability comes from having a great product. A lot of people in the media world are taking the reverse approach. They're thinking, 'How can I tear down the product and make it cheaper?' " he said. "Some media properties are struggling because they're not giving readers what they desire. It's still a service business in that sense."

Kushner, 26, is the son of the wealthy developer and Democratic financier Charles Kushner, who served 11 months in prison for crimes including hiring a prostitute to seduce his sister's husband to keep him from testifying in an investigation.

Kushner, the publisher, said he did not become interested in politics because of his father, who had been close to governors, U.S. senators, and a president or two. Rather, he said, his interest in politics comes from his "great respect for people who make a great personal sacrifice."

His newly acquired Web site already sports a cleaner, more organized look. And yesterday, the first columns appeared from Whitman and Torricelli.

Kushner said that not everything at the seven-year old Web site would change. He'll keep Rider University political scientist David Rebovich and the anonymous columnist Wally Edge onboard. Edge is named for the former U.S. senator and governor who served during both world wars.

Kushner declined to identify the columnist, who is widely believed to be several people sharing the same pseudonym.