By TaRessa Stovall

What y’all call beef is not beef at all…
Beef is when the crack kids can’t find moms
‘Cause they end up in a pine box or locked behind bars…
Beef is oil prices and geopolitics
Beef is Iraq, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip
Some beef is big and some beef is small
But what y’all call beef is not beef at all

–What’s Beef? Mos Def and Talib Kweli

The recent “feud” between Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker and the host of NBC’s Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien achieved at least three things:

1. Ratings, or at least attention for the show, which O’Brien took over from Jay Leno in June;

2. Higher visibility and brand-building for Booker, widely considered to be an Obama-like political wunderkind with big ambitions; and

3. A generous donation to Newark Now! the non-profit Booker founded to help residents with resources, services and community-building.

It also raised the question: was this the best use of Booker’s time, given that his city, like so many, faces daunting life-and-death challenges?

Such “beef” also serves the purpose of feeding the insatiable, nonstop “news” cycle driving both old and new media to a constant hunt for anything remotely resembling content in the desperate attempt to attract and hold audiences.

For those distracted by David Letterman’s headline-grabbing sex scandal happening around the same time, here’s the backstory: On September 23, O’Brien joked on the show that, “The Mayor of Newark, NJ, wants to set up a citywide program to improve residents’ health. The health care program would consist of a bus ticket out of Newark.”

Booker responded with a YouTube video saying, “You fail to understand our city is one of the fastest growing cities in the Northeast,” and listing recent progress in Newark, the largest city in New Jersey, with its fair share of poverty, violence, crime and other big –city urban woes. Calling Newark “a city on the rise,” Booker then notified O’Brien that he was officially on Newark International Airport’s “no fly list,” closing the video with “Try JFK, buddy.”

The banter continued, with O’Brien inviting Booker on the show, which is taped near the Burbank, California, International Airport, from which he banned the mayor. Booker’s next YouTube video had more jokes and taunts, and an offer to come on The Tonight Show to settle the feud, but only after O’Brien visited Newark.

O’Brien “apologized,” describing Newark’s cultural assets, including the “beautiful waterfront, thriving art scene, exciting regional cuisine, four-star lodging and world class live theater,” while showing a funky bridge, graffiti in an alley, burned out cars, a Dunkin Donuts and a peep show.

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton playfully intervened on October 8, with a video plea to end the joshing and get back to work. The blog, www.secretaryclinton.wordpress.com, said, “Clinton told them to return to their core duties. For Booker, she says that means ‘leading Newark toward a new era of growth and prosperity.’”

Meanwhile, Booker, who some in and outside of Newark have criticized for seeming to be more focused on raising his profile than truly fixing the city’s problems, may also have been promoting the critically-acclaimed five-part Sundance channel reality show, Brick City,  described as a real-life version of the über-popular former HBO urban drama, The Wire.

What no one can argue is that, between the thousands of hits he garnered on YouTube and the 2.6 million Tonight Show… viewers, Booker drew attention to himself and to Newark at minimal financial cost.

“This kind of exposure is extremely rare for someone that’s not a senator, governor, or presidential candidate,” political consultant Joe Trippi, said in an October 12 Associated Press story about the feud. “This shows how savvy Cory Booker is about new media and how it can be used to leverage mainstream and old media.”

The 37-year-old Booker, a Yale law graduate and Rhodes Scholar, was elected in 2006, and is credited by some with improving Newark. A February 24 New York Times article said that “Since his election, Mr. Booker has worked to revamp the city’s police department and he has reorganized the city’s bureaucracy. He also sponsored a raft of campaign finance rules, passed by the council, that have been hailed as among the most far-reaching in the country. Creating summer jobs for teenagers, promoting downtown redevelopment helping recently released felons find jobs and renovating the city’s decrepit police station houses have also been among his top priorities.

“In 2008, the murder rate dropped more than 30 percent. Mr. Booker … said that while he was pleased that homicides had dropped, they remained far too common. He said he was looking forward to cutting the number further by using better technology and putting more officers on the streets,” The New York Times piece stated.

The Mayor also has a rep for defending Newark against media snipers. In June 2008, he wrote a long, detailed and very irate letter to Esquire magazine in response to an article that he said presented “another narrow, clichéd and grossly insulting misinterpretation of Newark—its people, neighborhoods, successes and progress.”

When Cory and Conan finally met face to face on the October 17 Tonight Show…, all was apparently forgiven. Calling his joke “expensive,” O’Brien donated $50,000 of his own money and $50,000 from the network to Newark Now! The next day, Booker called the truce “a victory for the city,” saying that the donation “way overshadowed what we perceived as Conan’s unfair jokes about our city.” The victory also included what is estimated at around a million YouTube and Twitter followers for the mayor. “This would not have been possible five years ago,” Booker told The Star-Ledger, Newark’s main newspaper.

Perhaps the “beef” was manufactured for mutual gain, and certainly Newark, like other large cities, has more than enough travails to fully occupy its top manager. While Booker may, as many speculate, be aiming far beyond City Hall, if reports of his progress are accurate, a young black male politician whose smarts and charisma are matched by media savvy and the ability to raise his profile and community-based funding from a lame joke, I’m willing to bet that his star is just beginning to rise.

TaRessa Stovall is Managing Editor of TheDefendersOnline.

Kevin Eason is a freelance editorial cartoonist and Illustrator from NJ. His brand of satire covers news events in politics, entertainment, sports and much more. Kevin’s work features include: TVOne, NABJ, WBLS_107.5FM, EURweb and various newspapers & magazines throughout the country.