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This article reports on how the Ashbury Park Press became popular through its award-winning article series on how New Jersey legislators profit from their jobs. On September 21, 2003, the Ashbury Park Press launched a compelling series titled Profiting from Public Service: How Many N.J. Legislators Exploit the System. For days, the newspaper detailed abuses and provided examples that filled 38 pages with 72 stories. The series was dispatched over the Gannett wire to the chain's six other New Jersey papers, which had all contributed at least one reporter to a five-month effort spearheaded by the Press and captained by its energetic new executive editor, William C. Hidlay. During the 2004 journalism awards harvest, the series won two lucrative prizes. But the articles also prompted controversy in New Jersey political and journalistic circles, where people had been accustomed to a more restrained form of reporting. Although the series did not accomplish all that it set out to do, notably in the area of pay-to-play reform, what the Legislature enacted amounted to the biggest ethics reform in New Jersey since Watergate. The Press will track the impact of pay-to-play reform when it takes effect in 2006.