Christie treats editors like prostitutes

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In a region that sorely needs more mass transit, light-rail service may be extended to Tenafly's old station, above. If town officials stop the  project, light rail would reach only Englewood.

Look at how The Record of Woodland Park transforms itself today into Governor Christie's personal journal. 

I can just see Editor Francis Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin prostrating themselves in front of the Republican bully and kissing the carpeted floor he walked on.

The governor granted an audience to the newspaper's Editorial Board on Wednesday, and got lavish, front-page coverage today with absolutely nothing from the other side to balance it -- nothing from the teachers union, federal transportation officials or anyone else he takes a pot shot at. 

There are three photos of Christie on the front page alone. Members of the Editorial Board (or is it Editorial Bored?) aren't identified.

Praise be to Christie, who held his silence for two full days so he could carefully orchestrate a response to federal officials, who are demanding the state repay $271 million spent on the Hudson River rail tunnels he killed -- apparently because his wife bitched and moaned she'd have to walk too far to catch a Manhattan subway.

We go from the face that launched a thousand ships to the powerful pol's wife who killed 6,000 jobs and a smoother commute for thousands more.

Christie, who after all is an argumentative lawyer at heart, is contesting that $271 million bill, but there's no denying he killed the project after the state had already spent $595 million on it. And he can't fall back on the Transportation Trust Fund, because he has refused to raise the low gasoline tax on his gas-guzzling buddies and wealthy supporters to fund it.

Laziness defines newsroom

Coverage of the rail-tunnel project pretty much follows how just about every story is covered by The Record. 

Lazy, incompetent editors and reporters prostitute themselves by waiting for the handout, statement, press release, report, survey, news conference or meeting with the Editorial Board, which acts like the governor's public relations agency.

God forbid, the staff showed some enterprise or refused to act as conduits for a wide range of lies, distortion and misinformation from new sources. That misleading information is rarely filtered or challenged by editors desperate to fill news columns.

Just the other day, two readers' letters to the editor corrected all the distortions and lies from Tenafly candidates opposed to extending light-rail service to that wealthy suburb, home of Publisher Stephen A. Borg. 


Before the election, The Record's Local section carried the candidates' preposterous claims about noise and pollution in a story by a staff writer and assistant assignment editor who apparently know nothing about electrified light rail, and they were reported verbatim, without seeking a response from NJ Transit.

More fire news

It's so typical of Sykes' Local section, which is full of accident and fire photos, but woefully short of stories on how well our towns are run. 

Now that copying fees have been lowered, do you think an enterprising reporter will ask for the municipal budget and go over it line by line to uncover waste?


Look at today's L-1. The most prominent story is about a house fire that killed three pet dogs. Wow. What a great photo. Look at all those flames, and the distraught owners. And the arson squad has been called in. A real whodunit.


The only Hackensack news today is a feel-good story on teens in the high school culinary arts program serving an Italian meal to the elderly. Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado really knows how to find a story.