The editors and the paper are all wet

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Readers yawned twice today -- when they awoke and when they looked at a front-page column on Rutgers' head coach.

My copy of The Record was soaked through, even though it was in two, knotted plastic bags when it landed on my wet driveway this morning.


When I opened it and saw that most of the front page was devoted to a vapid sports column on Rutgers' overpaid football coach, I realized that the editors are all wet, too.


The piece by Staff Writer Tara Sullivan is full of hype.


Sullivan fails to mention that Greg Schiano makes more than three times the salary of Governor Christie or that the coach's greed is gross and disgusting.


His departure for Florida may be a huge sports story, but it leaves the majority of readers cold and scrambling to find relevant news in the rest of the Woodland Park daily.


Cold shoulders, cold body


The lead A-1 story on Donald Domsky, a Wayne man who was found more than a year after he collapsed and died at home, is filled with unanswered questions, but the editors fail to address the biggest one: 


What does his long-undiscovered death say about our society?


On head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local front, the biggest news is that no incendiary materials were found in a search of about 70 synagogues after a suspect was charged in a firebombing and an arson.


More road kill


Road Warrior John Cichowski has yet another column based on a reader's e-mail, this one from a driver whose car was rear-ended by a Passaic County pick-up truck and who complains of slow payment of his insurance deductible.


This is about as far as you can get away from the commuting problems Cichowski is supposed to write about. 


Car-centric coverage


Why did The Record run two overwhelmingly negative stories in a row on a proposal to extend light-rail service to Tenafly on Page 1 and the Local front, then put a report on support for the plan from residents of four other towns on L-3 today?


In a region as traffic-choked as North Jersey, the progress of mass transit should be front-page news -- it's certainly a hell of a lot more important than football.


Editors seem lost, too


Another story worthy of Page 1 is way back on L-7, the first Business page, where Staff Writer Joan Verdon reports on a shoe that uses GPS technology to track people with Alzheimer's disease or dementia.


Editor Martin "Marty" Gottlieb, 64, is winding up his first week at The Record, where he began his journalism career as a cub reporter. 


How much input he had on the play of stories is unknown. Does he live in New Jersey or know anything about it? Those are more unknowns. 


A third unknown is whether he is familiar with the paper's bias for the young, especially in news coverage that favors autism and ignores the challenges facing the elderly.


Putting on a feed bag


In Better Living, the food at Valley Stables Food and Drink in Oakland sounds awful -- and what a stupid name for a restaurant. It might as well serve horse meat or hay.


Why did Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung even bother writing a review after consuming all that artery clogging meat, plus cake, a cookie and an apple crisp? Her rating is between Fair and Good.


It should have been, "Don't bother."