Today's front page really sucks

Lincoln Tunnel, New Jersey side approach and "helix," circa 1955. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Long-suffering readers of The Record know Editor Liz Houlton's news copy desk can't edit or always deliver accurate headlines. 

But the lead Page 1 story today demonstrates the copy editors can't add, either.

If the Lincoln Tunnel helix was opened in October 1938, it became an engineering marvel more than 73 years ago, not "70 years ago," as the lead paragraph reports.

And nowhere in the text on A-1 and A-8 or in the elaborate graphic can readers find the helix's well-known numerical designation, Route 495, though other route numbers are provided.

That's just sloppy

You don't expect that kind of sloppiness on a front page from Editor Marty Gottlieb, who spent many years at The New York Times.

Even on a Monday after a slow news weekend, the Page 1 column by sports writer Tara Sullivan seems made up, fabricated, fraudulent -- supply your own word. 

Who the hell remembers what happened five years ago? So members of the Rutgers women's basketball team were called "nappy headed hos" by that racist pig Imus. 

Is there any doubt -- except in the mind of Gottlieb and his desperate sports editor -- the women shook it off years ago? 


Elephantine news

Instead of getting better, the front page gets worse with yet another column by Charles Stile on Governor Christie's "Jersey style."

Christie is the worst governor the state has ever had, and that can be documented in numerous ways. On top of that, the GOP bully is a slave to food who has ignored the childhood obesity epidemic in New Jersey.

When are the editors of The Record going to stop trying to polish a turd and level with readers?

Local readers suffer

Although story length has grown and sidebars have proliferated under Gottlieb, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes still turns out the same tripe she has been peddling for decades.

Former Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado was sent to the Rutgers campus for reaction to the Dharun Ravi verdict -- the 10th story about the trial in the past three days -- and readers are still wondering how the university pairs roommates and how easy it is for students to change rooms (L-1).

The only Hackensack news in Local today is a brief on a kitchen fire (L-2).