Editor shows how out of touch he is

Editor Marty Gottlieb of The Record is chiefly concerned with traffic on "football Sundays" in the Meadowlands, not the daily weekday paralysis facing commuters in North Jersey and the rest of the metro area because of inadequate mass transit.

Marty Gottlieb worked as a cub reporter at The Record in early 1970s, then went on to a celebrated career with The New York Times in New York and Paris.

Except for the dysfunctional home-rule system, the Bergen County he covered no longer exists.

The county -- and much of the rest of North Jersey -- suffers from an antiquated road network, massive traffic jams, inadequate mass transit, and crime and noise problems that rival many big cities.

But Gottlieb, editor of The Record since late January, seems to be completely out of touch with reader concerns, as today's sports-dominated front page clearly shows.

From the locker room

Three of the five main elements on Page 1 are about sports or related issues. A brief on the death of a "football star [and] actor" makes it five sports elements. 

For Gottlieb, editing The Record has become a game.

Readers are confounded. 

Why would Gottlieb lead today's paper with dueling traffic experts for American Dreams Meadowlands and the Giants and Jets?

The only people concerned about the potential for big traffic jams are  greedy team owners and overweight, beer-guzzling fans in their overweight, gas-guzzling SUVs.

White, wealthy and a success

Readers looking for news on Page 1 come up short.

The story on Willie Geist, son of a well-known journalist from Ridgewood who will become a co-host on "Today," could have been plucked from the pages of (201) magazine, Publisher Stephen A. Borg's pet project.

Check out the photo of Willie Geist's lovely family (A-8).

The fifth story on Page 1 concludes "rage" drove a man to kill his ex-wife and her boyfriend conveniently close to the Woodland Park newsroom.

That's hardly news, and the piece doesn't belong on the front page. 

Flawed columnist

Road Warrior John Cichowski has made numerous errors in his column in recent years, but today brings a rare correction: an acknowledgement that he was wrong when he said Grand Avenue passed through Teaneck (A-2).

On A-4, a photo shows an obese Governor Christie lecturing Mitt Romney about nutrition.

Media crystal balls 

As with the presidential race and the court challenge to President Obama's health-care law, The Record and other media are knocking themselves out trying to predict the outcome of a suit against race-based college admissions in Texas (A-1 and A-5).

When did the media switch from reporting what happened to trying to predict events before they happen?

Flirting with local news

As today's Local section shows, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, are keeping company with Gottlieb out in La La Land.

But what's their excuse? They've lived in North Jersey and worked at The Record for decades.

Four of the five elements on the Local front today are court or Law & Order stories. Six more court or police stories appear inside.

Newsroom infidelity

Alan Finder, another former New York Times editor, is running the new Signature section, which continues to disappoint.

Today's cover promotes a book by Staff Writer Leslie Brody on the life and death of Elliot Pinsley, a reporter and editor she met when the paper was in Hackensack, and later married.

There's no mention in the book's prologue, reprinted in Signature, that at the time they met, both were married and had children.

Their relationship recalls how Dan Shea romanced Stephanie Stokes, a reporter in the Business news department he ran at The Record, even though Shea was married at the time.

Shea eventually divorced his wife, who was a doctor, married Stokes and moved to New Orleans, where he is managing editor of the Times-Picayune and she is home and garden editor. 

Staffers who worked for Shea recall how he ordered them to cancel plans for a Christmas party at a Hoboken steakhouse, and celebrate with him and his wife at their Manhattan apartment.