Page 1 story on police spying raises questions

Teaneck residents can only guess what two cops were discussing on Nov. 2, four days after Sandy closed many streets and darkened hundreds of homes and traffic lights.

Today's Page 1 story on the role of local police departments in a federal anti-terrorism program raises a lot of questions.

For decades, The Record's editors have been humoring the many small departments in North Jersey, fearing that any tough reporting would cut off the paper from crime and other Law & Order news.

This is especially the case with head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, who have been relying more and more on crime, court and accident news and photos to fill local-news pages.

The A-1 story mentions four departments in Bergen County that have car-mounted night-vision technology and recording equipment, including tiny Harrington Park, where Sykes lives.

Residents of those and many other towns likely want their police to store the spy gear and pay more attention to stopping house burglaries, updating the driving skills of senior citizens and justifying the bloated salaries of police chiefs, many of whom earn north of $200,000.

Why haven't readers seen any stories exploring how many home-rule police departments come up short or why Governor Christie hasn't capped the salaries of small-town police chiefs, as he did for school superintendents?

What a sport 

In an A-1 photo today, the Barclays Center in Brooklyn resembles a beached Noah's Ark, an appropriate image given how many sports fans are overweight, beer-guzzling animals.

Editor Marty Gottlieb should know the majority of North Jersey readers' only interest in that sports venue is to keep as far away as possible from the surrounding, gridlocked downtown Brooklyn traffic at rush hour.

Sandy victims

The major element on Page 1 today is a story and photos on Sandy victims in Little Ferry and Moonachie enjoying traditional Thanksgiving meals (A-1).

A small photo and refer with that story sends readers to a pre-Black Friday shopping story on the Local front, not an L-2 story about Salvation Army Thanksgiving dinners for storm victims in Hackensack. 

Why separate Thanksgiving stories on victims in the three towns?

Black mark

Doesn't all this attention to Black Friday and naked capitalism -- including the recycling challenge of numerous sales inserts in the paper -- seem inappropriate only weeks after one of the worst storms ever to hit New Jersey? 

Notable locals

The Local front also carries an obituary for Phillip Varisco, 89, the former Hillsdale police chief -- the fourth local obit in a row from the prolific Jay Levin.

This week, Levin's death profiles included:

Singer and retired schoolteacher Benjamin W. Harris, 83, of Hawthorne, who died in a fall down a dark flight of stairs four days after Sandy hit; Mike "Jersey Mike" Van Jura, a colorful music promoter from Hasbrouck Heights who died of a heart attack at 36;  and Catholic girls high school teacher and coach Toni-Marie Hals, who died of ovarian cancer at 41.

The lives of these and other locals are far more interesting to North Jersey readers than all of the other stuff Gottlieb apparently obsesses over for Page 1, including the Rutgers football team, the Barlcays Center and all  of the other sports crap that runs outside day after day. 

Mass what?

Even though Sandy exacerbated the crisis in mass transit, Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to ignore commuters and again mindlessly explores  funeral processions today (L-1).

He also addresses "today's complaints," including one on "estrogen," an apparent reference to women drivers.

Rare corrections

Cichowski also publishes a rare correction in the last paragraph of his column (L-10):

"The column that inspired this question [on women] noted that licensed women drivers now outnumber males by 0.8 percent in New Jersey.

"But  sharp-eyed Hackensack critic Jeff Ross was good enough to correct my poor math. Let the record show that the margin favors women by a full 1.8 percent." 

On Thursday, The Record published another Road Warrior correction on A-2, leaving scores of errors in past columns that have never been acknowledged or corrected.

The assignment editor who handles Cichowski's column before it is sent over to the legally blind copy editors apparently knows less about any subject than the Road Warrior himself, and is a totally ineffective backstop.

Rolling over on reader

Cichowski also answers a reader's question on why Sykes and Sforza run so many photos of rollover accidents (L-10).

Instead of telling the reader, Dan Browne of Montvale, that local editors are desperately trying to fill the space of local-news story they're too lazy to gather, Cichowski claims most of the photos showed "SUVs whose high center of gravity makes them easier to tip."

Of course, what about the cars that rolled over, despite their lower center of gravity? 

Readers should be told about Sykes' low center of gravity, which keeps her planted in her chair in the Woodland Park newsroom and totally uninterested in covering Hackensack and many other communities.

GOP follies 
 
An editorial today mildly criticizes conservative scumbag Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, the only member of the state's congressional delegation who is against seeking additional federal aid in the wake of Sandy (A-22).

Readers, of course, clearly remember how Sykes and Sforza, the top assignment editors, wrote off Teaneck Deputy Mayor Adam Gussen, Garrett's Democratic challenger in the Nov. 6 election, and knocked themselves out to slant coverage against Gussen.

Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson wrote a long, flattering profile of Garrett, one of the most regressive forces in Congress; and Signature Editor Alan Finder made sure to run three large photos of the arch-conservative with it. 

Gussen was never profiled, none of his campaign stops were covered and his photo didn't run in the paper until a couple of weeks before the election.

'Quality' lies

In Better Living, a review of La Bottega, a fancy takeout shop with tables, notes "prices are on the high side, though most ingredients are high-quality" (BL-16-17).

But as usual, Staff Writer Elisa Ung leaves readers guessing as she stuffs a couple of sugary desserts down her gaping mouth.

Is the salmon wild-caught or artificially colored farmed fish? What about the prime rib? Is it free of harmful animal antibiotics, growth hormones and animal byproducts?

You'll have to call the Ridgewood restaurant to find out. Ung throws around the word "quality," but rarely backs it up.

That is a continuing disservice to readers, and leaves profit-hungry restaurant owners and chefs off the hook.