13 errors in one Road Warrior column

The Dillard Memorial Bridge on Feb. 5, 2013.

Road Warrior John Cichowski's short attention span for facts has been well-known for years, especially on The Record's copy desk.

Five years ago, copy editors caught a fair number of errors, and fixed them before publication.

However, in recent years, Production Editor Liz Houlton's incompetent leadership of the sleep-deprived copy editors has resulted in mistake after mistake slipping by their cursors, getting into the paper and embarrassing The Record. 

In last Friday's column on the Dillard Memorial Bridge in Hackensack, 13 Cichowski errors were published, according to a concerned reader.

Here is an excerpt from his e-mail to management:

"How does The Record allow the Road Warrior to stumble and bumble through his mistake-ridden columns, and across the bridges of New Jersey in his April 26 column, without any corrections???

"The Road Warrior broke his own record with 13 mistakes in a single column.

"[He] appeared to be more clueless and lost than usual -- unable to read maps and street signs to correctly report where local bridges are located.

"John Cichowski brings dishonor to a Vietnam war hero from Hackensack with misleading, insulting comments and name-calling about the beautifully renovated Dillard Memorial Bridge (also known as the Court Street Bridge), which is named for first Hackensack resident to die in the Vietnam War.

"John owes an apology to friends and family of Lance Corporal Harold J. Dillard for failing to mention the bridge has been renamed in his honor, as every other reputable Record reporter has done in their articles. He owes an apology for maligning the integrity of the renovated bridge by falsely indicating it is a 'pothole-pocked swing span' and insulting Dillard's memory by calling it the 'Good News-Bad News' bridge.

"John continues to frequently employ sick humor that only he thinks is funny, at the expense of others, and continues to embellish already sad, mistake-pocked columns."

The full e-mail can be read on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers, likely the only Facebook page devoted to tracking the repeated screw-ups of a single reporter:

Road Warrior loses another battle with the truth