Don't expect a focus on the causes of heart disease

Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga got some good news today from a federal judge, who threw out a lawsuit filed by a dead mobster's family against Mordaga, who was then chief of detectives for the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, according to a front-page story in The Record.

Hit men couldn't bring down Tony Soprano, but the actor who portrayed him on TV was killed prematurely by "a massive heart attack" on Wednesday in Italy.

The Record apparently tore up the front page on Tuesday night to report the unexpected, late-breaking death of James Gandolfini, 51, who was from Bergen County.

How times have changed.

On 9/11, The Record's editors -- citing the extra expense -- refused to remake Page 1 for Tom Franklin's unusual photo of firefighters raising the American flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center -- a potential winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Photography.

The photo ran on a back page. Now, North Jersey Media Group spends tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees to sue outsiders who use the copyrighted photo.

Poor coverage

The Gandolfini coverage is full of holes.

I hate the headline -- "Jersey's family man" -- a play on the Jersey Mafia stereotype.

It's especially bad because "The Sopranos" never rang true. Leave it to television to turn a mob boss, one of the lowest forms of life on earth, into a likable guy.

Editors in denial

I don't expect to see any coverage in The Record of the causes of heart disease or whether Gandolfini's diet and weight had anything to do with his death.

The Woodland Park daily has at least two obese editors who are in denial, and a bunch of food writers who obsess over bacon, dessert and other unhealthy dishes.

Staff Writer Mike Kelly waited 7 long months before writing a column about his heart problems, but couldn't bring himself to do so in the first person.

And just try to follow today's editorial on the classification of obesity as a "disease" (A-8).

Real mobster

The Gandolfini obit runs today next to an A-1 story about a real-life mobster, Frank Lagano of Tenafly, whose family tried to pin blame for his unsolved 2007 rub out on county law enforcement officials.

Mike Mordaga, Hackensack's civilian police director, was the last defendant in the suit, which was dismissed Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Faith S. Hochberg.

The notoriously inaccurate copy desk and Production Editor Liz Houlton strike again with the headline:

"Lawsuit

against

officer

tossed"

Mordaga wasn't an "officer" when the suit was filed and he isn't an "officer" now.