Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Today's edition of The Record is a real snorefest

Observers argue whether Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza of The Record or Road Warrior John Cichowski is the laziest member of the Woodland Park newsroom, and which one of them modeled for this sculpture at Hackensack University Medical Center. Others say this is the reaction of most readers to today's front page from Editor Marty Gottlieb.


By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The only human element on The Record's front page today is the heart-breaking photo of children outside a Ridgewood church after services for Michael Feeney, who succumbed to bone cancer at age 10.

What kind of "battle" is it when cancer kills someone so young? I wish The Record and other media would stop using that silly term in headlines and stories (A-1).

More boring news

The rest of Editor Marty Gottlieb's front page today is boring institutional news -- about Rutgers, Hartz Mountain Industries and the National Football League -- and yet another A-1 column on Governor Christie's standing among GOP presidential contenders (A-1).

Actually, the story on offsetting the electricity used for the Super Bowl with "renewable energy credits" raises a question.

Why can't the NFL reach a deal with the state police to keep drunken fans off the road after every game in the Meadowlands?

And don't you wish The Record would report on immigration reform in terms of whether it would be good for the country, and not spin it for what it means politically to Christie and every other official?

Two embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today.

Road litter

Given how little Road Warrior John Cichowski writes about NJ Transit's crowded trains and safety measures at stations to prevent pedestrian deaths, why is he tackling the train crash in New York that killed four (L-1)?

Cichowski's Sunday column on road projects was chiefly written to correct all the deficiencies of his previous, Nov. 24 column on the same subject, including missing completion dates.

But on Sunday, The Addled Commuter only supplied the years, not the months or anything more precise, and continued to make his readers sound stupid:

"What kind of  construction is being done that takes two-plus months of traffic tie-ups?"

That's from Leigh Kurtz, a Clifton resident who must have moved to New Jersey from the moon. 

Two months is nothing. Delays caused by road repairs are quantified in years, not months. And we're prisoners in our cars, because mass transit operates at capacity.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior column needs a complete overhaul


2 comments:

  1. Your last two posts were very good -- I had the same sentiments about the Christie articles, the foreclosure in Franklin Lakes and the Rutgers stuff.

    There was another obvious error in today's paper. There is an article about Schroeder and his troubles which was a little confusing. However it says that Schroeder served in his position for something like 22 years but I think that he has been in the State Assembly for about eight years at most. This is an obvious error.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That official is a good argument for making state assemblyman and alleged cheat synonomous.

    ReplyDelete

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