For 2nd day in row, front page has readers stifling yawns

A rare sight in Hackensack: Delivery of home-heating oil.

On Monday morning, a woman was clearing snow in front of a church on Summit Avenue in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

All this Page 1 coverage today and Monday of new state tests has readers wondering whether Editor Martin Gottlieb's grand kids live and attend school in North Jersey.

What yawners, not to mention the story on Girl Scout merchandising deals at the bottom of today's front page (A-1).

Gottlieb ran not one, but two favorable columns about Governor Christie on Monday's A-1. 

Today, Christie's controversial choice for the Pinelands Commission and a proposed pipeline seem like an afterthought (A-1).

In an editorial on A-8 today, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin can't even muster strong criticism of Christie for balancing his budgets with money won in court battles with polluters.

"This misguided maneuver keeps money from being used for its intended purpose: eradicating pollution [italics added]." 

What a genius that Doblin is.

The only item of real interest on Page 1 today is a brief about U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, 78, a Maryland Democrat who says she is shifting her focus from "raising money" for another election campaign to "raising hell" (A-1).

Hah. 

Compare that with all of the stories Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson has written about the so-called war chests of special interest money that have kept Rep. Scott Garrett, a conservative crackpot from Wantage, in office.

In fact, Jackson's stories, which rarely focus on issues, feed voter apathy, another factor in Garrett's success in an overwhelmingly liberal 5th District.

Hackensack news?

Despite all the snow we've gotten, head Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, continue to enforce a drought on Hackensack news (Local section today and Monday).

They might protest, pointing to a story on L-2 today, reporting a Paterson school administrator is taking a job in Hackensack.

Targeting pedestrians

Reporter John Cichowski has sunk to a new journalistic low by putting a target on every pedestrian.

In his Sunday column, the irresponsible Road Warrior columnist actually quoted a maniacal driver claiming:

"At least once a week, I resist the urge to hit a pedestrian because he decides to cross at the last minute in front of me."

In the same column, Cichowski continues to struggle for accuracy in citing data from studies, one of his favorite ways of filling space:

He reported that "most states" showed a drop in pedestrian deaths, but the study he cited reflected an improvement in only 24 of the 50 states.

Seventy-five pedestrians were killed in the first half of 2014 in New Jersey, not the 74 cited by the confused Cichowski.

Etc. Etc.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior 'jerks off' readers with more errors

The Record continues to publish one inaccurate Road Warrior column after the other, because none of the editors are doing their jobs of providing checks and balances on a reporter who clearly has lost his mind.

At the end of the line is six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, supervisor of the news and copy desks, who continues to laugh all the way to the bank.