Readers' eyes roll as columnists say, Get me rewrite!

Three of the crudely patched potholes on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, between Prospect and Summit avenue, a block that some homeowners say hasn't been paved in 30 years.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Here's more evidence that Columnist Charles Stile of The Record is merely a Chris Christie presidential press secretary wannabe.

His boring Page 1 report that, yes, Governor Christie still is running for president comes a full day or more after Christie Tracker reporter Matt Katz of WNYC-FM and everyone else in the world came to the same conclusion.

Has anything a brash and confident Christie said in reacting to the George Washington Bridge indictments and guilty plea last Friday indicated otherwise?

Hey, Editor Martin Gottlieb, readers deserve better than another Stile political column that sounds exactly like every other mishmash he's filed in the last few years of speculation about the GOP bully's White House dreams.

Cop shoots dog

In journalism school, the lesson was hammered home: 

When a dog bites a man, that isn't news, but if a man bites a dog, you might have something.

Still, when a Wyckoff police officer investigating a burglary shoots a vicious German shepherd that lunges at him, that isn't Page 1 news (A-1).

If the Vukobratovic family wants to file a lawsuit, I am sure they will be able to find a hundred lawyers to take the case and their money.

But please shut up about dearly departed Otto, their dog, whose passing has gotten more ink in The Record than nearly every other dead human I can think of.

Selling out

The editors continue to cover store openings at North Jersey malls as if they are something more than payback for all of the advertising revenue flowing into the Borg family's North Jersey Media Group (A-1).

A couple of weeks ago, I walked through the wing of luxury stores at Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, and saw no customers.

Salespeople with nothing to do were starting vacantly out plate-glass windows or gossiping with one another.

Today's story was written by poor Joan Verdon, a veteran reporter who has been stuck on the retailing beat for more years than she cares to remember.

Local news?

On the Local front today, Road Warrior John Cichowski again writes about a handful of NJ Transit rail commuters while neglecting the problems that affect tens of thousands of readers (L-1).