Editors in no hurry to know what causes voter apathy

The First Reformed Church in Hackensack also is referred to as Church on the Green. The plaque notes, "Early records of this pioneer Dutch church, dated 1686, mark it as the second oldest in New Jersey."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The front page today marks a new low in The Record's we-don't-know-what-else-to-write-about coverage of New Jersey.

Three years and a month before the next election for governor, Columnist Charles Stiles does his best to bore Sunday readers with speculation on who will run to replace Chris Christie.

But, as far as I can tell, The Record has ignored the contest for the 5th District seat in Congress that will be decided on Nov. 4.

Last November, according to NJ.com, the GOP bully won a second term "in a landslide, but the election drew the lowest voter turnout ever for a governor's race: 39.6 percent." 

The special election that sent Cory Booker to Washington "recorded the lowest voter turnout of any statewide election, at 25.4 percent," according to the Web site.

Local apathy

In Hackensack, City Council elections draw less than a fifth of the 19,000-plus registered voters, and school board elections are decided by even fewer residents.

Fairview Mayor Vincent Bellucci Jr., a veteran, wrote a letter to the editor to express his concern "over low voter turnout election after election."

The letter, which appeared on Saturday's A-13, said:

"This Election Day, rather than being apathetic, or lazy, wouldn't it be great to show our veterans that we truly appreciate their service and that the ultimate sacrifice of giving their lives is not forgotten by exercising our right to vote?"

Editorial apathy

Bellucci doesn't explore the cause of voter apathy, but just one look at the front pages of Saturday's and Sunday's papers show the editors of The Record are far from blameless.

Page 1 on Saturday was dominated by the NFL domestic violence "scandal," and two other major elements explored a surplus of deer and the sentencing of an ex-diner manager who tried to hire a hit man (A-1).

Today's front page has an equally ridiculous mix of stories -- football, parking meters, White House security and spanking -- just seven weeks or so before the next election (A-1).

Meanwhile, Stile and other members of The Record's Trenton staff, have written endlessly about the political impact of Christie's war on the middle and working classes in New Jersey.

Most editorials discuss the dying New Jersey economy without mentioning Christie policies or even his name.

Scott free

Has The Record covered the second attempt in recent years to unseat Rep. Scott Garrett, the deeply conservative Republican in the 5th District, which includes Hackensack, Fair Lawn and parts of Teaneck, among other towns?

The last challenger, then-Teaneck Mayor Adam Gussen, had a hard time getting his photo in the paper, let alone a profile.

In 2012, The Record's Herb Jackson decided the winner in a story reporting that Garrett, a Tea Party sympathizer who has helped bring Congress to a standstill, raised the most campaign cash.

Now, I can't recall a recent story about Roy Cho, a Democratic lawyer from Hackensack, who is Garrett's opponent in the Nov. 4 election.

What does Garrett stand for? How about Cho? What are the issues in the campaign, and how will New Jersey be affected?

Lazy, bored editors

Do The Record editors even know their proper role in an election?

In the last couple of decades, the lazy assignment editors have reduced coverage of local and school board elections.

If seats are not contested, The Record ignores the race, not even bothering to discuss the issues at stake.

Page 1 story on police spying raises questions

Teaneck residents can only guess what two cops were discussing on Nov. 2, four days after Sandy closed many streets and darkened hundreds of homes and traffic lights.

Today's Page 1 story on the role of local police departments in a federal anti-terrorism program raises a lot of questions.

For decades, The Record's editors have been humoring the many small departments in North Jersey, fearing that any tough reporting would cut off the paper from crime and other Law & Order news.

This is especially the case with head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, who have been relying more and more on crime, court and accident news and photos to fill local-news pages.

The A-1 story mentions four departments in Bergen County that have car-mounted night-vision technology and recording equipment, including tiny Harrington Park, where Sykes lives.

Residents of those and many other towns likely want their police to store the spy gear and pay more attention to stopping house burglaries, updating the driving skills of senior citizens and justifying the bloated salaries of police chiefs, many of whom earn north of $200,000.

Why haven't readers seen any stories exploring how many home-rule police departments come up short or why Governor Christie hasn't capped the salaries of small-town police chiefs, as he did for school superintendents?

What a sport 

In an A-1 photo today, the Barclays Center in Brooklyn resembles a beached Noah's Ark, an appropriate image given how many sports fans are overweight, beer-guzzling animals.

Editor Marty Gottlieb should know the majority of North Jersey readers' only interest in that sports venue is to keep as far away as possible from the surrounding, gridlocked downtown Brooklyn traffic at rush hour.

Sandy victims

The major element on Page 1 today is a story and photos on Sandy victims in Little Ferry and Moonachie enjoying traditional Thanksgiving meals (A-1).

A small photo and refer with that story sends readers to a pre-Black Friday shopping story on the Local front, not an L-2 story about Salvation Army Thanksgiving dinners for storm victims in Hackensack. 

Why separate Thanksgiving stories on victims in the three towns?

Black mark

Doesn't all this attention to Black Friday and naked capitalism -- including the recycling challenge of numerous sales inserts in the paper -- seem inappropriate only weeks after one of the worst storms ever to hit New Jersey? 

Notable locals

The Local front also carries an obituary for Phillip Varisco, 89, the former Hillsdale police chief -- the fourth local obit in a row from the prolific Jay Levin.

This week, Levin's death profiles included:

Singer and retired schoolteacher Benjamin W. Harris, 83, of Hawthorne, who died in a fall down a dark flight of stairs four days after Sandy hit; Mike "Jersey Mike" Van Jura, a colorful music promoter from Hasbrouck Heights who died of a heart attack at 36;  and Catholic girls high school teacher and coach Toni-Marie Hals, who died of ovarian cancer at 41.

The lives of these and other locals are far more interesting to North Jersey readers than all of the other stuff Gottlieb apparently obsesses over for Page 1, including the Rutgers football team, the Barlcays Center and all  of the other sports crap that runs outside day after day. 

Mass what?

Even though Sandy exacerbated the crisis in mass transit, Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to ignore commuters and again mindlessly explores  funeral processions today (L-1).

He also addresses "today's complaints," including one on "estrogen," an apparent reference to women drivers.

Rare corrections

Cichowski also publishes a rare correction in the last paragraph of his column (L-10):

"The column that inspired this question [on women] noted that licensed women drivers now outnumber males by 0.8 percent in New Jersey.

"But  sharp-eyed Hackensack critic Jeff Ross was good enough to correct my poor math. Let the record show that the margin favors women by a full 1.8 percent." 

On Thursday, The Record published another Road Warrior correction on A-2, leaving scores of errors in past columns that have never been acknowledged or corrected.

The assignment editor who handles Cichowski's column before it is sent over to the legally blind copy editors apparently knows less about any subject than the Road Warrior himself, and is a totally ineffective backstop.

Rolling over on reader

Cichowski also answers a reader's question on why Sykes and Sforza run so many photos of rollover accidents (L-10).

Instead of telling the reader, Dan Browne of Montvale, that local editors are desperately trying to fill the space of local-news story they're too lazy to gather, Cichowski claims most of the photos showed "SUVs whose high center of gravity makes them easier to tip."

Of course, what about the cars that rolled over, despite their lower center of gravity? 

Readers should be told about Sykes' low center of gravity, which keeps her planted in her chair in the Woodland Park newsroom and totally uninterested in covering Hackensack and many other communities.

GOP follies 
 
An editorial today mildly criticizes conservative scumbag Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, the only member of the state's congressional delegation who is against seeking additional federal aid in the wake of Sandy (A-22).

Readers, of course, clearly remember how Sykes and Sforza, the top assignment editors, wrote off Teaneck Deputy Mayor Adam Gussen, Garrett's Democratic challenger in the Nov. 6 election, and knocked themselves out to slant coverage against Gussen.

Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson wrote a long, flattering profile of Garrett, one of the most regressive forces in Congress; and Signature Editor Alan Finder made sure to run three large photos of the arch-conservative with it. 

Gussen was never profiled, none of his campaign stops were covered and his photo didn't run in the paper until a couple of weeks before the election.

'Quality' lies

In Better Living, a review of La Bottega, a fancy takeout shop with tables, notes "prices are on the high side, though most ingredients are high-quality" (BL-16-17).

But as usual, Staff Writer Elisa Ung leaves readers guessing as she stuffs a couple of sugary desserts down her gaping mouth.

Is the salmon wild-caught or artificially colored farmed fish? What about the prime rib? Is it free of harmful animal antibiotics, growth hormones and animal byproducts?

You'll have to call the Ridgewood restaurant to find out. Ung throws around the word "quality," but rarely backs it up.

That is a continuing disservice to readers, and leaves profit-hungry restaurant owners and chefs off the hook.
 

It's back to the same old clueless reporting

Commuters line up for NJ Transit buses in the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal.

In today's and Monday's editions, The Record discusses the return to normalcy in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, but there are signs the editors also have lapsed into the clueless reporting of the past.

You'd think the "DIGGING OUT FROM SANDY" package on Page 1 today would have enough to report without more blah, blah, blah about Governor Christie's proposal for an income-tax cut.

Every story about the proposal should explain who will benefit most from a tax cut, but for some reason, the editors seem to be trying to hide from readers that Christie's plan would help the wealthy far more than the middle class (A-1).

2016 election already?

There's even more about Christie on the Local front (L-1): 

A Charles Stile column promoting him for the Republican Party's standard bearer in 2016. 

Seriously, is The Record going to start covering the next presidential election just 7 days after the last one? Give us a break.

Bitter Herb

If the Christie-for-president column is way premature, the lead L-1 story is weeks late for people who live the 9th Congressional District, where Democrats think Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, can be beaten in 2014.

Aided and abetted by the local-news editors, The Record's so-called Washington correspondent, Herb Jackson, did everything he could to slant coverage in the Nov. 6 election, largely ignoring the campaign of Teaneck Deputy Mayor Adam Gussen, a Democrat, early and often. 

Dissing Hackensack 

Meanwhile, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza became so accustomed to ignoring Hackensack before and after Hurricane Sandy that readers won't find any news from there today except the death of a former resident in Middletown, N.Y. (L-3).

Also on L-3, Sykes and Sforza return to reporting disruptions in mass transit, but continue to ignore  the overburdened bus and rail systems, and the resulting hellish traffic congestion.

Is it really necessary for the photo caption about Lincoln Tunnel and Route 495 accidents to describe the pedestrians as "morning" commuters.

Readers can plainly see the sun shining.  
 

The Record will never be the same again

Hurricane Sandy damage in the Rockaways. (dakine kane)

It's official. The Record today stops questioning the performance of utility companies in restoring power after Hurricane Sandy devastated North Jersey less than two weeks ago.

In the Sunday paper's news stories and columns, the editors are careful to avoid the question all of them should be asking:

Why did Public Service Electric and Gas Co., and other utilities need to call in hundreds of out-of-state workers to remove fallen trees and repair downed lines after the hurricane?

In other words, why do state regulators allow PSE&G to staff its repair crews at such low levels, especially in view of last year's freak snow storm, which hit two days before Halloween and left tens of thousands without electricity for a week or more?

Bigger fish to fry

Editor Marty Gottlieb's front page today reports the Jersey shore won't be "the same for years," and continues to focus on national news, demoting North Jersey power outages and mass-transit restoration to A-11.

Now, readers know The Record will never be the same local paper it was before abandoning Hackensack in 2009.

Lazy local editors

With the same lazy, unimaginative local editors in charge of coverage for a decade or more -- Deirdre Sykes, Dan Sforza and Tim Nostrand -- the hometown paper has given up attempting anything that approaches comprehensive coverage of even the biggest, most diverse towns in its circulation area. 

Since the storm hit on Oct. 29, The Record has reported the damage in broad strokes, largely ignoring Hackensack and many other communities.

That continues today with the Road Warrior reporting on a tiny minority who were able to power appliances with their hybrid cars (L-1), and the Your Money's Worth columnist discussing "how we get -- and lose -- electricity" (B-1).

None of your business

The Business section cover reports on how businesses fared, but ignores all of the Main Street merchants and restaurants (B-1).

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung reports on only four eating places, presumably because she had to stop for dessert and the resulting sugar high obliterated the assignment from her mind (BL-1). 

Touring the county

Staff Writer Stephanie Akin, who supposedly was assigned to Hackensack before Sandy, was sent on a tour of Bergen County to report on damage in Moonachie, Ridgewood and other communities.

Meanwhile, Hackensack businesses and residents, who lost power for five days or longer, were ignored.

Christie media mania

On the Opion front today, Brigid Callahan Harrison examines the New Jersey gubernatorial contest in 2013, when Governor Christie presumably will run for a second term.

But Harrison neglects to discuss the impact of the state's media, which have embraced a governor who is slowly destroying the middle class in New Jersey.

Backed wrong horse

The Record's fawning coverage of the GOP bully has been clear from the outset, but in the Nov. 6 election, its bias for a local candidate was embarrassing.

The editors lavished a great deal of  attention on Englewood Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a Republican who challenged Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, yet Boteach lost in a landslide, despite all the money he spent.

Meanwhile, the editors immediately wrote off the campaign of Teaneck Deputy Mayor Adam Gussen -- even deriding how little money he had raised -- but the Democrat got a strong 43% of the vote in his bid to defeat Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage.  

Kelly's heart attack

The Opinion front today continues to inform readers that Columnist Mike Kelly "is away from the office on a short leave."

Speculation is that Kelly is roaming the world for a photographer who can make him look better than he does in his unflattering column photo with its shit-eating grin. 

Or that he is visiting journalism schools in search of instruction on how to write clearly and more concisely, and how to express the strong opinions readers expect from columnists.

But the truth is Kelly had a heart attack, as an anoymous reader of Eye on The Record informed me recently. 

Coronary bypasses?

The reader didn't say what type of surgery Kelly might have had or whether he had coronary bypasses.

Let's hope he takes the attack as the warning sign it is, and uses his column to inform readers about adopting a healthier lifestyle. 

Mr. and Mrs. Death

The subject of death got Page 1 play today in the unusual piece on Liz Parow and Michael Mittzenwei, spouses who own separate funeral homes in  North Arlington and New Milford. 

It was the only bright spot on an otherwise pedestrian front page.  

More sloppy editing 

Editor Liz Houlton's copy editors screwed up again on an a well-written piece about travel to Spain by Staff Writer Kathleen Lynn (Travel front).

On T-5, the photo caption calls Cordoba's Mezquita "a Muslim mosque now used as a Catholic church."

Putting aside whether the word "Muslim" is needed before "mosque," Lynn's story makes clear a cathedral built in the middle of the mosque is still used for services, not the mosque itself.

And, of course, the writer has to be questioned for reporting so little on Spain's extraordinary cuisine, which for many is a big incentive to travel there.  

See previous post on more

 Road Warrior errors