Columnists endorse dangerous, unhealthy practices

Saturday's steady rain couldn't dampen the Christmas spirit on Main Street in Hackensack, near the Bergen County Courthouse.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Did you see the Road Warrior column on The Record's Local front today and Saturday, effectively Staff Writer John Cichowski's obituary for the state's red-light camera program?

Cichowski has hated these cameras for years.

In fact, he hates them so much he never mentions they are designed to catch speeders who think nothing of killing or maiming pedestrians and other motorists in their haste to get wherever they are going.

You see this same selfish behavior in drivers who blow through stop signs, because they are late for work or for some other ridiculous excuse. 

You can tell a lot about an irresponsible journalist by the "experts" he quotes.

Although red-light cameras have been proven to cut down on intersection crashes, deaths and injuries in New Jersey and other states, he manages to find mostly critics.

New York City is lowering speed limits and installing more cameras to catch drivers who speed or run red lights. 

Why is New Jersey ending its red-light program, especially in view of a drastic reduction in police enforcement of speeding and aggressive driving?

Of course, those are questions Cichowski should be asking.

Taste v. health

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung examines beef and lamb from many angles in her Sunday column today except health (BL-1).

She could have sought out an expert from Consumer Reports, which is campaigning against the use of harmful animal antibiotics to raise poultry, cattle and sheep.

The magazine notes humans who consume a lot of meat or poultry containing those antibiotics are becoming resistant to drugs prescribed by their doctors.

Instead, Ung sought out Ray Venezia, the former "vice president of meat" at Fairway Market, the New York City-based chain that sells tons of beef raised on harmful additives.

Venezia evaluates beef on how it tastes, and declares the fattiest prime cuts are the tastiest.

Of course, Ung doesn't mention the fattiest beef also clogs arteries, and is a leading cause of heart disease.

Pension disaster

Governor Christie's heavily promoted pension reform is a disaster, according to the lead Page 1 story today (A-1).

The fund covering retirement benefits for most of New Jersey's public employees "is projected to go broke in a decade, not the 30 years [state] officials had estimated just months ago."

Only The Record seems surprised.

Readers know the Christie administration has declared war on the middle class and has lied or fudged the truth on the state economy, environment, roads and mass transit, among others.

Yes, Virginia. The GOP bully is the worst governor we've ever had.

Editors won't press beloved chefs on antibiotics

A workman appeared this morning at Euclid and Prospect avenues in Hackensnack, where potholes were marked with chalk, below, apparently to designate those that will be repaired weeks after they appeared.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Another slow-news Sunday and another weird story on Page 1 of The Record today, celebrating "health-conscious American consumers" who grow or raise their own food, including eggs from hens they keep in the backyard. 

Consumers, the story claims, are "increasingly crying foul about the antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides, herbicides [and] genetic engineering" in the food they eat (A-1).

But why is the small minority who raise their own egg-laying chickens getting such big play on the front page when the paper's own food editor and food writers choose to ignore all the bad things factory farms do to food in the name of quick profits? 

Free ride

Rarely does Food Editor Esther Davidowitz or Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung ever mention all of the harmful additives in the food that restaurant chefs serve, denying concerned consumers the ability to make informed decisions.

On the paper's expense account, Ung has swooned over the "funk" from aged hunks of beef for $40, $50 or $60 without ever saying whether the animals were grass fed or raised naturally.

God forbid that during the weekly "COFFEE WITH ..." feature in Better Living (BL-2), a chef is asked about how the food he serves is raised or grown, instead of the weirdest thing a customer asked for. 

Mixed messages

And the paper's monthly survey of supermarket prices -- which runs in the Business section -- doesn't include organic or naturally raised or grown food.

Today's story on chicken-raising suburbanites might remind newsroom veterans, present and former, of the wonderfully fresh eggs copy desk supervisor Vinny Byrne brought into work for copy editors from chickens he raised at home more than a decade ago.

Euclid and Prospect avenues before the work began, above.

An employee of the private contractor, M. Ingannamorte & Son of Tenafly, said he believes only potholes on Prospect Avenue are being patched, above, meaning others on the block of Euclid between Prospect and Summit avenues are not slated for repair now.

Business editors blow Christie -- again

Bruce Springsteen with Barack Obama. Springsteen's old songs describe a weak New Jersey economy that isn't far different from what residents are living with today.

The Record's editors appear to have appointed themselves defenders of Governor Christie and the weak New Jersey economy.

Just take a look at the elaborate defense of the state economy -- under the guise of a news story -- on the first Business page today (L-7).

The story claims the "left-leaning" treasurer of Australia criticized Christie's economic policies based on outdated Bruce Springsteen songs.

Treasurer Wayne Swan "painted a picture of vacant storefronts,  jobless dead-enders and closing textile mills."

Office potatoes

I guess the business editors haven't left the office lately and seen all of the vacant storefronts in Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and other downtowns.

Nor have they driven past all of the abandoned mills in Paterson and Passaic.

The Record continues to report with a straight face that there's been a "Jersey Comeback" -- instead of labeling it as another big Christie lie.

This spirited defense comes only a day after New Jersey placed last among 30 states in replacing jobs lost to the recession. 

And the state's unemployment rate is higher than the nation's, despite millions in business tax breaks from Christie.  

Of course, let's not forget how Springsteen snubbed Christie's invitation to play at his inaugural festivities in January 2010.

Ho-hum front page 

Editor Marty Gottlieb packs Page 1 today with three ho-hum stories.

The glowing profile of state Sen. Joe Vitale doesn't mention how ineffective he and other Democrats have been in the face of Christie's conservative no-tax policies and his lukewarm support of mass transit (A-1).

Did any reader plow all the way through the takeout on two Bergen County police officers who allegedly tampered with evidence in a burglary case (A-1)? 

Blinded by the sun

An editorial praising Christie as a champion of solar energy mentions PSE&G's four-year-old solar loan effort, but fails to say the program ended last Dec. 31 and wasn't renewed (A-10).

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, the big news is that more than 90,000 Orthodox Jews gathered in the Meadowlands to pray for lower property taxes and more Hebrew immersion charter schools (L-1).

Not so fast

At Chick-fil-A in Paramus, hundreds of conservatives lined up for their daily dose of harmful animal antibiotics (L-1).

As if chicken raised on antibiotics isn't bad enough, the breast meat is fried and some sandwiches include artery clogging bacon.

Instead of campaigning against same-sex marriage,  conservatives should boycott Chick-fil-A and other fast-food places that serve unhealthy poultry and burgers.

 

Unfocused reporting is cheating readers

Instead of fighting for a seat on a bus into Manhattan, Road Warrior John Cichowski chose a ferry for his "commute."

Horror master Stephen King was walking with his back to traffic when he was struck and seriously injured by the minivan of a distracted driver in 1999 near the author's summer home.

Two teenage girls walking with their backs to traffic in Kinnelon were killed by an intoxicated driver in 2006.

And, over the weekend, the 2010 Paramus High School valedictorian was jogging along a road in the Poconos when she was struck and killed by a pickup truck -- earning her two straight days of front-page coverage in The Record.

Pennsylvania State Police say Gabrielle Reuveni, 20, was running with her back to traffic. 

Focus on driver

Does The Record focus on this common error by walkers and joggers, and provide tips for readers on safe practices? No.

Instead, it slaps a trite headline on today's follow-up ("A senseless death"), and focuses on the apparently unstable driver -- though what his "rap sheet" has to do with the accident eludes many readers.

Sadly, Reuveni contributed to her own death. She was a victim both of the driver and of the media's unfocused reporting.

The message that should be reported is: Face traffic and live. 


Paper is in a jam

Also on Page 1 today, The Record threw "a traffic nightmare" and no one came.

Readers of the Woodland Park daily have been bombarded with horror stories predicting George Washington Bridge gridlock, but when Monday dawned, nothing happened. 

Of course, the paper long has ignored daily rush-hour gridlock in and around North Jersey, and how an inadequate mass-transit system provides little relief.

Ferry reporter

Today, Road Warrior John Cichowski reports he actually tried mass transit as his "contribution to this newspaper's coverage of Monday's expected traffic jam to end all traffic jams" (L-1).

Did he ride an SRO-only NJ Transit express bus into the city or board a train to Secaucus and switch to a second train into New York?

No. That would be beneath him. He took the most expensive way to get to Manhattan after driving -- the Weehawken ferry.

Not in the press release

Also on the Local front today, a story says NJ Transit doesn't know how much the agency is losing from the use of counterfeit bus and rail tickets (L-1).

But WBGO-FM's news report on Monday said the transportation agency is losing $3 million a year.

Selling low quality

On the Better Living front, leave it to Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung to help butchers at Fairway Market and other stores hide the antibiotics, growth hormones and other harmful additive used to raise beef cattle ("BEEF ON A BUDGET," BL-1).

I guess Ung and Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill haven't seen the August 2012 issue of Consumer Reports or the hundreds of other articles on how consumption of animal antibiotics makes drugs given to humans less effective.

"The declining effectiveness of [human] antibiotics is becoming a national health crisis," Conusmers Union has declared.

The magazine's policy and action arm said: "A whopping 80 percent of the antibiotics in the U.S. are used not for human health but by the meat and poultry industry to make animals grow faster and to prevent sickness in crowded and unsanitary conditions."

Why didn't they let Dick Cheney die?

Schematic of a transplanted heart with native lungs and the great vessels. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Page 1 brief in The Record today refers readers to an inside story on a heart transplant for former Vice President Dick Cheney, but there is no discussion of whether a man with such a poor reputation deserves to live beyond 71 (A-8).


The story says more than 3,100 Americans are on a national waiting list for a heart transplant, so I'm sure there are plenty of other ordinary Americans who deserve a new lease on life more than Cheney, who is infamous for aiding the two Bush presidencies and profiting mightily from the Iraq war.


North Jersey news


The Cheney story distracts from a strong front page of North Jersey news, ruined by a sports column at the bottom of the page.


Editor Marty Gottlieb seems to be as jock-like as former Editor Francis "Frank" Scandale, who often used sports on A-1 so aggressively it overshadowed or displaced more serious news.


Raw deal on taxes


The lead A-1 story by Staff Writer David Sheingold documents the raw deal homeowners are getting when they appeal the assessments that have led to rising property taxes amid falling home values.


Another important story -- on Syrian-Americans in North Jersey aiding the uprising against the Assad family -- is one of the few times  in the past year head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes has localized the conflict. 


Mass smoking 


The front of Sykes' Local section is dominated by the funeral Mass for the Rev. James F. Reilly of St. Michael Church in Palisades Park, but there is no mention he died of injuries from a fire that started when he fell asleep while smoking -- an unintended suicide (L-1).


The main headline, "Simple parish priest," probably should have read, "Simple smoking priest."


Commuting news


Readers are doing a double-take at the second Road Warrior column on commuting problems since March 16 -- after enduring innumerable pieces on potholes, roof snow, MVC lines and all the other driving minutiae John Cichowski has mustered in the past 11 years.


There is no Hackensack news in the Sunday edition, but Sykes found room on L-3 for an accident photo (car crashes into home) and a house burglary in Tenafly, where Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives in fear of a break-in at his $3.65 million McMansion.


Poultry on drugs


In Better Living today, a column on what "two prominent chef's could do to help home cooks spice up their boneless, skinless [chicken] dinners" makes no mention of all the harmful antibiotics used to raise the vast majority of chicken sold in supermarkets and served in restaurants (F-1).


In Real Estate, the cover story provides a lot of terrific information for homeowners who want to challenge their tax assessments (R-1).