Editors miraculously transform vetoes into PA 'reforms'

In Hackensack, North Jersey Media Group turned The Record's old River Street parking lot into a cash cow. Parking costs a flat fee of $5, but the first 50 minutes are free. Parking for the disabled also costs $5 with the first 90 minutes free. Jurors park free.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's Page 1 headline on Sunday tried to hide how Governors Christie and Cuomo killed any hope of real reform at the mammoth Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Today, another front-page headline miraculously transforms the governors' vetoes of bills passed by two state Legislatures into "PA reforms" (A-1).

Staff Writer Shawn Boburg reports "it could take years to enact the [governors'] most complex and politically fraught proposals."

But Boburg devotes a lot of space to a possible takeover of the PATH rail system, and none to the construction of a new midtown Manhattan bus terminal, which is at the top of the list for weary Bergen County commuters. 

Boburg is the reporter assigned to cover the Port Authority, but he has ignored the agency's refusal to expand PATH and add a second bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.

Today, he continues to voice PA propaganda against mass transit by citing PATH's yearly losses of $300 million as an impediment to a takeover by NJ Transit.

Does The Record know of any mass-transit system that makes money? The benefits are less tangible, ranging from cleaner air to less traffic congestion to reduced reliance on fossil fuels.

Sports garbage

The other major elements on today's front page -- especially the column on the Giants' coach -- are a colossal waste of space.

Why didn't Editor Martin Gottlieb give better play to Bill Bratton, the New York police commissioner, who said nationwide demonstrations are "about the continuing poverty rates, the continuing growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor" (A-1 brief and A-3)?

Contrast Bratton's comments to the racial stereotyping from Bernard Kerik, the crook who served as the city's police commissioner more than a decade ago.

Kerik was quoted last week by Columnist Mike Kelly.

Lame editors

The local assignment editors still can't provide readers with a complete story two days after a woman drove her small SUV into two special police officers in Cliffside Park.

Today, The Record reports one of the officers, Stephen Petruzzello, was in critical condition after surgery (L-1).

But CliffviewPilot.com said the officer died at 5 this morning.

The Record's L-1 story reports the driver, Ani Kalayjian, 62, was "cited" for "various traffic violations," but does not specify them.

There is no description of how the accident happened on Saturday night or whether the officers were in a crosswalk when they were run down.

Today's account finally has the names of the officers, Petruzzello and Thaier Abdallah.

Instead of providing important details, the reporters make sure to fill the story with the trivial, such as where the two officers sat during graduation in November. 

Cliffview Pilot

Jerry DeMarco reports on CliffviewPilot.com that Petruzzello, 22, sustained severe brain injuries and died at 5 a.m. today.

DeMarco showed a photo of the driver, and identified her as an "internationally known trauma expert and author."

He quotes police as saying the woman claimed she "didn't see" the officers. She was in the vehicle with her 93-year-old mother.

See: Stephen Petruzzello dies from injuries

Christie will never measure up to President Obama

Hackensack attorney Frank P. Lucianna, left, marching in the Memorial Day Parade in Englewood. In a letter The Record published on Monday, the Army Air Forces veteran paid tribute to fellow members of the Dwight Morrow High School Class of 1941 who were killed during World War II. He listed more than a dozen friends he "will never forget."

If you swallow Columnist Charles Stile's amateurish promotion of Governor Christie on the front page of The Record today, you might think the GOP bully was "auditioning" for the White House during a joint appearance on Tuesday with President Obama. 

What a joke.

Whether at the Jersey shore or as a leader, Christie will never measure up to Obama, a champion of the same middle class the governor has savaged since he took office in 2010.

Christie's massive public relations campaign to win a second term has hoodwinked Stiles and the rest of state media.

But voters won't forget how he's catered almost exclusively to his wealthy supporters, and broken his campaign promise to lower property taxes.

More corrections

Four embarrassing corrections on A-2 today are further evidence of how little fact-checking is performed by Production Editor Liz Houlton, her sleepy copy editors or the assignment editors who sign off on stories.

On A-3, a story on The Record winning statewide journalism awards doesn't explore whether the stories served readers or were written merely to impress fellow journalists.

A photo on A-3 -- showing Michelle Obama with  Jersey shore students in the backyard garden at the White House -- again demonstrates how little Christie or first lady Mary Pat Christie have done to promote healthy eating during the child obesity epidemic.

Readers brace

On the front of Local, a big photo showing the Franklin Lakes homecoming of disgraced former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik can mean only one thing (L-1).

Soon, burned-out Staff Writer Mike Kelly will land an exclusive interview with his pal "Bernie," and write an overlong column to rehabilitate Kerik's dishonest image. 

Litigiously speaking

What was the point of The Record's Page 1 story on Tuesday "on the propensity" of local police officers "to sue their employers over promotions and other work conditions"?

The takeout by star reporter Stephanie Akin seemed mean-spirited, especially in view of how often North Jersey Media Group sues or is sued by its employees and former employees.

None of those lawsuits are ever reported in The Record, but NJMG has started a blog to document its high-profile Freedom of Information cases:

http://blog.northjersey.com/legallyspeaking/

Despite declining revenue from classified and other advertising, NJMG's legal expenses have soared in recent years from the use of outside counsel who command $400 to $500 an hour.

Everyone drops the ball

Image by prefers salt marsh via Flickr

The Ramapo River is endangered by toxic dirt piles in Wayne, officials say.

The dominant story on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park today is a sad tale of business owners who have for more than a decade resisted efforts to clean up piles of toxic dirt near a river. But despite the involvement of half a dozen staff members, this takeout puts the focus on dirt, not people.

Let's start with the stupid headline:

Court orders fail

to move mounds

"Mounds" are inanimate objects, and I'm sure the judge didn't order them to do anything. Why isn't the focus on the owners of the business, and why are their names buried on the continuation page, as if all of this is some sort of bureaucratic snafu?

It's bad enough the reporter can't get the father and son involved in the business, Allan Rombough Sr. of Medham and Andrew Rombough, to comment. But was an effort made to contact their attorney for comment? And why doesn't the reporter address an obvious question: Why didn't the state or the town hire a contractor to remove the dirt years ago, during flusher times, and bill the business?

The Local news section is another laughable effort from head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions. It's a typical Monday section: A charity walk and an awareness-raising walk are written about at great length and played out front, because that's all the desperate editors have.

An overturned car is the gee-whiz, "Accident of the Day" photo element on L-1, and more non-profit news fills all of L-3.


Columnist Mike Kelly is really angry at the imam behind the Lower Manhattan mosque proposal, and continues his smear campaign against him on L-1 today. 

Kelly's language is uncharacteristically harsh for a reporter who treats just about everybody else with kid gloves, including his pal, convicted felon and former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie "The Crook" Kerik. Is this an anti-Muslim tirade?


Editor Francis Scandale got rid of the paper's only black, Hispanic and female news columnist, but kept Kelly the Mouse. Amazing.


Don't look for any Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood news today.

But where is the local news?

Image via Wikipedia

Bloated county payrolls, a tax-evading mayor and wife, and a politically connected insurance broker make up a classic North Jersey front page today, but they only distract readers from the continuing lack of news from Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood in The Record of Woodland Park.


The story on the North Arlington mayor facing a judge for evading a measly $5,300 in federal taxes doesn't really deserve A-1 play, but apparently the editors didn't have anything stronger.


With all those weighty stories out front, the Local section is almost completely devoted to non-profits and fund raising. Memo to editors: Another story about the Hackensack Police Department isn't news to residents.


Check out the lead paragraph of Mike Kelly's column on L-1. What can he possibly mean by the "uneven history of America's environmental movement"? Don't all movements have uneven histories, especially his journalistic bowel movements? This is a veteran journalist who cannot manage anything more than banality.


But I have to at least give him some credit for doing a decent job on this heart-warming subject (monk parakeets) -- which is basically a repeat of a column he did last year -- in contrast to all the drivel he has turned out about homeland security, Tom Kean Sr. (photo), Bernard Kerik and the Times Square bombing suspect.


Does The Record need Bill Pitcher, the $70,000-plus food editor, to produce a couple of vegetarian recipes for Better Living today? That's all the food coverage you'll find. What a waste of money.

Shame on Columnist Mike Kelly

Image via Wikipedia

When a columnist is deliberately dishonest just so he can make a point, you know you are in trouble as a reader. Why it keeps on happening with Mike Kelly -- and none of the editors seem to notice or care -- just shows you how far The Record of Woodland Park has fallen.

In his column on the Opinion front today, Kelly sets up a deeply flawed comparison of the New York City and Hackensack Police Departments -- claiming the former is focused on terrorism and the latter was dominated by cronyism and run by a chief who didn't hesitate to commit fraud.


But if you look at the New York event Kelly focuses on -- the attempted Times Square bombing --you realize no one was hurt because the suspect was inept. It had nothing to do with good police work. And you also realize how conveniently Kelly omits any mention in today's column of disgraced New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
 
This is what I wrote in February about Kelly's affection for Kerik, whose crimes were far more serious than the allegations against Zisa:

"On the front of  Opinion, Columnist Mike Kelly perpetrates another fraud, the second installment of his attempt to rehabilitate his pal, Bernard Kerik, the convicted felon who once was New York City's police commissioner. Kelly had the chance to ask bosom buddy "Bernie" the hard questions, but didn't. This isn't confrontation. It's masturbation.


"Kelly loves to push words around to create a mood and ask lots of unanswered questions, but this so-called veteran journalist is afraid to use the appropriate words for Kerik: greedy and arrogant. I wanted to throw up reading Kelly's nonsense and the ridiculous, unchallenged quotes from Kerik."

Hey, Kelly, what about all the unarmed civilians reduced to Swiss cheese by trigger-happy New York City police officers over the years? 


 Kelly couldn't compare Hackensack to the police departments in Teaneck, where he lives, and Englewood, because they are dysfunctional in their own ways. But he could have written a good column without indulging in what amounts to another Jersey joke.

Kelly must think this is what the Borgs and North Jersey Media Group mean by "responsible journalism." You'll make them proud, Kelly.

What does the rest of today's Record have to offer? Not much. Just two stories on Page 1.

Most of A-1 is taken up by a hit-and-run accident involving an allegedly drunken driver and nine idiots who tried to cross a highway after a soccer game in the Meadowlands, while Governor Christie's bid to cap the raises of public workers is squeezed into a one-column space. 


The Local section has another dreadfully boring infrastructure story on the front. The reporter neglects to mention that Christie has consistently refused to raise the low gasoline tax to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund. There are five police or fire stories in the section.


No Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood municipal news appears.

 (Photo: Times Square.)

Good effort for a change

Image by wallyg via Flickr

 
There is a lot of good reading on the front page of The Record of Woodland Park today, but not much hard news there or elsewhere in the paper.

Tall, thin Ashley Kindergan not only stands head and shoulders above most of the other reporters, but she is a far better journalist, as is evident again today in her story about North Jersey Iranians who are getting the word out on events in Tehran. Jeff Roberts, a sports reporter, has a moving story on the self-destruction of a onetime star athlete.

But I guess both of these stories are on Page 1 because there was no real news to report. Editors allowed most of the reporters to spend Friday making weekend plans, not reporting and writing Sunday stories. (Photo: One Police Plaza and federal courthouse in Manhattan.)

On the front of Local, there is not one, but two stories about Paterson students. Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski continues to be held hostage by drivers. There's nothing much to recommend in the section outside of an expanded obituary on Patricia Travers with a great headline.

In Business, Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais has another column on how credit card companies continue their efforts to screw us -- despite a new law. Maybe, he should be providing readers with strategies on paying off their balances in full every month and collecting rebates and other rewards, so they don't have to worry about interest rates, penalties and other outrageous fees.

On the front of  Opinion, Columnist Mike Kelly perpetrates another fraud, the second installment of his attempt to rehabilitate his pal, Bernard Kerik, the convicted felon who once was New York City's police commissioner. Kelly had the chance to ask bosom buddy "Bernie" the hard questions, but didn't. This isn't confrontation. It's masturbation.

Kelly loves to push words around to create a mood and ask lots of unanswered questions, but this so-called veteran journalist is afraid to use the appropriate words for Kerik: greedy and arrogant. I wanted to throw up reading Kelly's nonsense and the ridiculous, unchallenged quotes from Kerik.

A far better effort appears above Kelly's drivel -- former gubernatorial press secretary Carl Golden's reasoned analysis on the need to raise the gasoline tax to save the Transportation Trust Fund. Let's hope The Record's editorial page also isn't held hostage by drivers and urges Governor Christie to do so.

Sloppy reporting and copy editing

Image via Wikipedia

Shoddy reporting and clueless copy editing and headline writing -- when will readers of The Record of Woodland Park get any relief?

The heads on the lead A-1 story -- "Killings a mystery" and "Two found dead on quiet Teaneck street" -- are redundant (killings and dead) and don't tell you the bodies were found in an SUV. Police solve few murders instantly -- so why waste the main head on that?

The sloppy, cowardly reporting on Page 1 is by Columnist Mike Kelly, who questioned the disgraced Bernard Kerik in Kerik's home office before he was sentenced yesterday, but couldn't bring himself to ask the former New York City Police commissioner if he was motivated by greed when he broke the law or thought he was above the law. Kerik and the pompous Kelly must be pals; the reporter refers to him as "Bernie" and calls the convicted felon's wife by her first name.

Even an aide or handler couldn't paint a more sympathetic portrait of Kerik than Kelly has. Is this journalism or public relations?

"I'm glad it's over," Kerik said before he was sentenced in federal court. "I want to try to remake my life." Kelly's writing gets real sloppy -- to the point where he has the White House "returning from Baghdad," and the copy editor and the copy editor's supervisor didn't catch it. (After Publisher Stephen A. Borg moved printing of The Record to Rockaway Township, copy editors in Hackensack could no longer read the first copies off the press for typos and other errors, and correct them, as they had from time immemorial.)

"After returning from Baghdad," Kelly writes, "the White House, citing Kerik's anti-terrorism record, nominated him ....."

Who is Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin trying to fool?  The lead editorial on A-20 claims that everyone -- including the "wealthy" -- will feel the effects of Governor Christie's budget-cutting, but that isn't documented. In fact, Christie refused to reinstate the so-called millionaires tax and plans to allow a corporate business surcharge to expire. Did Stephen Borg write the editorial?


The wrong-way dolphins in the Hackensack River -- a story that was all over Page 1 yesterday -- ends up inside Local today, a mere brief. Instead of development, education or municipal news of Hackensack and Englewood, readers get four verdicts or sentences in major cases. Teaneck news? Only the double murder on Page 1.

Why would anybody want to go to the Italian restaurant given two stars by Restaurant Reviewer Bill Pitcher, who recommends only three dishes? As food editor, Pitcher guided the expansion of reviews to the point where they seem promotional. Whether a restaurant is poor or outstanding, reviews feature plenty of photos and deceptive close-ups of food -- even lousy food looks good in a color photo. Squandering space means that the restaurant health inspections list is cut, depriving readers of essential information.

Stephen Borg, who lives in a $3.65 million McMansion in Tenafly, must have written this line in the review: "The dining room isn't much larger than your home dining room -- the first of 32 seats ..." Thirty-two seats in a home dining room? Where was the copy editor here? Where was George Cubanski, his supervisor, who is supposed to catch such preposterous errors?