Editors start screaming only after Christie threatens profits

Before-and-after photos of Aleppo by Hannah Karim show the ravages of the Syrian civil war. Despite Syrian immigration to North Jersey dating to the early 1900s, The Record of Woodland Park continues to downplay the death of civilians and Russia's role in the destruction of the country's largest city.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Chris Christie lied repeatedly during his 2009 election campaign about providing more tax relief to homeowners than his Democratic opponent, Gov. Jon Corzine.

And after he took office in January 2010, he began to wage a war against New Jersey's middle and working classes that continues to this day.

Yet, only now are The Record's editors screaming bloody murder because the governor wants to end the requirement for the publication of legal notices in newspapers -- cutting into the profits of Gannett Co. and other publishers.

Chutzah and profits

The story has been on the front page of the Woodland Park daily since Sunday, and an editorial today savages Christie for "a punitive hit on state newspapers," as well as his bid to profit from a book deal while in office:

"The governor's chutzpah is remarkable.... The most unpopular governor in recent memory should not be in a bargaining position for anything -- let alone a deal that benefits not the people of New Jersey, but only the singular constituency of Chris Christie" (18A).

Wednesday's editorial, referring to ending the publication of public notices, said:

"The absence of this revenue stream will deeply affect the bottom line of some -- if not all -- of the publications, including The Record, The Herald News and [Gannett-owned] North Jersey Media Group's portfolio of 30 community publications.

"Stripping hundreds of thousands of revenue dollars from print media companies assuredly affects jobs."

But Gannett and the Borgs, who sold NJMG to the nation's biggest newspaper publisher in July, started downsizing their staffs and reducing local news coverage years ago.

Just last month, Gannett executed plans to cut more than 200 jobs at NJMG, and reduce the number of its weeklies to 30 from 50. 

Promoting HUMC

Also on Page 1 today is another story promoting Hackensack University Medical Center -- a tradition dating to when former NJMG General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg sat on the hospital's board (1A).

HUMC claims to be a non-profit, thus skipping out on $10 million in property taxes in Hackensack, and shifting the burden to home and business owners -- a story The Record has long ignored.

The photo with the hospital story shows a smiling Robert C. Garrett, a co-CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health Network.

In 2012, Garrett was paid $2.72 million, according to NJBIZ.com.

Diabetes special

Today, the Better Living front is calling all diabetics and readers watching their cholesterol.

Food Editor Esther Davidowitz reports a coffee shop and bakery in Rutherford uses "high-quality ingredients," including Valrhona chocolate and Cabot's butter.

Davidowitz doesn't mention how much sugar is used in the "baked treats" at Erie Coffeeshop and Bakery, but I'm sure many readers -- whether they're watching their weight, cholesterol or sugar intake -- won't go near the place.

'Aleppo's destroyers'

A story about Aleppo, Syria, appears on Page 13 of The Record's A-section today, but I can't recall the editorial page condemning Russia's role in the death of innocent civilians during the civil war.

An editorial in The New York Times today appears under this heading:

"Aleppo's Destroyers: 
Assad, Putin, Iran"

"In 2011, President Bashar al-Assad ignored the demands of peaceful protesters and unleashed a terrifying war against his people.

"More than 400,000 Syrians have been killed while millions more have fled.... Mr. Assad could have never prevailed without the support of President Vladimir Putin of Russia.... 

"That is a truth that President-elect Donald Trump, a Putin apologist who is surrounding himself with top aides who are also Kremlin sympathizers, cannot ignore.

"During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Putin for being 'a better leader' than President Obama.

"This would be a good time for him to persuade Mr. Putin to end the slaughter.

"Mr. Putin's bloody actions -- the bombing of civilian neighborhoods, the destruction of hospitals, the refusal to allow non-combatants to receive food, fuel and medical supplies -- are all in violation of international law."

Gannett front pages are cheapening our local daily paper

On Nov. 6, 2013, The Record published this photo of two Paramus police officers who were hired to patrol Westfield Garden State Plaza, but only after a disturbed man with a rifle invaded the state's biggest mall two days earlier, fired shots that panicked hundreds of shoppers and employees, and then committed suicide. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If I didn't know better, I'd think veteran retailing reporter Joan Verdon has been assigned to write promotional Page 1 pieces about one of The Record's biggest advertisers.

On Saturday, below the fold, she reported "a video-gaming theater" with room for 30 people to compete simultaneously had replaced "a Venetian-style double-decker carousel" at Garden State Plaza in Paramus.

On Thursday, her front-page story on how shoppers could reserve $10 parking spaces appeared above the fold.

Neither story could be considered "news." 

But they expose how profit-hungry publishers like the Borg family and Gannett, which bought The Record in July, don't hesitate to cheapen the front page of what once was a respected local daily newspaper. 

Since last month's redesign of the print edition, readers don't know what to expect from day to day. 

Gannett editors seem to have lost sight of their mission as journalists to report on issues that affect state residents.

Instead, they continue to sensationalize the politics that divide the state and nation.  

Sunday edition

Today's front page has only three main elements -- stories about President-elect Donald J. Trump's arrogant son-in-law; Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno's belated bid to come out from behind Governor Christie; and Karen Koehler of Park Ridge, who is in complete remission after trying an experimental cancer treatment (1A).

The last is the kind of gee-whiz medical story The Record seems to specialize in -- instead of tackling the obesity epidemic or heart disease, the No. 1 killer in the United States.

A story on the alarming condition of the state's drinking water system is buried on 11A.

Saturday's paper

Saturday's front page also was narrowly focused: Stories about New Jersey Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen being picked to head the House Appropriations Committee, and a Passaic County imam again facing deportation charges.

Friday's edition, on the other hand, reported on issues that affect almost everyone:

How Christie has diverted hundreds of millions of dollars from environmental settlements to balance the state budget; a state appeals court ruling that stopped the governor from scrapping civil service exam requirements; and the uncertainty since the presidential election about bringing Syrian refugees to New Jersey.

Also, starting on Jan. 1, the right of adopted children to obtain their birth certificates and if not redacted, the names of their birth parents.

Local news?

Today's Local section carries a story on the Hackensack Board of Education's search for a new superintendent, but doesn't explain why Karen Lewis was fired unexpectedly in June (3L).

On the Local front, a column reports on a student movement to improve pedestrian safety on River Road in Teaneck, where a Chinese woman who held a master's degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University was struck in a crosswalk and killed on Nov. 21.

Staff Writer John Cichowski reports "the petition doesn't cover driving laws or conduct." 

But the so-called Road Warrior again treats graduate Weiqi Wang as so much road kill when he fails to advocate stronger laws to punish drivers with long jail sentences after they strike and fatally injure pedestrians in a crosswalk.

After Castro

The Record's coverage of the death of Fidel Castro has been lopsided, and today's Opinion front piece by U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez is no exception (1O).

"We can only hope the death of Fidel Castro will be the first crack in the Cuban regime's stranglehold on power and that the people of Cuba will finally move one step closer to freedom," says Menendez, whose parents were born on the Caribbean's biggest island.

The senator downplays all of Cuba's achievements, and doesn't even mention how the 1959 revolution brought racial equality to an island that had long been strictly segregated.

Travel section

Today, Travel Editor Jill Schensul reports on how terrorism is influencing where we vacation (1T).

But why hasn't she ever discussed crime in Jamaica, Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands?

Next to her column today is a rave from the Detroit Free Press about "the first overwater bungalows in the Caribbean" in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

In one of many editing lapses in today's paper, the first paragraph says the bungalows "open Dec. 2" -- that was Friday.

In Better Living, a photo caption on 3BL starts out this way: 

"Christopher Bates of FLX Table in Geneva ...," so you might wonder why The Record is devoting nearly a whole page to a chef in Switzerland.

When you read the first two paragraphs of the story, you learn the restaurant is in Geneva, N.Y., in the Finger Lakes region.

Still, why is a New Jersey paper devoting almost an entire page to Chef Bates and the food he serves? 

First Record pink slips reportedly will be issued on Oct. 15

The Record is reporting a proposal to move the USS Ling to Paterson presents cost and engineering challenges, but not that the World War II-era sub is stuck in the mud of the Hackensack River and listing, as this photo from April shows.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Gannett, which has owned The Record for less than two months, will be issuing pink slips to copy editors, page designers and other so-called production workers on Oct. 15, a New York tabloid says.

Those employees were summoned to an Aug. 22 meeting and told production would be moved from Woodland Park to Neptune, where six other Gannett dailies are put out, Keith J. Kelly of the New York Post reported.

Gannett paid the Borg family "an estimated $40 million for the 121-year-old paper and sister titles and websites," says Kelly, the first reporter to disclose the selling price.

The Borgs held onto about 20 acres along River Street in Hackensack, where The Record was headquartered until 2009, and the land may fetch $20 million to $30 million when sold to an apartment developer.

Kelly says Gannett executives told copy editors, designers and other production workers they would have to apply for new jobs -- the same process former Publisher Stephen A. Borg used during a major newsroom downsizing in 2008.

"They will learn on Oct. 15 if they have jobs," Kelly reported on Saturday. "No word on how many will be getting pink slips."

One of those who is expected to go is six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, who earned the title of "Queen of Errors" when she ran the features copy desk.

Kelly's story has reporters and other newsroom staffers anxiously wondering when the Gannett ax will fall on them.

The Record lost four veteran copy editors in the 2008 downsizing, as well as the co-supervisor of the copy desk who single-handedly upheld standards of accuracy, grammar and news writing.

See: Borgs take money and run

Today's paper

For the second day in a row, Governor Christie's conservative policies dominate Page 1 -- this time his explanation for why he vetoed, as expected, raising New Jersey's minimum wage to $15 by 2021 (A-1).

And for the second day in a row, State House Bureau reporter Dustin Racioppi turns out another slanted report, calling the proposal "a Democratic effort to join the nascent but politically divisive effort to mandate increased pay for entry and lower-level workers."

(Yes. The clunky, wordy first paragraph actually includes the word "effort" twice.)

Why is Racioppi politicizing the minimum-wage hike rather than reporting Christie's veto is a rebuke to tens of thousands low-wage workers in the state, including Walmart employees who are paid so little they have to apply for food stamps to feed their families?

More politics

And an editorial criticizing Democrats also supports Christie (A-8).

The editorial notes Democrats plan to put a constitutional amendment on the 2017 ballot, but urges them to try to override the veto instead.

But amending the constitution worked in 2013, when the minimum wage was raised to $8.25 an hour and tied to inflation, and will likely work again -- most voters are in favor of a higher minimum wage, and two other states already have enacted it.

Stuck with Christie?

Despite Gannett's purchase of The Record, reporters, columnists and editorial writers continue to side with the GOP bully, despite his more than 500 vetoes and his endorsement of wacko racist Donald J. Trump for president.

Yet months ago, six other New Jersey dailies owned by Gannett, as well as The Star-Ledger, called on him to resign.

The Record is alone is refusing to do so, and hasn't even reported those calls for Christie's resignation. 

USS Ling

"The Ling is looking to move from its location beside the Hackensack River on property slated for redevelopment by the former owner[s] of The Record," according to today's Local front.

But Paterson Press reporter Joe Malinconico forgot to call the Borgs, the former owners, and ask them why they don't help finance the move (L-1).

After all, they are cash rich after reaping $40 million from the sale of The Record, and are expecting another huge windfall from sale of the land along River Street in Hackensack where the sub is stuck in the mud.

Editors clash on Orlando killings: Hate crime or terrorism?

New York Post front pages from last Tuesday, above, and last Monday, below, contained clashing portraits of Omar Mateen, who used a military style assault weapon and a handgun to kill 49 people in an Orlando, Fla., gay dance club last Sunday.

A week after the slaughter inside Pulse nightclub, The Record of Woodland Park and other news media continue to struggle with whether the U.S.-born ISIS sympathizer was committing a hate crime against the LGBT community or was a terrorist.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers of The Record are pulled this way and that by today's front-page package on the slaughter inside a gay dance club in Orlando, Fla.

A week after Omar Mateen gunned down 49 people, readers aren't sure whether he was a Muslim terrorist or a Muslim who hated homosexuals or a little bit of both (A-1).

A news story from Asbury Park reports the advocacy group Garden State Equality used its annual fundraising walk to honor the victims of the Pulse dance club attack.

Below the fold, Staff Writer Mike Kelly continues to portray Mateen as an extremist in a column that recalls the 9/11 hearings in 2004, and then launches into a tedious exploration of a so-called debate on what words to use to describe a Muslim terrorist.

The Record's editing and production staff missed a major error in Staff Writer Matthew McGrath's story on the Garden State Equality walk -- the attack in Orlando was a week ago, not the "six days" ago that begin the second paragraph on Page 1.

Local news?

On the Local front, Staff Writer John Cichowski jumps through hoops to try to interest readers in a story on pedestrian safety at NJ Transit rail stations (L-1).

The veteran columnist actually left the office to cover a dog-and-pony show the state's mass-transit agency staged in Secaucus to dramatize the danger of walking and burying your head in a smartphone.

NJ Transit has come a long way, and no longer labels people who are killed by trains, including suicides, as "trespassers."

Cichowski pats the state agency on the back for being "proactive" by building fences in two communities.

But he doesn't mention a long stretch of track in the middle of Railroad Avenue in Hackensack that remains unfenced even though a middle school student was killed by a train there in 2010. 

LOL moment

On the Business front today, a large photo of apartment construction on Main Street in Hackensack provides a laughing-out-loud moment for residents (B-1).

In the foreground, Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi captured one of the many homeless men who roam around the city not far from the Bergen County shelter, where they are served three meals a day.

The story doesn't mention the Borgs are planning to unload 19.7 acres in Hackensack on an apartment developer in return for $20 million or more -- a deal that presumably will go forward even if they sell North Jersey Media Group and The Record to the Gannett company, as reported last week.

It's no secret

On the Better Living front today, Staff Writer Elisa Ung divulges two North Jersey chefs' "secrets" for losing weight, and provides four of their recipes (BL-1 and BL-2).

Except readers don't learn any "secrets," only stories of self-control and choosing lots of vegetables, fruit and naturally raised meat over all of the artery clogging dishes and sugary desserts the paper's chief reviewer promotes in her weekly restaurant appraisals.

Still, one element of Ung's column deserves praise, and that's the clever headline:

"WAIST NOT"

Me, me, me

A second column from Kelly labels as "nonsense, pathetic nonsense" the notion that if more law-abiding citizens were allowed to carry guns, "murderers like Omar Mateen could be stopped before they fired off too many shots" (O-1 and O-2).

But before readers see that rare opinion, they have to plow through Kelly's describing his journalism experience over a four-decade career:

"I was 23 years old when I covered my first mass murder," Kelly says in his first sentence.

Later, he reports, "This columnist has been caught in street gun fights in the Middle East."

Give me a break.

Syrians upstaged by immigrant haters Trump and Christie

The Daily News predicted in January 2014 that Governor Christie's run for the GOP presidential nomination was doomed, but The Record of Woodland Park stood by his side even after seven other New Jersey newspapers condemned the governor's endorsement of racist Donald Trump and called for his resignation.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Deirdre Sykes, The Record's new editor, is sending horribly mixed messages to readers on Page 1 today.

Readers can only guess why Sykes gives better play to immigrant haters Donald Trump and Governor Christie than to a series of moving interviews with North Jersey Syrians on the fifth anniversary of the civil war in their native land (A-1).

Ban on Syrians

A photo shows front-runner Trump and Christie looking awfully comfortable in ex-slave state North Carolina, where the billionaire businessman's Klan supporters flourish.

Left unsaid, of course, is that Trump wants to bar all Muslims from entering the United States, and Christie sought to ban all Syrian refugees, including children, first from New Jersey and then the rest of the United States. 

In fact, after Christie called for the ban last November, The Record's editors waited a week or so before interviewing law-abiding merchants and other Syrians in Paterson, not far from the Woodland Park newsroom.

Presumably, that was to show readers not all Syrians are terrorists, as Christie seemed to suggest.

Today's editorial on Christie joining the Trump campaign again sounds like it was written by a doddering old man (A-8).

"On March 3," the hemming and hawing concludes,  "he [Christie] said he was fully committed to serving the people of New Jersey.

"There is much evidence to the contrary, governor. Much evidence to the contrary."

That has about as much impact as a wet noodle.

Unions win big?

Staff Writer Christopher Maag continues to give Christie a pass when the governor says NJ Transit fares will have to be raised again to pay for a new contract with rail workers (A-1 and A-10).

Nowhere does the paper's chief transportation reporter mention that Christie's deep cuts in state subsidies forced the state agency to hike fares and cut service last October.

Also, the front-page headline calls the unions "big winners," but only later does Maag report the rail workers haven't had a raise for five freaking years.

Maag doesn't think that's such a big deal because he also has been denied a raise by the Borgs, the wealthy owners of the paper.

Local news?

Three stories from state and federal criminal courts in Hackensack and Newark dominate the local-news section today.

Another story on L-1 reports the Clifton Board of Education is giving Muslim students a day off to observe Eid al-Fitr, the first of two holy days marking a sacred month of fasting.

Former employees of The Record might recall the Borgs refused to give Jewish employees a day off to observe Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism, when fasting also is required.

Star-Ledger, biggest daily paper in N.J., piles on Christie

The Anderson Street Bridge to Teaneck was how many Hackensack residents reached the Cedar Lane business district, Holy Name Hospital and Englewood. On Wednesday, with the bridge closed for repairs, Cedar Lane seemed unusually quiet, suggesting that customers are staying away. Have you seen anything about that in The Record?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

For the past decade, The Record of Woodland Park has emphasized marketing over journalism, as you can see in the paper's front-page motto:

"NORTH JERSEY'S TRUSTED SOURCE"

In fact, under Publisher Stephen A. Borg, The Record has shown time and again that its coverage of Governor Christie cannot be trusted.

Today, the Star-Ledger demanded Christie's final exit, echoing the earlier call of six other newspapers in the state.

An editorial notes the GOP bully "has made it abundantly clear that governing New Jersey is a distant second priority for him, far behind his personal ambitions." 

See: 'Resign for New Jersey's sake'

"His craven endorsement of Donald Trump is only the final blow, the moment when he lost any last shred of credibility," the editorial states.

"His fullsome praise of Trump, after his stinging condemnations only a few weeks ago, is impossible to believe."

NJMG and Borgs

Of course, The Record hasn't joined the other prominent dailies in the state, because Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin continues to hem and haw, and equivocate over Christie's neglect of his duties, his endorsement of Trump and all of the unresolved problems in the Garden State.

Doblin's strings are likely pulled by the Borgs and their powerful North Jersey Media Group. 

To call the editorial page editor a pussy is an insult to women. 

The coverage of Christie by reporters and columnists continues to focus relentlessly on politics, so every story and opinion piece is little more than "Republicans said/Democrats said."

As of June 2015, The Star-Ledger's paid circulation was 213,890 daily and 289,882 on Sunday, largest in the state, according to the New Jersey Press Association.

As of December 2013, The Record's paid circulation was 139,904 daily and 167,278 on Sunday, according to the press organization.  

Today's paper

The front page and the rest of the paper continue to ignore the rising chorus of resignation calls on Christie from other dailies.

A Page 1 story by Dustin Racioppi, a former investigative reporter at the Asbury Park Press, carries this headline:

"Criticism of Christie takes

on a virtual life of its own"

His story doesn't mention any other newspaper, but Racioppi today tweeted to his followers about the Star-Ledger editorial and provided a link to it.

Liberals rejoice

Many readers are rejoicing over another Page 1 story:

"Staring down the prospect of nominating Donald Trump for president, Republicans spiraled into a chaotic, last ditch search Wednesday for a way to save the GOP from hitching its fortunes to an unpredictable celebrity candidate without alienating his  throng of followers" (A-1).

Let's hope we are witnessing the self-destruction of Christie, the racist Republican Party and its radical Tea Party offshoot.

Is Waldwick chief still sending cops on suicide mission?

An aerial photo from PIX11 TV news after a tractor-trailer smashed into the unmarked car of Waldwick Police Officer Christopher Goodell, who was parked at the side of Route 17 south on July 17, 2014, operating radar to catch speeders. He was killed instantly, authorities said.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

With speed cameras readily available, posting a police officer at the side of a highway to catch speeding tractor-trailers and other vehicles is nothing less than a suicide mission.

But that's exactly what Waldwick Police Chief Mark Messner did, leading to the death of Police Officer Christopher Goodell, who was little more than a sitting duck at 1:30 a.m. on July 17, 2014.

Now, a Bergen County grand has declined to indict truck driver Ryon Cumberbatch on a vehicular homicide charge, The Record reports on Page 1 today in a story that leaves many questions unanswered.

Was driver asleep?

The story by Staff Writer Allison Pries and Jim Norman says it isn't clear whether Cumberbatch was speeding, but there is nothing on whether he fell asleep at the wheel (A-1 and A-8).

Prosecutor John Molinelli is quoted as saying at the time of the crash "Cumberbatch drove directly into the police car without stopping or attempting to stop."

Still, no one knows whether the grand jurors decided they couldn't find the truck driver acted recklessly in causing the death of Goodell, as they would have to do to hand up a vehicular homicide indictment.

The story also errs in comparing an indictment to "a finding that there is enough evidence of probable guilt to go to trial" (A-8).

Many grand juries are said to be rubber stamps of prosecutors, and one judge noted grand jurors will, if asked, "indict a ham sandwich."

More holes 

Today's story also is silent on the inevitable lawsuit Goodell's family can file, seeking damages from the driver and truck's owner, J.B. Hunt Transportation Services.

Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski, who wrote several columns about Goodell's death and people who own homes on the edge of the highway, must have been fast asleep when news of the grand jury's decision broke on Tuesday. 

Stile on Christie

In the last line of his Page 1 column today, Staff Writer Charles Stile says Governor Christie "is perhaps the most desperate" of the candidates seeking the GOP presidential nomination (A-10).

Of course, few readers will get that far after glancing at another front-page headline and Stile column that seems little more than an apology for Christie's racially inspired scree against President Obama, Syrian refugees and black victims of police shootings (A-1).

Daibes and Borgs

Another Page 1 story today -- on a proposed deal between the state Department of Environmental Protection and multimillionaire Fred Daibes -- is the second major story about the developer and restaurant owner since Saturday.

The proposal is called lenient and a slap on the wrist, with Daibes required to pay only a third of a drastically lower cash penalty (A-1).

Daibes dropped out last year as developer of 19.7 acres along River Street in Hackensack owned by North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record.

Local news

Christie isn't the only one who is desperate.

Local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza really scrambled to fill today's thin section, with two major Paterson stories on the front (L-1).

Police, court and non-fatal accident news can be found throughout the section.

There is some relief in the obituary of Alice Ramsey Burns, 105, "the product of an early Hackensack family prominent in the realms of politics and motoring," but that story is buried on L-6.

Healthy recipes

Congratulations to Food Editor Esther Davidowitz for publishing a few healthy recipes among the usual mindless promotion of fatty pork and artery clogging desserts (BL-1, BL-2 and BL-3).

Three of the recipes, all free of butter and cream, are from freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson, who has been known to use those artery clogging ingredients with abandon.

Now a front page of no interest to beleaguered taxpayers

Hackensack is getting its own Wawa convenience store with a big gas station on East Moonachie Road and South River Street, above. The Wawa on Essex Street in Lodi, near the Hackensack border, opened about two years ago. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's front page today roams far and wide -- from Cuba to Afghanistan to Washington and finally back to Little Ferry.

But none of the stories are of any interest to long-suffering home and business owners less than a month before their property tax payments are due.

Most, if not all, are paying higher taxes in their inefficient North Jersey home-rule communities, including Hackensack, where residents get slammed with many hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-exempt hospital, county and college property.

Local news?

Two developments at The Record seem to have taken the focus off of Bergen County, where the vast majority of readers live, and especially off of local-news reporting.

In 2009, The Record moved its newsroom to Passaic County and closed its Hackensack headquarters.

In 2012, the Borg family, owners of North Jersey Media Group, hired a high-flying New York Times editor and Manhattanite, Martin Gottlieb, to run their flagship paper, despite his limited local-reporting experience.

Irrelevant news

As a result, readers are seeing more and more front pages with a strong national and international focus, like today's.

And more and more space is devoted to Passaic County news, such as the five stories scattered throughout today's local-news section (Local).

For example, Road Warrior John Cichowski today has a second column in a row about Passaic County infrastructure that is of no interest to mass-transit users and most Bergen drivers (L-1).

Street fair

The name of the headliners who appeared at Hackensack's street festival on Saturday is given as "The Village People," "the Village People" and "Village People" on L-1 today. 

LOL typo

Does Grunge restaurant in Westwood serve food rescued from dumpsters?

There is no such place, except in a photo caption with a hilarious typo on the Better Living front today (The Corner Table on BL-1).

The sloppy work was corrected this morning in the North Jersey.com caption.

The photo, taken in Grange restaurant, runs with Elisa Ung's column on restaurants that use mobile devices or terminals to swipe customers' credit cards at the table.

Tipping?

But, as you would expect from a critic whose restaurant checks are paid by NJMG, the clueless Ung doesn't warn readers about how some terminals can get you to tip more than you should.

You shouldn't tip on the 7% sales tax added to your bill, but if the terminal gives you a choice of a 15% or 20% gratuity, that might have been figured on the total check, including the sales tax.

And if you go to a place with a liquor license, you probably don't want to tip on a bottle of wine, especially given the outrageous markups many restaurant owners take.

Bottom line: It's better to add the tip you want, not just hit the 15% or 20% button.

Anthony Cappola

An editorial on former Republican state Assembly candidate Anthony Cappola and his self-published, hate-filled book, uses a sub-headline:

"Former candidate has no place on council"

And the last sentence says, "...He should not be the same person he was last week, either: a councilman in River Edge" (O-2).

But he isn't.

A Page 1 story in The Record on Saturday reported Cappola "resigned as a River Edge councilman on Friday."

Cuba reporting

Don't waste your time with Mike Kelly's overlong, overwrought column on fugitives living in Cuba (A-1).

The article the vast majority of readers are interested in is the cover story on leisure travel to the biggest island in the Caribbean (T-1).

Unfortunately, Travel Editor Jill Schensul is winging it, because she has never visited Cuba, even though journalists and numerous U.S.-based groups have been allowed to go there for decades.

Nor does she report Americans have been traveling to Cuba for years from a third country, including Mexico, Canada and Jamaica.

More clueless reporting and editing on local bias, buses

Paramus police have asked drivers on Route 4 east to try and avoid having a medical emergency until CITYMD opens a walk-in urgent care center next to a Popeyes fried-chicken restaurant, above and below. The sign went up weeks ago, before the building with Dos Cubanos, a shuttered Cuban restaurant, was renovated and repainted.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record finally is giving Calvin Spann, an African-American veteran who lived in Rutherford and Englewood, the recognition he deserves with a front-page story on his memorial service today.

You might remember the editors literally buried Spann's obituary deep in the Local section last Tuesday.

That's the same day Page 1 was dominated by the photo and story of a hospitalized white pilot who crashed his crippled small plane in a Cresskill field, and had been the subject of two previous stories.

Spann, 90, was one of "the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the black World War II pilots who broke through racism to fight combat missions and escort American bombers across Europe," Staff Writer Todd South reports in a stirring salute to a fellow veteran.

Bias against blacks

Spann and other Turkegee Airmen "helped inspire the effort to racially integrate the U.S. military and, early on, set in motion the pent-up forces that would lead to the civil rights movement," South continues.

But the reporter and his editors are silent on the discrimination Spann may have faced after the war when he began "a career in pharmaceutical sales" and settled in Englewood, where he lived until 2006 (A-1).

That's no surprise 

Assignment Editors Deirdre Dykes and Dan Sforza, familiar with Englewood from the years they worked as reporters there, have taken a vow of silence on discrimination in the small city -- in the heart of The Record's circulation area -- where Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg has lived for decades.

At one time, the only jobs blacks could aspire to were as chauffeurs and maids to the wealthy mansion dwellers on Englewood's East Hill.

In recent years, county and local officials have been working to integrate Dwight Morrow High School, but the lower grades remain 99% black and Hispanic.

The Record spends far more time reporting about the premier private school in Englewood, Dwight-Englewood, attended by three generations of the Borg family, which owns North Jersey Media Group and The Record.

Bias in layout?

Is it merely a coincidence that a large photo of Spann at a Tuskegee Airmen convention appears on the continuation page next to the photo of a black Rutgers football player who was suspended "after a Saturday night incident" (A-6)?

That reminds readers that for decades the only way blacks could get on the front page of The Record was to break the law or be mentioned in a column on Black History Week.

Forced busing

In an editorial called "Buses over PATH," Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin tries mightily to stop the $1.5 billion commuter rail extension to Newark Liberty International Airport (A-9).

But Doblin seems unaware that until the antiquated midtown Manhattan bus terminal is replaced, officials could easily solve massive rush-hour delays by adding another dedicated bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.

Now, a single, reverse lane operates in the morning, funneling buses against traffic on Route 495, but no such lane is set up in the afternoon, when hundreds of buses parked in New Jersey during the day have to return to pick up riders at the midtown terminal.

No to drivers

Operating two dedicated lanes into the tunnel both morning and afternoon would ease bus delays, but the Port Authority fears angering motorists, many of whom drive alone into the city on commutes subsidized by their employers.

What other choice would these morons have but to sit in even worse congestion than now, finally giving long-suffering bus riders some relief?

Are the drivers going to try using the Holland Tunnel or the George Washington Bridge to reach their free midtown parking garages?

Who cares? Let them take the ferry or swim.

Local news?

You know there isn't much local news today when Sykes and Sforza lead their section with yet another story on a proposed public parking garage in downtown Ridgewood (L-1).

Staff Writer Chris Harris has probably written more stories about this single project than The Record has about a new bus terminal in midtown Manhattan.