Editors gaze into crystal balls, ignore our messy present

This morning, Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, between Main Street and the railroad tracks, remained a one-lane street -- just one of the many spots city plows missed after the snow stopped falling on Saturday night.

On Main Street in Hackensack, between Berry and Passaic streets, parking was banned this morning, above and below, until the city could clear all of the snow in front of parking meters.

Lavash City, an Armenian restaurant, and other businesses on this block of Main are lucky to have a rear parking lot for customers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's editors are so bored with our dysfunctional state government and the blizzard of 2016 they are already looking into the future.

On Page 1 today, Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson and Staff Writer James O'Neill are gazing into crystal balls on November ballot questions and the weather for the rest of the winter.

On the Local front, the moronic Road Warrior, John Cichowski, continues to ignore blizzard dangers -- even as the death toll mounts -- and referees a pissing match over whether residents are obligated to clear fire hydrants of snow (L-1).

On the first Business page, Staff Writer Joan Verdon delivers a breathless report on a German discount supermarket chain that isn't expected to open stores in the U.S. before 2018 (L-8).

Snow clearing

The snow stopped falling Saturday night, but pedestrians continue to encounter third-world snow clearing in Hackensack and many other towns, where bus stops, corners, turn lanes, parking meters and crosswalks remain covered or barricaded today.

On the Local front, the editors published an image rarely seen in the Woodland Park daily -- a Hackensack bus stop blocked by a snowbank (L-1).

On Sunday and Monday, reporters visited a couple dozen towns, but pretty much ignored the amateurish job turned in by municipal crews -- as The Record has done for decades. 

Snow job

One example was reporting from the front lines in Teaneck by resident and Columnist Mike Kelly, the veteran reporter whose work appears regularly on the front page. 

Here is an excerpt from his hard-hitting report in Monday's Local section:

"By noon Sunday, Teaneck's main business district along Cedar Lane was buzzing with traffic and pedestrians."

Kelly probably could have described Cedar Lane the same way on any Sunday, given the large number of Orthodox Jews in town who are forbidden from shopping on Saturday.

He also noted "mounds of snow" were "left at the end of [residents'] driveways by snowplows that worked through the night to clear town streets."

Apparently, Kelly didn't venture very far, because he missed the poor job the snowplows did on Cedar Lane, where only one of two travel lanes was clear between the Hackensack line and River Road on Monday morning.

Wrong headline

Even though a number of people died from shoveling snow, carbon-monoxide poisoning and hypothermia over the weekend, Monday's local front carried an upbeat headline and sub-headline:

Postcards from a wintry land

North Jersey
worked hard
in storm, but 
played, too

This is what a block on Main Street in Hackensack looks like after the snow was cleared from in front of parking meters.

The bus stop at Euclid Avenue and Main Street, where you can board NJ Transit buses to the city, remained buried under snow this morning, including the city provided bench.

Ditto for the bus stop across the street from Sears on Main Street.

Governor Christie

Wow, would you look at all of the ink on Page 1 today criticizing Governor Christie for leaving New Jersey on Sunday and returning to New Hampshire in his futile campaign for the GOP presidential nomination (A-1).

I can't recall headlines this big or similar criticism when he did a number of things as governor -- from cancelling new Hudson River rail tunnels in 2010, waging war on teachers and other members of the middle class, and executing more than 500 vetoes so far to stop bills on gun control and a host of other issues.

Burger King

An editorial today on the response to the blizzard doesn't question why employees of Burger King in Hackensack didn't call police when an elderly New York woman told them she was afraid to drive home in the storm on Saturday afternoon, and planned to park in their Hackensack Avenue lot (A-8).

Police Director Mike Mordaga says in a news story on A-6 today the body of the unidentified woman, 78, was found in her gold Cadillac on Monday morning.

The Burger King had closed at 5 p.m. on Saturday, and didn't reopen until Monday morning.

On Spring Valley Avenue in Maywood, near the Hackensack border, a woman was forced to walk on the pavement this morning, only inches from passing cars on a street that is too narrow for all the traffic it carries in even the best of weather.

The corner of Main Street and Johnson Avenue in Hackensack.

Memorable stories no substitute for memorable journalism

A driver leaving a gas station in Teaneck saw nothing wrong with crossing the double-yellow line on Cedar Lane near River Road, blocking a turn lane and trying to find a hole in traffic stopped at the light.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's first Sunday edition of 2016 is chock full of "nuts" to readers:

There's the 2015 local news in review (L-1), more speculation on what the future holds for New Jersey (A-1), and only mild criticism of Governor Christie, who has put his personal ambitions above the welfare of residents (O-1).

Editor Martin Gottlieb, a New York Times veteran who is retiring at the end of the month, has started the year off with a whimper, not a bang.

Cranky Stile?

The danger of leading the Sunday paper with another Charles Stile column is that readers will simply turn the page to avoid more of the same old political drivel from one of Christie's chief apologists (A-1).

Surprise. Stile sounds cranky today, but still tempers his criticism, refusing to call Christie what he is, the worst governor in state history.

Ditto for Columnists Carl Golden and Mike Kelly on today's Opinion front.

Here's Stile:

"Without a fully engaged governor setting the agenda from his State House office, the deep-seated issues affecting the lives of average New Jersey residents ... are largely unresolved" (A-1).

Can you hear readers snoring?

Other columns

On the Opinion front, Golden comments on a near-bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund, a public pension system sinking further into debt; rising property taxes, still highest in the nation; and the disaster of casino gambling.

Say it, Carl: We are mired in deep doo-doo, all of Christie's making.

But what can you expect of Golden, a former Record staffer and onetime flack for two previous Republican governors?

Kelly's long-winded column says the day before Christie formally announced he was running for president, he created a panel to look into ways of making it easier for residents to buy and own guns, but you have to plow through six paragraphs to figure that out (O-1).

Outrage, please

The three columnists show once again why newspapers are becoming obsolete:

Stile, Golden and Kelly don't seem to have strong opinions about anything. Their columns sound like the kind of news analysis papers have been running for years.

From their pulpit, these so-called journalists should channel the outrage of the public over some of Christie's dastardly acts. 

Instead, they merely push words around into reasoned arguments.

Indeed. The strongest criticism of Christie comes from Columnist Brigid Harrison, a political science and law professor (O-2). 

Hey, Marty. Why isn't her column on Page 1 today?

Local news?

On the Local front today, a roundup of the "memorable stories of 2015" runs nearly two-and-half pages (L-1, L-2 and L-3).

But did local staffers, who brought up the rears of Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, produce any memorable journalism?

I was moved more than once by the local obituary writer, Jay Levin, who does a masterful job of summing up the lives of notable North Jersey residents.

Can you recall any other memorable local journalism?

Downsized

News of Hackensack, the biggest Bergen County community and once the paper's home, continues to wither and die.

Three areas of neglect were Hackensack's corrosive party politics, the impact of Hackensack University Medical Center and other non-profits on rising property taxes, and school and school board news.

In Englewood, The Record completely ignored segregated elementary and middle schools, and empty storefronts downtown.

Teaneck officials should get poor marks for Cedar Lane, one of the most congested downtown streets in North Jersey, and their refusal to install more turn lanes or even have cops directing traffic instead of setting speed traps.

Only the recent hit-run death of a homeless man at Cedar Lane and Garrison Avenue moved the editors to pay any attention to the street.

Funny business

Downtown economies were completely ignored by the business editors in 2015, as in previous years, and today's cover story doesn't bode well for them (B-1).

Readers are ill-served by the four staff-written profiles that read like public relations for the New Jersey and Business Industry Association, Valley National Bank, New Jersey Retail Merchants Association and Cushman & Wakefield.

Of course, business, food and some news coverage follows the money -- all of the advertising revenue that flows into North Jersey Media Group from banks, malls, real estate offices, commercial customers, restaurants, automakers and car dealers.

This year won't be any different.