Schoolchildren, teen drivers again dominate news, views

Residents fear that when completed, the Hudson Lights residential-retail project near the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee will make the borough's heavy traffic even worse. This photo might remind some old timers of "Heavy Equipment," a 1940s film starring John Derrick and Jean Crain.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

As a senior citizen, I still can't figure out why "new standardized tests tied to Common Core" are so controversial that just the mention of them by Governor Christie lands him on Page 1 of The Record (A-1).

In fact, I have no idea what Common Core is, thanks to reporters who wait until deep into the continuation page today to explain it and quote New Jersey education officials defending it (A-7). 

Then, on the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski has another boring column on teen drivers (L-1).

News bias

North Jersey Media Group has always steadfastly denied discriminating against older workers.

But the editorial policy of The Record, the company's flagship paper, has long discriminated against older readers, the majority.

Autism, not Alzheimer's disease, often dominates Page 1 and the Better Living front.

The challenges facing older drivers are routinely ignored by Cichowski.

And his editors lampoon those drivers when they confuse the accelerator for the brake pedal by running numerous filler photos of the mayhem that causes.

Correction

A Thursday story on high school journalism and censorship has been corrected (A-2).

Why is L-9, a Business page, dominated by rising rents in New York and other cities?

What about rents in Hackensack and the rest of North Jersey?

$92 entree

Orama in Edgewater is really making customers pay for the restaurant's spectacular location on the Hudson River, with entrees up to $92.

I loved what Executive Chef John Piliouras did with fresh fish at Nisi Estiatorio in Englewood -- now replaced by a car showroom.

But I doubt I'll ever eat at Orama. 

There are plenty of great seafood restaurants in Bergen County with down-to-earth prices, and Fort Lee and Edgewater boast at least three Japanese restaurants with great sushi menus.

And the far more affordable food court at Mitsuwa Marketplace has the same great view.

Restaurant critic Elisa Ung's 3-star review today shows a photo of Niman Ranch loin lamb chops, but doesn't tell readers all Niman Ranch meat is naturally raised or give the price (BL-16).

In her text, she confuses readers by describing what apparently is a second dish, "Colorado prime porterhouse-cut [lamb] chops ($21 and $32)." 

"Prime" and "porterhouse" usually describe beef. Maybe these Colorado sheep were raised on steroids.

Stupid headline hides truth about GOP-led Congress

A sign in the unisex bathroom at Pushcart Coffee on Ninth Avenue and 25th Street in Manhattan.

Shivering tourists on a walking tour of Manhattan's Theater District on Saturday, another frigid, sunless day.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A headline declaring "deep divide in D.C." certainly is familiar to anyone who has read a newspaper in the last few years.

But after months of hysteria in The Record and other media about Tea Party radicals and other Republicans taking full control of Congress and dismantling President Obama's health care law and other initiatives, reality has set in.

On Monday's front page, more than two months after the 2014 election, Columnist Herb Jackson reports voter turnout was pushed down "nationally to its lowest point since World War II," and ending gridlock is "overly optimistic, to say the least."

Jackson blames voter apathy on a "bitter election," but the media also are at fault for ignoring issues in favor of conflict and sound bites, and failing to reveal the lies in GOP attack ads.

However, the main headline on his column used the old "deep divide in D.C." and ignored the real truth -- no end to gridlock in the new Congress, despite Republican majorities.

Monday's A-2 carried another long correction of a story in the Local news section, the one on Sunday about Brendan Jordan, 7, the New Milford boy who died in a school accident.

Today's paper

Page 1 today is dominated by Staff Writer John Cichowski's Road Warrior column -- based on press releases, phone interviews and fatal accident reports (A-1).

If the past is any guide, Cichowski likely has committed a number of errors in citing state police data, and he continues to refer to pedestrian deaths as "crashes."

Weak laws

Cichowski should be calling for stronger laws to hold drivers criminally responsible for killing a pedestrian.

Now, drivers can use the excuse that they "didn't see" the pedestrian as a get-out-of jail card.

Older drivers

The challenges facing older drivers is another issue the lazy, demented reporter has neglected in the more than 11 years he has been writing the column.

That can be plainly seen today in the two photos that run in Local, where head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, hold up another older driver to ridicule.

Look at the helpless expression on the white-haired woman's face -- as captured by an ambulance-chasing freelancer -- after she drove her 2009 Honda Civic "over a guardrail and retaining wall and down an embankment at a condominium complex" in Ridgewood (L-3).

Of course, the woman didn't "drive" her car through the guardrail on Monday afternoon.

She likely mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal, a common error for elderly drivers.

Is driver retraining available for older drivers such as this woman? 

Cichowski could care less, and Sykes and Sforza fear any such public service stories would deprive them of the filler accident photos they so desperately need to complete their weak local news report.  

Second look

On Sunday, Columnist Mike Kelly criticized Governor Christie for not attending the funeral of another pedestrian, Cliffside Park Special Police Officer Stephen Petruzzello, who was killed by a driver who claimed she didn't see him (Opinion front).

But Kelly gets absolutely no editing, and thinks readers have nothing better to do than plow through a dozen long introductory paragraphs about Christie the football fan and a gubernatorial vacation.

The criticism appears on the continuation page, and many readers may have been so bored by all the background they never saw it.

It seems silly to tell someone who has been a columnist for more than 20 years: Put your criticism in the first paragraph and leave the background for later.

But it's necessary with Kelly, one of the paper's chief word pushers.

Here's breathtaking 'local' news you might have missed

News Corp. headquarters on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, newspapers like the New York Post and other media properties here and around the world deliver slanted news every day, not just for the holidays.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The front pages of The Record in the past few days seem to shout: "No news today."

Editor Marty Gottlieb leads today's paper with a political column that poses an unasked question, Which GOP moron do you prefer in the presidential election in 2016?

"Bush" is a four-letter word that only reminds New Jerseyans of the 9/11 attack, the worst recession in memory, and two ruinous wars that killed thousands of Americans, wasted billions of dollars and lined the pockets of the military-industrial complex. (A-1).

Car news?  

How many owners of Mercedes-Benzes know or care where the German automaker's U.S. headquarters are located (A-1)?

Why is this story on Page 1 -- unless it's just another piece of the paper's strategy to cover the biggest advertisers to the exclusion of comprehensive local news?

At the bottom of today's front page, United Airlines and the Port Authority continue their pissing match over what makes flying out of Newark International Airport so expensive (A-1).

Nowhere have I seen any explanation of why my United flight to Jamaica in August didn't even have free music channels.

Brick latkes

If you've been complaining that your mother-in-law's latkes taste like bricks, she might have used a recipe the Better Living section published on Tuesday (BL-1 photo and BL-2 recipe).

An A-2 correction today notes "six eggs" were omitted from the ingredients list by Nina Rizzo, presumably a freelancer. LOL.

That's just another example of careful editing by Food Editor Esther Davidowitz, who betrayed her Jewish heritage by missing this error in a recipe for potato pancakes.

Puff pieces

Also today and every Wednesday, Davidowitz runs press releases from North Jersey restaurants that advertise heavily in the Woodland Park daily (BL-2).

The feature is called "FYI: What's new, what's happening and what's trending in the North Jersey dining scene."

What's trending is that Elisa Ung is rewriting promotional press releases from many of the same restaurants she should be evaluating critically as the paper's chief restaurant reviewer.

Davidowitz's contribution to the Better Living section, Coffee with the Chef, doesn't say which Hackensack Thai restaurant Koson Sillpsitte once worked at (BL-2).

What is the point of this feature, except to further glorify chefs and restaurants? 

In one recent column, a chef recommended salting pasta water "like the ocean," advice that was of little use to anyone, especially people trying to avoid excessive sodium.

Breaking local news

The Local news section today leads with the rescue of a dog from a Fort Lee house fire (L-1).

An accident photo on L-3 shows first responders standing around with their hands in their pockets, and the caption tells you little about the cause or whether a summons was issued.

Tuesday's Local front was dominated by a photo showing the wreckage of a FedEx tractor-trailer on Route 287 in Mahwah, but the story didn't say whether any packages destined for North Jersey residents were damaged or destroyed.

Below that, Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi came up with yet another filler photo of a non-fatal collision of two vehicles in Emerson (Tuesday's L-1).

Wow! Look at how the hood and bumper of that new SUV came off in the crash! Wow! Look at that fireman with his hands in his pockets!

Another great job by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza and their minions.

Elderly drivers

Road Warrior John Cichowski has spent so much time campaigning against life-saving red-light cameras, he has completely ignored the challenges faced by older drivers.

Did he or his lazy, clueless assignment editors see the story on L-2 of Sunday's Local section, reporting that two elderly pedestrians were struck by cars driven by older drivers in separate Fair Lawn incidents on Saturday?

An 82-year-old woman was "severely injured" by a driver "in his 80s" behind the wheel of an enormous Mercury Grand Marquis.

"Ten hours later and a mile away," a 64-year-old man was hit by a car driven by a 71-year-old male.

All four were residents of Fair Lawn, but I haven't seen a follow up on whether the drivers were issued summonses.

Noe does Cichowski seem to care whether retraining or other help is available for older drivers.

Editors wary of covering transportation on the ground

In a photo taken appropriately on April Fool's Day this year, the new World Trade Center taunts commuters who pay exorbitant Hudson River tolls to help  cover its huge cost overruns. Of course, if they try to switch to buses or trains, they won't find any rush-hour seats, thanks to the Port Authority's and Governor Christie's regressive mass-transit policies.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Is it really front-page news that Port Authority Commissioner Anthony Sartor owns and runs a large New Jersey-based engineering firm that has worked alongside some of the biggest contractors on the new World Trade Center project?

Or that as head of the bistate agency's WTC Redevelopment Subcommittee, he's bowed out of voting more than 100 times to avoid possible conflicts of interest?

Editor Marty Gottlieb of The Record thinks so, but readers are all too familiar with an agency that is packed with Governor Christie's cronies and powerful commissioners whose outside interests pose ethical dilemmas.

The coverage they haven't seen from Gottlieb and Staff Writer Shawn Boburg or any of the paper's transportation writers relates to on-the-ground commuting issues -- exorbitant and still rising tolls, and packed buses and trains.

That's all set against a background of Christie killing new rail tunnels into Manhattan, and the Port Authority refusing to expand bus or PATH service.

Page A-2 today carries the fourth correction in 2 days from The Record's hard-working editors and reporters.

Elderly drivers

Road Warrior John Cichowski and the editors continue to ignore the challenges faced by older drivers.

On head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local front today, a 71-year-old Korean-American woman tries to explain why she drove the wrong way on a one-way street, leading to a collision that killed her 84-year-old husband, who wasn't wearing a seat belt.

But the editors and their reporter didn't go far enough and explain how a 32-year-old woman in a 2012 BMW X5 couldn't avoid the head-on collision (L-1).

Was the much younger woman texting on her cellphone or speeding? Readers have no clue.

Today's column from Cichowski is yet another discussion of the 2010 law that requires drivers to stop for pedestrians in marked crosswalks (L-1).

But his time would be better spent helping older drivers find refresher courses or places where they can go to learn more about defensive driving.

Got carcinogens?

On the Better Living front, doesn't that plate of burnt grilled chicken look yummy?

It's just what the doctor ordered for readers in search of more carcinogens -- harmful chemicals that form when meat and poultry are cooked over high heat.

In recent months, The Record has been publishing recipes from a bumbling food blogger, Kate Morgan Jackson of Upper Saddle River.

Here, Jackson combines chicken and buttermilk for a double dose of harmful, artery clogging animal fats, and doesn't even recommend readers use organic or antibiotic-free poultry (BL-2).

For tips on preparing healthy meals, see:

Do You Really Know What You're Eating?

Why do editors continue to shaft older drivers?

The 14 acres of woodland that once served as Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg's playground, behind a columned white mansion on Summit Avenue, are one of the few instances where Hackensack residents defeated a development proposal. In this case,  68 town houses were to be built on the land.

I am sick and tired of reading The Record's endless reporting on teen deaths in automobile accidents -- as in today's Page 1 column -- while the challenges faced by older drivers are virtually ignored.

Seniors get behind the wheel, mistake the gas pedal for the brake pedal and kill themselves or someone else -- then become a photo op for head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who uses accident photos as filler in the Local news section (see L-3).

You'd think Editor Marty Gottlieb, who is in his mid-60s, or veteran reporter John Cichowski would care about this issue, and report on the challenges facing older drivers and the help available to them. 

Today's Road Warrior column cites a number of reason for fewer deaths among 16- to 20-year-old drivers, including red decals on license plates.

Of course, Cichowski doesn't tell readers how many hysterical parents he allowed to vent in his column in opposition to the decals when they were first proposed, just as he has done for lead-footed drivers trying to kill another life-saving measure, red-light cameras.

If past Road Warrior columns are any guide, the statistics cited in today's piece are probably reported incorrectly by Cichowski, but don't look for corrections on Wednesday.

Donovan v. Democrats

I am sure I wasn't the only lifelong Democrat repelled by the greed of Bergen County's Democratic Party who voted for county Executive Kathleen Donovan, a Republican.

Now, Donovan, who has been hospitalized for a month, has vowed to veto a pay-to-play ordinance -- proposed by majority Democrats -- that would allow special interests to contribute up to $20,000 a year to county political parties (A-1).

Dissing Hackensack

Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, turn out another lame Local section today, with no Hackensack news.

A story on plunging gas prices (Business, L-7) includes photos from Vermont, suggesting that all of the gas stations near the Woodland Park newsroom have gone out of business.

The photo with the 15 Minute Chef, supplied by The Washington Post, makes Cumin-Cilantro Chicken Patties look like vomit (BL-2).

Disappointing readers day after day

Image via Wikipedia

Add Casey Anthony to the murder defendants who have been acquitted in the manner of O.J. Simpson after a deeply flawed police investigation.

Are you as disappointed as I am when you unfold the paper and look at another front page that tries to distract readers from the mess we're all in?


Most of Page 1 in The Record today is devoted to two sensational trials -- including an O.J. Simpson-like verdict in the murder of a 2-year-old Florida girl --  while a third story puts a positive spin on the state budget signed by Governor Christie.


The GOP governor signed the budget nearly a week ago, so why is Editor Francis Scandale giving us the details in dribs and drabs?


Wrong court


Front-page play for sports writer Bob Klapisch is true desperation. Has the columnist ever covered a trial? 


It doesn't sound like it from the lead paragraph, where he claims Andy Pettitte has "memorized what to say on the witness stand." 


(How often does a witness named Pettitte appear before a petit jury?) 


Judging from the coverage of the murder trial in Orlando, you'd think Florida is New Jersey's 22nd county. 


The likely explanation for the acquittal of Casey Anthony is another flawed investigation by local police, though that's not really discussed in the story.


Dig to find the pain


The pain of the budget for struggling cities and middle- and working class families is left for A-3, and a story on Senate President Stephen Sweeney refusing to apologize for calling Christie "a rotten bastard."


Sweeney should get some credit for not calling the governor "a rotten, fat  bastard."


More details on the state budget's downside can be found in a letter to the editor from Arnold Korotkin of Little Falls (A-8) -- another example of how readers often learn more from other readers than from the paper itself.


Another budget cut, for Urban Enterprise Zones, is discussed in a story on the first Business page (L-9).


Scandale's job is to pull this together for readers. It's called packaging the news. Instead, he just collects his six-figure salary and relaxes on the golf course. What a disgrace.


God forbid, The Record should criticize our wonderful governor or call his budget "cruel and mean-spirited," as Sweeney did.


Another car column


On the front of Local, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' hand-picked Road Warrior columnist tells readers something they don't know -- cars are not boats.


There is news from many towns, plus an unusual four pages of death notices, but nothing from Hackensack or Teaneck.


A brief on L-3 reports a missing 14-year-old Englewood girl -- subject of two earlier stories -- returned home more than four days ago.


Senior road kill


Another brief, on L-8, reports that Aleksander Shlahet, 77, of Allendale accomplished nothing in life before a car driven by a 73-year-old woman struck his bicycle and killed him on Monday.


Who was Shlahet? Had he been a scientist or a poet? Did he have a wife, grandchildren? Oh, he's over 70. He's of no interest to the youth-oriented assignment editors.


The Record has always treated seniors who kill or die in auto accidents as worth nothing more than briefs or maybe a photo and caption.


The challenges facing older drivers? Help available for them, maybe from all those North Jersey police departments headed by chiefs making more than the governor? 


The editors just don't care.