Bridgegate delays won't help Christie's doomed campaign

Are high rents keeping storefronts empty on the 300 block of Main Street in Hackensack, above and below?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Governor Christie is in 10th or 11th place in the polls on who will win the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

But The Record tries to stir reader interest in his doomed campaign with an A-1 teaser suggesting a delay in two Bridgegate scandal trials could make a difference (A-1 and A-3).

After three of Christie's associates testify next March, the GOP bully will not only be knocked out of the race for the White House he might have to defend himself against impeachment proceedings.

9/11 photos

Readers can't help but be moved by staff photos on Page 1 and elsewhere in today's paper showing the enduring grief over the loss of loved ones in the 9/11 attacks (A-8, L-1, L-3 and L-5).

The A-1 photo by Chris Pedota is especially powerful.

Contrast today's coverage to the sorry Mike Kelly column on the 14th anniversary ceremony that led the paper on Friday.

For a dramatic opening sentence, Kelly chose only three words: "Time moves on." So should he.

No editing

Kelly's long, meandering columns demonstrate how little editing is going on at the Woodland Park daily, but other writers get away with awkward writing, too.

On the front page today, sports Columnist Tara Sullivan has this gem:

"Vinci's best moment -- a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory over world No. 1 Serena Williams -- authored a most shocking moment in the sports world .... [italics added]."

In the photo caption with her column, an editor insisted that "Serena Williams had her run for a calendar-year Grand Slam ended Friday .... [italics added]."

That's like saying Williams "had" her arm broken.

Money talks

Why are leases with two department stores at the long-stalled American Dream Meadowlands complex front page news today?

Because The Record, the flagship of North Jersey Media Group, is being kept afloat by advertising revenue from Macy's, Saks, Lord & Taylor and other big chains (A-1).

And those ads are why the editors order reporters to cover the malls in North Jersey almost exclusively and ignore struggling downtown merchants in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood.

Reporter goes to dog and pony show

Image by derek7272 via Flickr

Ground Zero at an earlier stage of reconstruction in April 2008.

When the powerful Port Authority of New York and New Jersey calls, reporters jump at the opportunity to get up close and personal at the agency's latest dog and pony show. That's what Staff Writer Tom Davis did to produce today's breathless Page 1 account of construction at Ground Zero, and the reporter made sure he passed along a dig at backers of a nearby mosque.

 The upbeat account, with six photos by Staff Photographer Chris Pedota, appears orchestrated to silence critics who complain none of the buildings will be finished by Sept. 11, 2011 -- the 10-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. The reporter played right into the hands of the bistate agency.


A clueless news copy editor -- looking for a quote to place above the big, A-1 photo of the site -- finds the dullest one in the story: "More than a construction site." But why ignore this quote? "A passion and a mission."

The reporter tells us, "Workers scurried around, " and notes some wore stickers on their hard hats opposing the mosque. A Port Authority official is quoted saying, "These guys work around the clock." Wow. What dedication. And great public relations, too.

The anti-mosque reference is in keeping with the paper's smear tactics this past Sunday against the imam backing the proposal. And Editors Francis "Frank The Castrato" Scandale and Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes apparently oppose assigning stories on mosques in Paterson, Teaneck and Hackensack, which co-exist peacefully in their communities. 

'Liar, liar, pants on fire'

The Governor Christie-Bret Schundler privileged white male pissing match is back on A-1 today, and each man pretty much says the other lied about who did what to whom in the state's failed application for a $400 million federal education grant. 

No matter who you side with, you as taxpayers and your kids are the ones who really got screwed -- but since Christie took office, you have gotten used to that -- while the Borgs and other millionaires count all the money they don't have to send to the tax office in Trenton.

Playing catch-up

On the front of Local, the paper catches up with a story it missed -- the lawsuit to stop the expansion of The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood -- a controversy readers both inside and outside of the village are thoroughly sick of reading about, especially in the absence of news from Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck and other important towns.

Road Worrier

Road Warrior John Cichowski, who routinely turns his back on the commuting problems of bus and rail riders, has an L-1 column about highway rest stops. Boring. 

He's the one who really needs a rest. Why not take Christie to task for refusing to raise the low gasoline tax to help repair infrastructure and boost mass transit?

Cichowski's boss is Sykes, the head assignment editor, who spends hours in the office looking busy, micromanaging, laughing loudly and sipping delicately on her water bottle, but accomplishes nothing in the way of improving local news coverage.

There's not a word in Local today about a plan to remake Main Street in Hackensack -- two weeks after a public meeting in the Johnson Public Library. Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado is missing in inaction.

New food editor on board

Food Editor Susan Sherrill's name appears on Page F-2 of Better Living for the first time today, but the section's food coverage remains as lackluster as ever.