Death of bear that walked upright upstages local historian

"Trump in the Toilet" is from political cartoonist Darly Cagle (Cagel.com). 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You have to feel sorry for Kevin Wright, who is described in a Page 1 headline today as the "passionate defender of Bergen's history."

Not only did the River Edge historian die prematurely at 64, according to Staff Writer Jay Levin of The Record, but he got upstaged by a goddamn bear, which was killed in a state-sanctioned bow hunt.

Jeez, what does a prominent North Jersey resident have to do to get his obituary above the fold on the front page of the Woodland Park daily?

The bear's photo and obituary get much better play than those for Wright, who is described as "a quintessential and indefatigable champion and protector of New Bridge Landing, Bergen County's cherished Revolutionary War site" (A-1).

To add insult to injury, animal lovers gave a name to the "tall-walking bear," and started a Facebook page, making the animal "an Internet sensation" (A-1).

Pedals -- that's the bear -- gets the same play as a big photo of We Mcdonald (a local minority student who is a contestant on "The Voice"), and Governor Christie signing into law an unpopular 23-cents-per-gallon hike in the gasoline tax.

Poor focus, editing

More than three months after Gannett Co. bought North Jersey Media Group from the Borg family, The Record remains one of the most poorly focused and edited newspapers in the state.

Stories about dogs, cats, bears, geese and other animals often get far better play than those about the mistreatment of humans.

NJ Transit decline

The fatal Sept. 29 crash of an NJ Transit train in Hoboken unleashed a flurry of analytical stories and columns in The Record.

But none focused as relentlessly on Christie's anti-mass transit policies as did a New York Times story that ran on Thursday under this headline:

"New Jersey Transit, 
a Cautionary Tale of Neglect"

According to the story, "Under the administration of Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, the state subsidy for the railroad [NJ Transit] has plunged by more than 90 percent.

"Gaping holes in the agency's past two budgets were filled by fare increases and service reductions or other cuts.

"Plans for a new tunnel under the Hudson River -- one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the country -- were torpedoed by Mr. Christie, who pushed for some of the money to be diverted to road-building projects."

In fact, Christie's name doesn't even appear in today's story on the state Legislature launching a wide-ranging investigation into NJ Transit operations (A-4).

Bad journalism

Christie's hostility toward mass transit was reflected years earlier in the pages of The Record, which published takeouts listing the so-called negatives of extending electrified light-rail passenger service to Bergen County.

A Page 1 story also questioned why NJ Transit doesn't make a profit.

And in the past 13 years, Staff Writer John Cichowski's Road Warrior column has virtually ignored the declining quality of NJ Transit bus and rail service.

Same story twice

The news and business editors apparently don't talk to each other, judging from identical A-9 and A-10 stories on the U.S. lifting a $100 limit on Cuban cigars and rum.

Reader abuse

Today's Local front carries another story on "elder abuse" from Staff Writer Colleen Diskin, who continues to ignore the health and welfare of tens of thousands of well-off seniors in North Jersey.

Although heart disease is the No. 1 killer of seniors in the United States, The Record's food writers can't help but promoting some of the unhealthiest food available.

Get a load of the photo of artery clogging "Sharkfin pie" ($5.99 or $8.99 to share), one of the highly recommended dishes in Staff Writer Elisa Ung's review of Mitchell's Fish Market, an expensive seafood restaurant in Edgewater (Friday's BL-14).

Seniors might fare better in a swimming contest with a real shark than eating this heart-attack on a plate (peanut butter, chocolate and ice cream).

White Maple Cafe

A week earlier, Ung praised "the enormous ice cream sandwich" ($7) at the White Maple Cafe in Ridgewood, and said a fish fillet was worth ordering because the salty skin reminded her of "pork rind."

Despite the word "cafe" in the name, Ung notes unnecessarily:

"That White Maple sees itself as a cafe, not a fine-dining restaurant, is either a selling point or a reason to avoid it, depending on your expectations."

Which might lead readers to look at Ung in a similar way: 

The so-called restaurant reviewer's dual obsessions with sugary desserts and enormous hunks of aged mystery beef are ample reasons to discount or simply ignore her appraisals.
  

Older readers are begging for an 'age-friendly' newspaper

A woman catching the spirit at a free concert Friday night in Hackensack's Atlantic Street Park, where a Colombian band played salsa and cumbia tunes.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The predominantly older readers of The Record rarely see a story about themselves like the one that led Saturday's paper.

Staff Writer Colleen Diskin, who spends most of her time writing about the institutionalized elderly, reported that five Bergen County towns "are on a mission" to become places where residents "can grow old" (A-1 on Saturday).

The headline:

"Towns map an 'age-friendly' future"

Isn't that rich? The Record has never seemed interested in becoming an "age-friendly" newspaper.

Road Warrior John Cichowski consistently ignores the challenges facing older drivers -- his peers -- but writes column after column about teenagers.

(On Saturday' front page, Cichowski wrote about one of the most pressing issues facing older drivers -- tinted windows in cars -- and today on L-1, he goes on and on about license-renewal lines at the Motor Vehicle Commission.)

The No. 1 killer in the United States, heart disease, and dementia have consistently been ignored in favor of covering autism.

Editor Deirdre Sykes also ignores the biggest reason residents leave New Jersey -- a highly inefficient home-rule system of government supported by increasingly higher property taxes.

And The Record's editorial board has never urged towns to consolidate and lower costs by sharing services or to replace do-nothing police chiefs with police directors who are paid less.

Superficial story

In her superficial Saturday story, Diskin mentions high taxes in passing, suggesting more seniors "could cope ... by moving in together, sharing costs, rides and lives."

Then, on the continuation page, Diskin says Micki Shalan, 82, of Teaneck has used her home, her only asset, "to make ends meet, taking out a reverse mortgage and renting out a room to a number of different tenants over the past few years" (Saturday's A-6).

That's pathetic. A reverse mortgage means the poor woman will lose her home upon her death, and won't be able to pass it on to survivors.

Is that the best Teaneck and the other towns can do? 

The best solution isn't to force seniors into the sharing economy, but to make fundamental changes that will lower taxes and retain residents.

Today's front page

Except for photos from the Rio Olympics and several news briefs, Page 1 today is filled with politics:

The lead story is a deadly dull discussion of "Rule 3" at the Port Authority -- the patronage mill that keeps on giving to Governor Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who have vetoed reforms.

Record Columnist Charles Stile delivers yet another boring exploration of Senate President Stephen Sweeney positioning himself for the 2017 gubernatorial election.

And Columnist Mike Kelly seems to be the last journalist to report wacko racist Donald J. Trump has shot himself in the foot so often lately supporters are abandoning his GOP presidential campaign.

A second major article on Trump's racist supporters appears on A-4.

More Trump news

If you think Kelly said all he wanted about Trump on A-1, you're mistaken.

His second column appears on the Opinion front, predicting Tump's defeat on Nov. 8 and how that will affect Governor Christie, the head of the businessman's transition team (O-1).

Affordable housing

The Real Estate front today carries an upbeat story on the affordable housing that replaced Paterson's notorious Alexander Hamilton projects (R-1).

You haven't seen a similar story about a town in Bergen County, because many have fought units for low- and moderate-income residents, fearing an influx of minorities.

More reporting of news, views from everywhere but here

The Fort Lee street they never finished. That's the impression residents and visitors get from all of the digging, jack-hammering, patching and tearing up of Main Street in the past couple of years. On Monday, the block of Main Street with the post office, restaurants and a bakery was completely closed.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I get it. Even a minor victory over Governor Christie's regressive policies is front-page news.

That's why a deal with Senate leaders to scrap the controversial Return Home New Jersey program is on Page 1 of The Record today.

But this A-1 story involves only a few hundred developmentally disabled adults living in other states, and leading the paper with it is inappropriate.

Meanwhile, with so many better food-shopping options available in North Jersey, the bankruptcy of A&P means little to anyone who doesn't work at the 25 stores that may close (A-1).

So, why is this story on A-1?

Two corrections

A correction on A-2 today notes The Record, in a story on Sunday's Local front, "misidentified the location of a birthday celebration for 90-year-old veteran Vito Trause."

The story also misidentified one of Trause's longtime friends, Bobby Keane.

On Sunday's L-1, Staff Writer Colleen Diskin, a newsroom veteran, reported the party was at the "local Knights of Columbus Hall," a reference to Washington Township.

But on L-6, Diskin reported "the parade was followed by a party on the back lawn of the American Legion Hall."

The correction says Knights of Columbus Hall is correct, and longtime friend Bobby Keane -- who arranged "a siren-blasting escort" by police and firefighters -- was referred to incorrectly as "Danny Keane."

Just goes to show that even when Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza focus on local news, six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton's lax standards and lack of oversight can really screw things up.

Trump editorial

The story on Vito Trause, a prisoner of war, appeared on the same day the media went bananas over Donald Trump's derogatory comments about another POW, U.S. Sen. John McCain (Sunday's A-1).

Today, an editorial slams Trump's inane comments as an "insult to all POWs" (A-8).

And what about two big factual errors in the 90th birthday story about Vito Trause? Aren't they insulting, too?

Local crash news

If you're looking for local news today, check out the L-1 photo of a two-car accident in Fair Lawn and the photo by Tariq Zehawi, the staffer who has been ordered to chase ambulances for more years than I care to remember.

Zehawi got everything in the photo -- it almost looks posed -- but overworked police reporter Stefanie Dazio couldn't find out any details on the collision involving an Elmwood Park police cruiser.

On L-3 today, the local editors, Sykes and Sforza, show readers that orange is the new black and white -- three color photos of defendants in orange jail jumpsuits against an ocean of back headlines and type.

I see nothing in today's Local section on Monday night's scheduled meeting of the Hackensack City Council.

Greece again

Why are the media so fascinated with Greece?

Two more stories appear on the first Business page today (L-8), one bemoaning the 22 cents extra Greeks now have to pay to get onions on their souvlaki.

New Jersey's economy is just limping along, and Puerto Rico is facing bankruptcy, yet all we see in The Record is an endless stream of stories about Greece.

The Wall Street Journal reported in February that at the end of 2014, "Greeks owed their government about $86 billion in unpaid taxes accrued over decades, but mostly since 2009."

"Billions more in taxes are owed on never-reported revenue from Greece's vast underground economy," the paper reported.

If that holds lessons for New Jersey, where Christie has repeatedly vetoed a tax surcharge on millionaires, The Record has yet to draw any parallels.

And readers don't even know whether the many wealthy Greek restaurant owners in North Jersey, many of whom own homes and other property in their native country, are among those who have traditionally refused to pay taxes there, precipitating the crisis.

Why do the editors think all of us live in nursing homes?

The Record continues to ignore the lack of seats for North Jersey commuters at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan, above, but runs another photo of missing ceiling panels on A-3 today.

Meanwhile, the Woodland Park daily hasn't reported such improvements as the addition of touch-screen terminals to help commuters locate the platforms where they can catch their buses, and the renovation of second-floor restrooms with automated Toto urinals and new tiles.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Nursing home reporter Colleen Diskin is back on the front page of The Record today.

Is this the fate awaiting the baby boomers and seniors who make up the majority of the readership?

What about dementia, Alzheimer's and heart disease -- issues you rarely see explored in the Woodland Park daily, even though its editor is in his late 60s.

To get into The Record, you have to be dying or dead, as suggested by the three local obituaries on L-5 today.

Age spots

A look at the mix of soft and hard news on Page 1 today and Thursday suggests Editor Martin Gottlieb is suffering from a mental infirmity that blinds him to the concerns of a majority of North Jersey seniors.

Gottlieb and his minions, local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, should have assigned a medical reporter to the story of Brian Beutel, a father of five daughters and a lieutenant in the Bergen County Sheriff's Office (A-1).

Beutel, who was only 47, collapsed and died during a fund-raising basketball game, yet today's story is silent on whether he had any medical conditions or problems that contributed to his death.

That's what readers get when an overworked police reporter, Stefanie Dazio, is assigned to the Beutel story.

Photo puzzle

A front-page caption with a photo of Rutger's women's basketball team in a bus doesn't explain the presence of two men, but includes a meaningless over line:

"N.J. Battle on Connecticut Turf"

Hiding heroin

The Record continues to explore where alleged drug dealers and others hide heroin -- to the exclusion of more legitimate local news.

Today, Dazio, the police reporter, says Fair Lawn police "seized 43 bags of heroin found in a woman's underwear" (L-3).

The Record has reported a male suspect hid heroin in his sock, and Cliffview Pilot.com broke the story of a pregnant woman who used her vagina as a stash.

Sykes and Sforza, the supremely lazy local editors in Woodland Park, relied on an unusual amount of police and court news to fill their Local news section today and Thursday.

In fact, Dazio had six other bylines in Local today (L-2 and L-3), in addition to the front-page story on the sheriff's officer.

Have a heart

Readers who are watching their cholesterol and sugar intake won't be able to enjoy three of the four recommendations of Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung today (BL-14).

At the 2-star Delvina in Cresskill, only the Dover Sole, for an outrageous $39, would be suitable for a heart-healthy diet.

Readers know they are in trouble when Ung says nothing about the food in the entire first half of her tepid appraisal. 

Buyers of Tesla Motors' all-electric Model S pay no sales tax in New Jersey, a savings of $5,000 or more, and qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit. Now, staff at this Tesla gallery in Garden State Plaza and at a showroom and service facility on Route 17 north, both in Paramus, can resume selling the zero-emission luxury cars directly to the public.

Second look

On Thursday, The Record reported Governor Christie took a baby step to help the environment by signing legislation to allow the direct sale of zero-emission Tesla automobiles.

New Jersey automobile dealers opposed Tesla's direct sales and last April, the state Motor Vehicle Commission required new-car dealers to have a franchise agreement.

The new law rolls back those regulations.

Dealers representing domestic and foreign automakers in New Jersey feared Tesla's no-pressure showrooms would expose their greedy, high-pressure sales and service practices.

A rare look at seniors who don't crash cars into storefronts

A new crop of potholes has made Prospect Avenue in Hackensack more of an obstacle course than before. This water-filled hole is in front of The Blair House, one of the residential high-rises lining a street that has been in poor condition for years from the pounding of traffic, including ambulances from Hackensack University Medical Center. Officials of the cash-strapped city have asked the non-profit hospital to pave Prospect Avenue in lieu of taxes, but the talks have dragged on.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In photographs and stories, The Record has pounded home the message that seniors are so ditzy they no longer know the difference between the brake pedal and the accelerator, sending their cars into storefronts or other people with often fatal consequences.

Today, however, Staff Writer Colleen Diskin delivers a beautiful and moving story about a group of "strangers, all volunteers," who comfort and console the elderly and their families as death nears (A-1).

There is so much garbage in today's Sunday edition, but this long, well-written story resonates as an example of what Editor Martin Gottlieb can do, if he just stopped exploiting politics and the sensational to sell papers.

What's he smoking?

Even though no actual federal corruption indictment has been made public, Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson is already exploring the potential defense case for Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.

Ignoring the lessons learned in a string of New Jersey political corruption cases dating to the 1970s and 1980s -- they always take years to resolve -- Jackson claims in his first, idiotic paragraph "the government faces several hurdles that could make a quick conviction difficult" (A-1).

One angle Jackson and other political reporters ignore is how criminal defense attorneys who charge outrageously high legal fees manage to squeeze politicians, ensuring that even if they are found not guilty, they end up broke, stripped of every penny prosecutors labeled illegitimate.

If the jury rejects the defense case, the lawyers will keep the conviction and sentence on appeal for a couple of years, and the defendant will remain free.

That's justice?

Traveling music

Political Columnist Charles Stile has become a favorite of Governor Christie, and now he's traveling with the GOP bully (A-1).

Did Christie's visit to all of those hayseeds at the "first-ever Iowa Agricultural Summit ... for Republican presidential hopefuls" really merit coverage by The Record (A-1)?

Republicans call it a summit in reference to the mountain of bullshit Christie and others throw at farmers.

Why didn't today's Page 1 story on President Obama marking the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" point out right away how few Republicans walked across the bridge with our first black president?

Snow job

Staff Writer John Cichowski was so disoriented in his last Road Warrior column readers might not trust anything he says in today's lame effort on "roof snow fines" (A-1).

On Thursday, he reported a large pothole disabled 17 cars on Route 95 in Ridgefield Park, the only media account that described the location as being on the approach to the George Washington Bridge.

He also linked two bridges that are miles apart, the GWB and Triborough, with a single ramp.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers for another perspective on the fabricated column:

The biggest hole is in reporter's head

Hackensack news?

Staff Writer Todd South visited Hackensack again, but couldn't find any municipal or police news, or even write about the city's schools (L-3).

Backing us into a corner

The title of restaurant critic Elisa Ung's Sunday column is The Corner Table, but that doesn't mean she sees restaurants from the customer's point of view (BL-1).

Today, she again focuses her misnamed column on people in the restaurant business. How boring.

The caption under the photos of siblings Jenna and Joseph Cuccia says they are "at work preparing a meal at their catering business in Lodi," but Jenna appears to be only lighting a candle. 

Burying the lede

What ever impact Mike Kelly intends for his column on Christie settling for a fraction of the $8.9 billion in damages from Exxon Mobil is lost in the endless background that suffocates any reader who gets past the lame headline (O-1).

This story broke just three days ago, and has been everywhere. 

The editors must value the long-winded Kelly only for his ability to fill space, because in column after column his copy goes on and on and on, and is the dullest stuff around.

And when are Gottlieb and Production Editor Liz Houlton going to replace Kelly's shit-eating grin with a contemporary thumbnail photo?

Inside the world of The Record's DEADBEAT EDITORS

On a typical weekday morning, traffic on Route 3 east toward the Lincoln Tunnel grinds to a halt more than 2 miles from the tollbooths and then proceeds bumper to bumper, a delay of about 45 minutes.

In the afternoon, New Jersey drivers join the long lines of cars on Canal Street in Manhattan to enter the Holland Tunnel, a quarter of a mile away. The lack of mass-transit alternatives to and from New Jersey is especially dramatic during the rush hour.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Except for Page 1 teases, readers of The Record today get only three elements, Gaza, sports and a takeout on "deadbeat dads" -- a less-than-compelling issue in dysfunctional New Jersey.

Staff Writer Colleen Diskin apparently worked on the child-support story for a long time, judging by how few bylines she has had recently, but is that any reason to put the story on the front page?

And what is the point, that taxpayers pay more to jail the "deadbeat" men and women than the child support they finally cough up?

Editor Marty Gottlieb could run a Page 1 takeout every day on the property taxes wasted on services duplicated in every one of Bergen County's 70 towns.

He could run a front-page takeout every day on the broken mass-transit system, increasing traffic congestion and declining enforcement of speeding and aggressive driving.

Gottlieb could, in fact, assign reporters to issues of far greater general interest than "deadbeat dads," if he hadn't, in fact, become one of The Record's "deadbeat editors."

The list is long: Deirdre Sykes, Dan Sforza, Tim Nostrand, etc., etc.

More screw-ups

In big, black type, a headline on Saturday's Local front "gave the wrong location for a fatal car accident that happened Thursday," according to a correction on A-2 today.

A copy editor wrote "Fort Lee" instead of "Ridgefield," which is slightly longer and probably didn't fit in the headline. 

Anyone who has driven on the West Side Highway in Manhattan -- where many drivers exceed the speed limit by 10 mph, 20 mph and more -- knows a Bergen County police officer quoted in Road Warrior John Cichowski's July 18 column is wrong.

In New York City, speeding cameras are used only on local streets in school zones, as Cichowski reported in the same column.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior errors are captured by fact camera

Local news

On the Local front today, an obituary for Celestine Hoffman, the granddaughter of a professional baseball player, seems an odd choice for "A LIFE."

The major element on young people who die of drug overdoses probably is a better candidate for Page 1 than "deadbeat dads" (L-1).

But "opioid" isn't a headline word, and I can't imagine what Production Editor Liz Houlton was thinking when she approved it.

Big-cheese news

Why is the Business section running a glowing profile of multimillionaire William Procida, "who helped revitalize the South Bronx in the 1980s" (B-1)?

Procida's company is based in Englewood Cliffs, but he lives in Piermont, N.Y., and one of his major loans may go to renovate a hotel in Philadelphia.

No-cheese news

The Better Living cover on hard times at food pantries clashes with the excess usually celebrated in the section, including the best dishes food critic Elisa Ung ate this month (BL-1 and BL-4).

In Ung's 4-star review of Cafe Matisse on Friday, I didn't see any mention of salads or vegetables, but she raved about the artery clogging desserts.

You'll have to call the restaurant to find out whether price-fixed dinners for $68, $88 and $108 include dessert, and whether you can substitute another dish, because she is silent on that, as well as whether the meat she sampled is naturally raised.

Healthy eating isn't a priority of the Better Living editors, as readers can see from the Saturday feature on homemade ice cream from freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson, who, if she actually eats all the stuff she writes about, must be as big as a house.

Jackson obviously isn't thinking of all of the diabetics in her audience or the many readers watching their weight or cholesterol.

Downtowns

The Real Estate front on empty-nesters moving downtown includes more information about Englewood's and Hackensack's business districts than has appeared in the paper in the last five years (B-1).

Hackensack news?

Since a flurry of news stories and a column in late June and early July on the removal of Hackensack Economic Development Director Anthony Rottino, who also was acting city manager, residents haven't seen much about their city.

Staff Writer Christopher Maag, who was assigned to replace Hannan Adely, seems to be writing about everything except Hackensack.

Second look

I am just catching up on papers I missed while I was on vacation, and a story on Price Rite caught my eye (L-7 and L-8 on July 1).

The editors continue to struggle with delivering photo captions that are coherent and don't duplicate what readers can see in the photo.

On the continuation page, a photo caption says, "Serge Rodriguez sorting out produce at the Price Rite in Garfield on Monday ahead of the store's 8 a.m opening today."

I do a lot of food shopping. But what is "sorting out produce"?

The Record's telephone reporting cheats readers

On Wednesday morning, I saw freshly patched potholes on Prospect Avenue in Hackensack, near the Camelot high-rise, but Euclid and Prospect avenues, above, looked like this on Wednesday afternoon and today.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

A front-page headline in The Record today declares, "It's too soon to assess health law."

But Staff Writer Colleen Diskin, one of the least productive veterans in the Woodland Park newsroom, apparently did her news gathering with a telephone and a computer.

Diskin and her assignment editor saw no need for the reporter to leave the building and interview North Jersey residents in search of answers to all of the questions the story raises  (A-1 and A-8).

"Time will tell if it lowers

costs, adds subscribers"

That's the awkward sub-headline on the story, which cites "a paucity of data on a number of key questions."

Gee. What about going to a mall, and interviewing people who signed up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and seeking answers to those "key questions"?

That's Reporting 101. This tortured story cheats readers.

To complicate things, the story is labeled an "ANALYSIS," and filled with talking heads -- so-called experts and others who caution against drawing quick conclusions. 

One source's title consumes three lines on the continuation page.

Money talks

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed that money talks, freeing wealthy donors to give to as many political candidates and campaigns as they want (A-1).

An editorial appears to be displeased with the high court declaring that campaign contributions are a form of "free speech" (A-18).

But The Record covered Governor Christie's last campaign against Democrat Barbara Buono based almost totally on how much money each candidate raised.

The editors anointed Christie, who had a huge lead in fund-raising, as the winner months before the November election.

Sloppy reporting

In many cases, Buono's campaign appearances were buried inside the paper, while Christie hogged Page 1 time and again.

Somehow, the Christie-loving editors, columnists and reporters never discovered just how desperate the GOP bully was, judging from this year's allegations of political retribution against Democrats who refused to endorse him for a second term.

For example, another Page 1 story today reports state employees sought Christie campaign endorsements from the same public officials they worked with in their taxpayer-funded jobs (A-1).

The Tesla Model S, an all-electric, four-door luxury sedan. The company is fighting a proposed ban on direct sales in New Jersey.

Law & Order

For the third or fourth day in a row, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza relies heavily on police, fire and court news to flesh out another thin local report (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

Instead of running a photo of a traffic jam caused by the lack of mass transit, Sforza runs a photo of a fuel spill in Fair Lawn that tied up traffic in several towns, thanks to our antiquated road system (L-2).

In Tuesday's Road Warrior column on L-1, Staff Writer John Cichowski made major errors in reprising parts of an interim state report on the benefits of red-light cameras.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

DOT makes a fool of the Road Warrior

Cheap reporting

The lamest form of business reporting is the anniversary story.

Today, Staff Writer Joan Verdon profiles Tony Conza, who copied an Italian hero sandwich and helped start the Blimpie fast-food chain 50 years ago (L-7).

Why waste the space? It's not as if Blimpie's low-quality, preservative-filled cold cuts broke any new nutritional ground.

In other business news, California-based Tesla is appealing the state Motor Vehicle Commission's decision to bar direct sale of the all-electric Model S after April 15 (L-8).

Tesla has showrooms in Paramus and Short Hills.

Dull and uninteresting -- even on Page 1

A group of clouds -- real and reflected -- almost makes you think The Modern, a 47-story residential tower in Fort Lee, is transparent. The building is the first of two.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

When the editor of a general interest newspaper gets desperate, he runs front-page headlines like the one leading The Record today:

All eyes on N.J.'s online wager

Of course, Governor Christie and state treasury officials are the only ones who care whether this gamble succeeds in boosting tax revenues after making such a mess of state finances (A-1).

And the other eyes on online casino gambling are the bloodshot ones of gambling addicts and assorted perverts.

Toll weary

State lawmakers are so frustrated over Christie packing the Port Authority with his cronies and rubber stamping big toll hikes they continue to blast the agency over the closure of a few toll lanes way back in September (A-1).

The lead paragraph of today's story claims eastbound drivers "were stuck in nightmarish gridlock" at the George Washington Bridge -- when, in fact, only two of three lanes leading from Fort Lee to the upper level toll plaza were closed, and the vast majority of drivers were unaffected.

This is the kind of coverage you get from Editor Marty Gottlieb, who ignores the daily commuting nightmare experienced by all drivers and mass-transit users.

The story identifies the official responsible for closing the lanes as David Wildstein, a former political consultant who got his job at the Port Authority from Christie (A-1 and A-7).

He is also identified as "Christie's No. 2 at the agency," but he isn't quoted and his name appears only one time in the long story.

Reunion in Sin City

On the front of Local today, what are the majority of readers to make of the big splash given to former Beatle Ringo Starr's long-delayed meeting with five Fair Lawn residents in Las Vegas (L-1).

OK. The drummer photographed the fans in 1964 from a passing car. Who the F cares whether they ever met?

Hackensack news?

I didn't see coverage of Monday night's Hackensack City Council meeting or a story about a part-time job going to another insider.

William Russiello has been hired as a "property management inspector" at $15 an hour, according to the Hackensack Scoop blog, which questions why an attorney would take such a "menial" job.

A link to Hackensack Scoop appears on the homepage of Eye on The Record.

Despite the ascendancy of the Citizens for Change slate on July 1, residents are still waiting for the City Council to run Hackensack more efficiently, reduce spending and slow the increase of property taxes. 

Monday's paper

If you think today's front page is dull and uninteresting for local readers, Monday's was equally uninspiring, especially with a Page 1 column from the paper's only female sports reporter, Vagina Monologue Tara Sullivan.

News about seniors was front and center on Monday, but it was another account of a 77-year-old who "falls between the cracks of different government programs" (A-1).

Staff Writer Colleen Diskin specializes in these hard-luck stories, but she apparently doesn't think her seniors beat includes the vast majority of older readers, who are well-off and balancing their active lifestyle with the realities of aging.

Second look

Sunday's Road Warrior column was full of his usual errors, including his claim Pulaski Skyway repairs are being paid for with toll money, when, in fact, the money is part of the funding for the Hudson River rail tunnels Christie cancelled.

A concerned reader also notes Staff Writer John Cichowski never tells readers what they want to know most -- when road and bridge construction projects are scheduled to be completed.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Transportation 'expert' drives tow truck