New year should bring new columnists

When it isn't bogged down in traffic, the New Jersey Turnpike is a playpen for high-speed tailgaters who cut in and out of traffic and terrorize other drivers.

Eye on The Record and tens of thousands of readers are hoping that in 2013 Editor Marty Gottlieb finds fresh voices for The Record's news columns, now written by Staff Writers Mike Kelly and John Cichowski (A-1 and L-1 today).

And while he is at it, why doesn't he give one of the women in the newsroom a news column?

Kelly was on leave recovering from heart surgery when Superstorm Sandy hit on Oct. 29 and when 20 first graders and six adults were murdered in Newtown, Conn., 17 days ago.

Made-up mystery

So, what was the point of his Dec. 25 column last week on the "mystery" surrounding the identity of an elderly woman rescued from flood waters in Little Ferry?

Even his reporting in that Page 1 column was flawed.

He wrote she was rescued from "knee-high" water, but the Oct. 31 photo reproduced on A-1 clearly shows a lower level of water.  

And what can he possibly add today on the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut? 

Kelly, whose started his column more than 20 years ago, has written persuasively about the need to control guns. Why didn't he do so again today?

Text, photos clash

And the editors continue to fail in coordinating the photos used with the text of news stories or columns, as the discrepancy in the water level in Kelly's Dec. 25 piece demonstrates.

On today's front page, Kelly laments about "teddy bears at the makeshift memorial" in Newtown "buried up to their noses in slushy snow," but the photo just above the text shows nothing of the kind (A-1).

Yank his license

Cichowski, also known as the "Road Warrior," long ago gave up doing the legwork of a good reporter, who spends most of his or her time out of the office on the beat.

In the more than 9 years he's written the Road Warrior column, he has totally perverted its mission to report on the commuting problems of drivers and mass-transit users.

In recent years, he sees everything through the unreliable eyes of readers, none of whom are trained observers, who send him countless e-mails complaining of this injustice or that confusing driving regulation.

Get a lawyer, Dave

Today, his column is based on a complaint from "Dave," the father of a 20-year-old driver who got a ticket for failing to keep right on the New Jersey Turnpike.

The woman didn't move over for a cruiser driven by a state trooper, "who stayed less than a dozen feet from her bumper." 

Can anyone believe the explanation from "Dave" for why the woman didn't change lanes or anything else from a man who claims "entrapment," even though the trooper drove behind her for 3 miles? 

Sounds like she deserved a ticket. Get a lawyer, Dave.

'Highway terrorist'

Still, the column is supposed to be about "a tailgater," whom Cichowski rightly calls a "highway terrorist" in the very first paragraph.

Is a state trooper a "highway terrorist"? 

Of course, Cichowski could have compared tickets given to taligaters this year and in years past, and written a compelling argument for more enforcement. 

But that would be too much work. He might actually have to leave the office, get on the turnpike and observe tailgaters. That's legwork, which Cichowski abhors. 

Laugh track

And for the new year, Gottlieb should demote Bill Ervolino from humor columnist to food writer. 

He excels at food writing and is a flop as a humorist, as his piece on today's Better Living front clearly shows (BL-1).   

A minority gets the shaft -- again

Image via Wikipedia

Snow falling off the roof of Cowboys Stadium is front-page news today.

The Record of Woodland Park gushes today with sports-related coverage -- two stories on the front page, including the lead, and two more stories on the front of the Local news section.

But Editors Francis Scandale and Deirdre Sykes bury a story that speaks volumes about Bergen County's past and present -- the sad tale of a greedy developer who wants to tear down an historic Paramus house with ties to freed slaves (L-3).

No one should be surprised that coverage of the Mets' owners, the Super Bowl or sports injuries trumps coverage of North Jersey history and its African-American community. Just look at how unwelcome minorities have been in a newsroom ruled by Scandale and Sykes.

This is the second time recently that an interesting story by Staff Writer Stephanie Akin has been relegated to L-3, the usual repository of accident photos and other filler. Her report on conflicts between residents and outsiders at the Fair Lawn senior center also ended up there.

Today, her story about the firing of a Fair Lawn animal control worker over the release of a cobra photo leads the section. I don't call that sound news judgment. Akin is a hard worker and deserves better.

Local has a large news hole today, but no municipal news from Hackensack, Teaneck, Enlgewood or other important communities.

Also in the Local section, a story on L-2 today is credited to Daniel "Dan" Sforza, who was the deputy assignment editor and second-in-command to Sykes, the head assignment editor. This is the second time I have seen a story credited to him, but assignment editors don't usually do much of anything, let alone reporting and writing.

In the A-section, Scandale and Sykes don't bother correcting any of the errors in Friday's large census package on A-1 and A-6.

An editorial on A-11 today applauds "a good flush," the clean-out of the patronage mill known as the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commissioners.

It just goes to show you how intimately familiar Scandale, Sykes, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin and some of the columnists are with the stuff of bowel movements -- much of which adorns the pages of the former Hackensack daily today and every day.

Missing from The Record

The Record's old headquarters in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Have you noticed that movie reviews in the Friday Better Living entertainment tabloid are now being supplied by the Star-Ledger, replacing Roger Ebert?

Is this temporary or permanent, and was money a factor? Don't expect an explanation from the editors at The Record of Woodland Park.


For example, there has been nothing on why the lazy, incompetent editors dropped feature columns written by two of the most experienced women on the news staff, Virginia Rohan and Colleen Diskin. 

I don't remember the last time I saw Rohan's Boomers on Board or Diskin's Mother Load. 

I clicked on their names under columnists at northjersey.com and came up with blank spaces.


Readers were never told why Editor Frank Scandale cut news columns by three experienced staffers: 

Miguel Perez, his only Hispanic columnist; Elaine D'Aurizio, who wrote about heroic police officers, firefighters and other first responders; and Lawrence Aaron, his only black columnist, whose job was eliminated.


So readers must make do with Columnists Michael Kelly and John Cichowski, who have been off their game for years.

Bill Ervolino clams up

Image via Wikipedia

Now, it appears unfunny humor columnist Bill Ervolino has removed all of his explanations and indulgent self-analysis from his North Jersey Media Group blog after he posted a picture of the White House dog Monday and asked readers who they wanted to see naked, Barack, Michelle, 12-year-old Malia Obama or Bo?

Ervolino took down the photo and readers' comments first, but downplayed his pandering to pedophiles. Then he posted a long explanation and detailed his health problems, all of which fell far short of an apology. Now, all of that is gone from the blog.

We have yet to hear anything from the Borg family, Editor Frank Scandale or Features Editor Barbara Jaeger. It's clear Ervolino needs a rest and since he ceased being funny ages ago, readers won't miss him at all.

These columnists should take a hike

Image by CanadaGood via Flickr

Am I the only one thoroughly bored with columnists John Cichowski, Mike Kelly and Bill Ervolino, whose "work" appears in The Record of Woodland Park today? Isn't it time for some fresh points of view?

Cichowski has been the paper's so-called Road Warrior for about six years, but it seems Kelly and Ervolino have been just taking up valuable newsprint space much longer than that. While they continue to try the patience of us all, keep in mind the lazy, incompetent editors at the former Hackensack daily got rid of their only black and Hispanic columnists, Lawrence Aaron and Miguel Perez.

Today, on the Local front, the Road Warrior continues to focus on narrow issues, taking to task the "selfish" drivers who use a shortcut through a quiet neighborhood in Upper Saddle River. If he's going to write about shortcuts, it would have been far more useful to far more people if he had provided one during the Route 80 east construction that caused delays of up to one hour. In general, though, he has ignored his core mission -- to write about commuting and mass transit. He should be ashamed of how he's ignored the pathetic local bus service in North Jersey. Where is his editor?

The headline over Mike Kelly's column today on the Opinion front is "Good idea gone awry," when it's clear he went awry years ago. His writing is full of cliches and hackneyed phrases, such as "mother of all jokes." Give me a break. Where is the man's editor, who allows this drivel in the paper?

"The developers did not deliver" and "misguided trust of private developers" is all the thunder he can muster for his tale about the incomplete Hudson River walkway, when he should have blasted greedy developers and the wealthy and selfish condo owners who have subverted the state's plan and are denying this magnificent stretch of riverfront to the public. There have been hundreds of instances in North Jersey where developers built roads, expanded intersections and spent huge sums to improve infrastructure around commercial developments. Yet this walkway is a disgrace.

Why is his language always so tame? Doesn't he realize that readers want their columnists to go out on a limb and express strong opinions? Well, you won't get them from sheepish Kelly. Some of the blame has to be laid on Assistant Assignment Editor Richard Whitby, onetime reader of Kelly's column before Whitby sent it over to the news copy desk, where me and the other copy editors avoided it like the plague. Whitby made a great show of pounding on his computer keyboard and loved to leer at the breasts of  the attractive female reporters who sat next to him as he edited their stories, but didn't do anything to improve Kelly's pablum.

The third disappointment is Bill Ervolino's column in Better Living. Bill is a nice guy, but who isn't sick of this man's feeble attempts at comedy and satire? God bless his family and friends and the readers who have tolerated him for so long. And maybe it's time Better Living editor Barbara Jaeger take a critical look at his nonsense.

Today's "local" news coverage is from Bridgewater, Somerville, Morristown, Pequannock and other places far from the heart of Bergen County as the paper is silent for another day on education, development and quality of life in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood, its core towns. Does anybody have any idea why a block of Anderson Street at Main Street in Hackensack has been closed for two months or more as heavy equipment and huge drills tear up the surface?

Did you get a good laugh out of the lame illustration on the Local front for a story on several towns sharing employees? The people shown look like models -- young models. If they are supposed to faithfully represent the demographic of employees in Westwood, Oradell and other towns, plaintiffs' employment lawyers should take note.

Talking about lawyers, inside the Local section, there is yet another story about a big out-of-court settlement, with no mention of  the attorney's share. Indeed, even the courthouse reporters, Kibret Markos and John Petrick, have stubbornly resisted news copy desk suggestions over the years that legal fees are an essential part of any story reporting multimillion settlements or jury awards. Court rules allow lawyers to take up to a third of  plaintiffs' money.