Departing editor didn't ease crisis at our local daily paper

Editor Martin Gottlieb of The Record in the Woodland Park newsroom. Reporter Lindy Washburn, the paper's chief medical writer, is at left in this photo by Staff  Photographer Carmine Galasso.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today's news story on the retirement of Editor Martin Gottlieb of The Record comes at a time of crisis -- a troubled period at the Woodland Park daily the veteran journalist did little to ease.

The Record's local news content, and the quality of editing and reporting, have declined dramatically since Publisher Stephen A. Borg ordered a major downsizing in 2008, and moved North Jersey Media Group and its flagship paper out of Hackensack in 2009.

Gottlieb, who took over the newsroom in January 2012, inherited several lazy, incompetent editors, but never cleaned house.

They include Deirdre Sykes, head of the local assignment desk; Assistant Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, Projects Editor Tim Nostrand; and Production Editor Liz Houlton, who has missed hundreds of errors, typos and bad headlines.

Gottlieb also did nothing to curb several veteran columnists, including Charles Stile, Mike Kelly, John Cichowski and Bill Ervolino, printing everything they wrote, no matter how pathetic.

Local news?

Today's Local front story on Gottlieb lists as his main accomplishments:

"Leadership of The Record's coverage of the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal," and becoming "a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in local reporting for a series examining the spread of heroin in the suburbs" (L-1 and L-6).

But his hands-on editing resulted in stories, especially those on Page 1, becoming longer and less accessible to readers.

And the front page showed a far greater emphasis on national and international news.

All of that came at the expense of covering municipal news in Bergen County, especially in Hackensack, where the Borg publishing family prospered for more than 110 years. 

Today, for example, Staff Writer Todd South is reporting on a Nov. 24 incident for the first time:

Hackensack Board of Education Attorney Richard Salkin has been charged with harassment for allegedly threatening Health Department Registrar Maria Tartaglione (L-1).

'Drop dead'

Salkin was applying for a license to marry former City Clerk Debra Heck, but was told by the registrar "she could not provide the certificate because errors had been crossed out in the license form he provided and corrected in pen," South says.

"You're a piece of shit, drop dead," Salkin allegedly shouted, Tartaglione complained, according to The Bergen Dispatch, which reported the incident on its Web site on Nov. 30. "Do you want me to bury you?"

South, with the approval of his editors, has managed to avoid reporting on the city's Board of Education; the school budget, which this year exceeds the city's own; or anything else to do with the schools.

The board approved a new contract with the Hackensack teachers union on Nov. 12, but that wasn't reported until Friday, when the Hackensack Chronicle carried the nearly month-old news.

Another screw-up

Today's local-news section again shows Sykes' and Sforza's desperation to fill space, with long wire-service obituaries on an obscure Native American activist and an even more obscure crossword puzzle champ (L-6).

Page A-2 carries Houlton's correction of a Road Warrior column last Sunday, in which Cichowski tried to drum up business for a volunteer ride service for seniors.

Unfortunately, the addled, error-prone reporter published the wrong telephone number, and none of the editors who looked at his story actually dialed the number to see if it was correct.

1971 to 2016

Gottlieb, 67, began his journalism career in 1971 as a municipal reporter covering Bergen County towns for The Record.

Then, he worked as a reporter or editor at the Daily News, The New York Times and the Village Voice before returning to the Daily News and The Times, the latter in 1995, working there until he was named editor of The Record in January 2012.

Today's story says he will leave The Record in January, four years after he arrived, basically his way of cruising into retirement.

His departure from The Times, where he was global editions editor from 2008 to 2011, has never been explained.

Local schools, government? Readers come up short again

SIGN CONFUSION: At this Hackensack intersection, where a Wawa is under construction, the sign says South River Street, but another sign near the traffic signal, below, calls it "South River Road."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Should a local daily newspaper like The Record lead the paper with "chaos" among do-nothing Republicans in Congress?

Or a long column on a protest in front of the White House over lax gun-control laws, even though it involves an Oakland rabbi whose father was shot to death way back in 1999?

Is there anything else to read on Page 1 today?

Editor Martin Gottlieb, who thinks he still works at The New York Times, runs an inconsequential story about a man who feeds homeless cats in the Meadowlands, and an even sillier piece on Mets fans using social media (A-1).

Couldn't Gottlieb find anyone who feeds homeless humans?

This is an irresponsible waste of space on the page that should be reserved for the most important local or regional news of the day.

Local news?

But The Record, it seems, has given up covering most of the local governments and school systems in its circulation area, relying instead on sensational crime and court news to fill its Local section, as it does today (L-1, L-3, L-5 and L-6).

And that's the case despite the impact those schools and governments in nearly 90 towns have on the property taxes that seem to go up with little if no improvement in services to residents and businesses.

Tenafly police

An editorial today praises a three-year contract for Tenafly police, who will get no raises and have to wait longer to reach the highest salary tier (A-22).

"This ruling is ultimately positive for the region at large and is exactly what needs to happen in other municipalities, if there is hope of reining in property taxes," the editorial trumpets.

But in the news story on the arbitration ruling in Thursday's Local section, Tenafly officials couldn't say how much the police contract will save the borough, and there was not a single word on how any savings would affect property taxes.

The editorial also ignores all of the tax appeals that have forced some towns, such as Hackensack, to issue bonds to pay property owners who have filed successful challenges to their assessments and bills.

So, even if a town saves money by denying raises to police officers or other municipal workers, those savings could be wiped out by other factors in home-rule communities, which aren't known for efficiency, let alone competent managers.

Worth the detour?

Staff Writer Elisa Ung continues to explore the outer fringes of the circulation area in her restaurant reviews.

Today, she reports on Yuki, an expensive Japanese restaurant in an Oakland strip mall -- more than 18 miles from Hackensack -- and it doesn't even have a Japanese sushi chef or owner (BL-16).

With authentic Japanese-owned restaurants in Fort Lee and Edgewater, why would any reader in central Bergen County want to drive so far to experience the discourteous customer service Ung complains about?

She was so upset, she suggested "takeout may be the way to go." Yet, she rates the place Good to Excellent (2.5 stars).

Go figure.

Errors mount, production editor laughs all the way to bank

Four pieces of Hackensack fire equipment responded to an audible alarm from a house on Euclid Avenue on Sunday afternoon, above and below, but no fire or smoke was visible.

Even though temperatures were approaching 90 degrees, this firefighter at State Street headquarters shows protective suits haven't advanced very much.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Editing, fact-checking and proofreading -- three crucial steps in the production of The Record -- have become so lax readers can expect to find at least one major error in the paper every day.

And despite those errors, Liz Houlton, the production editor, continues to bank a six-figure salary every year.

Today, an editorial on the increasing odds of winning a Poweball jackpot notes the lottery hasn't been run by the state since Governor Christie "retained" Northstar New Jersey, a private firm (A-9).

"Northstar's involvement is an issue itself," the unnamed editorial writer states.... "Democrats criticized the move at the time, and with Northstar not meeting revenue projections, their happiness has increased [italics added]."

Of course, "happiness" certainly isn't the word the writer was looking for. 

"Their unhappiness [italics added]" is what increased, but everyone from Houlton on down completely missed the latest major error.

Houlton earned the title of "Queen of Errors" when she ran the features copy desk in the old Hackensack newsroom, allowing hundreds of mistakes to get past her cursor, especially in the Food section.

Her promotion to production editor and the hefty raise that went with it wasn't based on merit.

The accuracy of The Record has declined dramatically on her watch, but Publisher Stephen A. Borg seems not to notice or care.

In an email, the Eye on The Record reader who pointed out the error in today's only editorial commented:

Check out the huge stupid faux pas ... in Monday's editorial about "Lottery Dreams," in the first paragraph of the second column.

"It should have read "unhappiness" instead of "happiness." 

Either The Record editors are totally clueless to the real meaning of "happiness" or this has the connotations of  '1984'  where too many words have the opposite meaning.

Today's paper

Do Page 1 columns today and Sunday on Christie's presidential campaign mean Editor Martin Gottlieb has given up on reporting what a poor job the GOP bully is in doing in New Jersey (A-1)?

Today's A-1 headline, "Greeks and lenders talk past deadline," exposes the Woodland Park daily's pathetically early deadlines, as TV and radio were reporting that a deal had been made.

Why even put the incomplete story on the front page? 

Does Gottlieb really think readers were on the edge of their seats over the outcome of negotiations in Europe?

In fact, what many readers are wondering is how wealthy Greek restaurant owners in North Jersey can get away with charging $40 to $50 per pound for whole fish?

What are the editors waiting for? Let's impeach Christie

From Hackensack to Trenton to Washington, D.C., The Record's editors, columnists and reporters are addicted to writing almost everything in terms of partisan politics.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Could Editor Martin Gottlieb of The Record actually be as boring as the front pages he assembles for North Jersey readers?

This Sunday edition brings the usual tedious mixing and balancing of local, state, national and international news -- much like what Gottlieb's former paper, The New York Times, does every day.

Today, the big photo on Page 1 is from Srebrenica, which I'm almost sure isn't one of the 86 towns in Bergen and Passaic counties (A-1).

The lead story is about improved on-time performance at Newark Liberty International Airport -- of little interest to readers who might take a flight once or twice a year (A-1).

The "local" story is about a deaf athlete at Hackensack High School who is too old to play football and baseball in his senior year (A-1).

Impeach Christie

To add insult to injury, the obligatory political column on Governor Christie's presidential campaign doesn't even explore the possibility of his being impeached in New Jersey (A-1).

Nor does an Opinion column on Christie by Brigid Harrison, a political science and law professor at Montclair State (O-1).

Harrison may be a good professor, but I'll bet her five books on American politics will put you to sleep faster than The Record's front page today.

Good cop, bad cop

And because she apparently gets no editing, her column today is perplexing:

First, she says a bill by Democratic leaders in the state Legislature -- to require Christie to resign from office because he is running for president -- "sounds like a good idea" (O-2).

Then, she notes the state has "suffered" as Christie panders to conservative Republicans, and has been pushed to "the brink of a fiscal cliff."

"The governor has maintained he is always available by cellphone [!!!] to deal with state issues," Harrison says with a straight face. "Yet 71 percent [of New Jerseyans] think Christie can't effectively govern the state and run for president."

After that buildup, Harrison calls the Democratic bill a "joke," denounces it as a political stunt and declares it is legally flawed.

In Constitution

But she never mentions that according to the New Jersey Constitution, the state Assembly can bring impeachment charges against Christie, who would be tried in the Senate's "court."

Assemblyman John Wisniewski, D-Middlesex, brought up the possibility of impeachment in January 2014, if investigators found a direct link between Christie and the George Washington Bridge lane closures.

That link still may come at the federal trial of Bridget Anne Kelly, the close aide Christie fired after her email to the Port Authority -- "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" -- emerged.

More errors

The ugly head of the Queen of Errors rears up at least twice today:

On Page 1, six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton should have insisted on affiliations under a double byline on the story discussing a new novel by Harper Lee (A-1).

And in the TV Times tab, the cover story is on Page 5, not on the indicated Page 3.

Better Living

Elisa Ung, the paper's chief restaurant critic, isn't about to tackle two major issues that impact the bottom line of wealthy owners -- the broken tipping system, and menus that don't list whether the meat and poultry served are raised naturally (BL-1).

Today, her column, The Corner Table, asks if people who go out to dinner "want TV in the background."

Which raises a natural question: How do we turn her off?

Travelers' photos

The Record continues to run a full page of photos readers take on vacation, as long as they are shown holding up a copy of the Travel section (T-2).

Putting aside how that cuts down on consumer-oriented travel news, how long are we going to be treated to the spectacle of overweight readers going on all-you-can-eat cruises?

In GWB case, editors' knowledge of legal system is a joke

The YMCA at Main and Passaic streets in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Despite the hundreds of hours his ass has been planted on a courtroom bench, Columnist Mike Kelly of The Record is no expert on federal criminal prosecutions.

In fact, only one of the three bylines on today's continuing front-page coverage of the George Washington Bridge lane-closure indictments carries with it any credibility (A-1).

Staff Writer Peter J. Sampson, who is assigned to cover the U.S. Attorney's Office and the U.S. Courthouse in Newark, is a former wire-service reporter who likely has covered hundreds of federal indictments and trails.

Still, today's banner headline isn't news to anyone familiar with federal prosecutions:

"Defense team may call Christie"

That was clear four long days ago, when Christie ally David Wildstein pleaded guilty to conspiring with the governor's aide and another Port Authority executive to close bridge access lanes in 2013 as part of a political vendetta against Fort Lee's Democratic mayor.

Defense lawyers for Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni would be fools not to call Christie, himself a former U.S. attorney, who continues to insist he had no knowledge of the scheme.

Otherwise, Kelly and Baroni, along with Wildstein, would have to take the fall for a fraud scheme that was the nastiest political dirty trick since Watergate.

'Oh, shit' moment

I am sure that Christie said "Oh, shit" to himself and called his high-priced lawyer on Friday as soon as he heard Wildstein repeat his January 2014 statement that "evidence exists" the GOP bully knew of the lane closings as they were happening.

Instead of pursuing the potential of a sitting governor and GOP presidential candidate being called as a witness at a Bridgegate fraud trial, Editor Martin Gottlieb jumped immediately to the governor's defense.

That was clear from Monday's idiotic banner headline:

"Sharp contrasts in GWB probe"

Gottlieb actually compared the federal criminal charges filed against the Bridgegate defendants after a 16-month investigation to a March 2014 report that exonerated Christie at a cost to the taxpayers of $7.5 million.

That report -- from lawyer Randy Mastro -- was never even credible in the court of public opinion, but Christie could count on a clueless media to waste precious front page space and treat it as if were evidence.

'Fading' hopes

In one of the most negative Christie editorials I've seen, The Record notes the governor will be out of state again today and asks:

"When is Christie going to consistently show up at his day job, the one some people were so focused on his retaining in 2013 that they allegedly broke the law" (A-8)?

The edtorial also refers to the Mastro report as "a multimillion-dollar whitewash on the GWB scandal," making you wonder why it was regurgitated at such great length on Monday's Page 1.

Playing media

Christie continues to manage Gottlieb and other editors in the wake of the federal charges, just as the GOP  bully has since he took office in early 2010 and started waging war against the middle class.

NJ.com reports the governor has cancelled the weekly New Jersey town hall meetings he said he was going to attend.

And WNYC-FM, a New Jersey Public Radio station, puts Bridgegate legal costs to taxpayers and toll payers at nearly $10.7 million, if state, legislative, Port Authority and Fort Lee expenses are included.

Finally, a new Bridgegate poll released today found more than two in three New Jerseyans (69%) feel Christie has not been completely honest about what he knew.

And a majority of Garden State Republicans (52%) now believe he hasn't been completely honest.

More errors

On Sunday, The Record reported incorrectly that Pompton Lakes had already adopted its school budget (A-2).

A bigger error occurred in Brigid Harrison's Sunday opinion column, which referred to Richard Nixon as a former governor (Sunday's O-2).

An Eye on The Record reader noted Nixon ran for governor of California in 1962 and lost.

On Christie's lack of concern in reacting to the GWB charges, the political science and law professor said:

"The connection to the [Christie] administration is problematical for a presidential contender because it demonstrates either corruption and lying or an inability to manage staff -- not what voters are looking for in a president."

Why wasn't Harrison's column played on Page 1 -- instead of an endless stream of drivel from Charles Stile, Mike Kelly and other burned-out reporters?

McDonald's

An upbeat Business page story on McDonald's slumping sales reports the company "intends to stop buying chicken treated with antibiotics" (L-8).

The clueless Washington Port reporter says nothing about the low-quality, additive-filled beef on which McDonald's made its reputation.

Anyone foolish enough to eat at McDonald's would be happy with a guarantee the hamburgers don't contain cow feces.

If you do nothing else today, please get out and vote

Hackensack attorney Roy Cho is seeking the seat in the House of Representatives from the 5th Congressional District, which includes Bergen County. Your other choice is Tea Party Republican Scott Garrett, who has done little more than wage war on the middle class and raise campaign funds to keep himself in office for six terms. Polls are open until 8 p.m.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's editors, who slanted most of their election coverage toward candidates who raised the most special-interest money, show once again they don't care if you vote for U.S. senator, congressman and a host of municipal and school-board offices today.

A single paragraph on Page 1 today notes "New Jersey voters "can head to the polls today."

But if you ever get to the Editorial Page, the editors note, "Today is Election Day, the time for citizens to exercise one of the most cherished rites in a democracy" (A-10).

Shouldn't that statement be published on every front page for weeks before an election to make inroads on the immense amount of voter apathy, much of it generated by the paper's lackadaisical coverage?

News for the young

Nearly all of Editor Martin Gottlieb's front page is devoted to the young, even though the vast majority of his readers are well-off baby boomers:

Today, you'll find more drivel on high school sports, teen drivers and community college students who study abroad (A-1). Boring!

Today's lead front-page story doesn't mention plaintiffs' lawyers will be the biggest winners in a $1 billion settlement of lawsuits against a Mahwah-based manufacturer of allegedly defective hip implants (A-1).

Fully one-third of the $1 billion -- about $333 million -- will be going to the attorneys to pay their legal fees and expenses for expert witnesses.

Another screw-up

On A-2, an embarrassing correction notes some moron in the newsroom misspelled the name of Louis Hunter Sr., bishop of Varick Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church in Hackensack, in a photo caption on the Local front Monday.

The caption called him "Louis Hinter Sr." His name was spelled correctly in the text of the story.

But there was an unacknowledged second problem in the caption:

Hunter is shown "lighting the mortgage," according to the caption. You light a candle, but "burn" a mortgage.

Many non-organic foods, such as these Smart Balance spreads, are labeled "Non-GMO."

Sloppy reporting

The Better Living cover piece on "the GMO debate" is basically a he said/she said story that never answers the question of whether genetically modified organisms in food are harmful, which is the consensus of many experts (BL-1).

Staff Writer Steve Janoski refers to "GMO" as a "buzz acronym." 

But he doesn't make clear two things: 

All foods certified organic are free of GMOs, and so are many non-organic foods that carry a "NON-GMO Project Verified" label.

Janoski sounds like he has never gone food shopping.

Or he might have suggested readers switch to olive oil for cooking to avoid GMOs in the vast majority of corn- and soy-based oils.

The story also doesn't include any reference to other sources, such as the Non-GMO Project.

Editor blesses Road Warrior, dismisses critics

In late 2007, Publisher Stephen A. Borg paid $3.65 million for this McMansion on the East Hill of Tenafly, using a mortgage from North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, Herald News and (201) magazine. Several months later, Borg implemented the biggest downsizing in NJMG history. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When I was a news copy editor at The Record, Staff Writer John Cichowski, who began writing the Road Warrior column in late 2003, was among the reporters who couldn't be relied on to be accurate or complete.

More than a decade later, the Road Warrior column continues to peddle misinformation -- whether its about driving regulations and laws or North Jersey's troubled mass transit.

His workload -- three columns a week -- might have been to blame, and recently, he appears to have been cut back to only two, and most of those are based on inane questions and comments from readers who love seeing their names in print.

In the last two years or so, a retired engineer in Hackensack has been fact-checking Cichowski, something the editors of The Record don't do, and e-mailing critiques to Vice President Jennifer A. Borg, Editor Martin Gottlieb, Production Editor Liz Houlton and others, including the reporter himself.

Circles the wagons

Now, Gottlieb has come out swinging in defense of Cichowski and dismissed all criticism of his inaccuracies and faulty reporting over the last decade.

The e-mail is an example of the fortress mentality at The Record and many other newspapers, where editors and reporters regularly express contempt for complaining readers and refuse to appoint an ombudsman to deal with sloppy, inaccurate reporting and editing. 

Still, Gottlieb's e-mail only addresses a recent Road Warrior column about the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, which is across the street from The New York Times, where Gottlieb reported and edited for many years under much higher standards than he enforces at the Woodland Park daily.

Here is Gottlieb's e-mail to the Hackensack critic, who began the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

You have sent, by your count, more than 160 e-mails with complaints about the Road Warrior in less than two years. They have been filled with ad hominem attacks, inaccuracies, and nitpicks magnified to gargantuan proportions, all of which stand in complete contrast to the praise you heaped on the column after you asked for - and received - Mr. Cichowski's help several years ago. Quite frankly, I'm tired of this, and I have no interest in hearing from you or reading these defamations anymore.

Your first "clueless false statement" contends that the bus terminal, which opened in 1950, is not 64 years old because it opened in December and is therefore only 63 years old.... Please, by any fair standard, 1950 plus 64 is 2014, which is the year we're in now. Only someone with an irrational animus would make the point you do, much less at the head of a laundry list of supposedly serious errors.

Your second point is that there is a study going on about what to do with the bus terminal, and that this shows that Cichowski is wrong in saying "there is no relief in sight" for the run-down terminal. There is no relief in sight. The Port's recently passed $27.6-billion capital budget includes no CONSTRUCTION money for bus-station improvements. Port officials have told us there are no plans in place. A Port commissioner has argued against providing more assistance to a proposed office tower at Ground Zero when nothing is being done to meet the challenge at the bus terminal. John is right. You are wrong. You are reading an awful lot into a study months from completion that, at best, won't beget a remedy for years and years - in other words, for any time in sight.

Your points are not fair-minded. They are driven by an irrational hatred of the Road Warrior, despite your earlier solicitation of his help. I've stopped reading.

Sincerely,
Martin Gottlieb

In response to Gottlieb's e-mail, the Hackensack critic noted, referring to himself:

- The only things the critic hates is clearly false, misleading, or unsafe reports, and information that contradicts N.J. statutes. The Road Warrior columns continually contain some portions of these irresponsible items.

- Gottlieb seems to be in total denial about the extensive inaccuracies in around 80% (165) of the total Road Warrior columns over the past two years.

- The Road Warrior has regularly provided information and advice that has proven to be unhelpful, unsafe, or conflicting with New Jersey statutes, published studies that are the focus of his columns, transportation experts, New Jersey transportation and Motor Vehicle Commission websites, scientific evidence and facts from reliable sources.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Ex-Times journalist OKs fuzzy reporting