More tax cuts for the wealthy, crumbs for the poor

In the City Council meeting room, the Hackensack seal is crooked.

Thanks to sloppy work by editors, reporters and copy editors, The Record doesn't help readers understand how many low-income residents would benefit from an expansion of Medicaid in New Jersey (A-1).

On Tuesday's front page, Columnist Charles Stile mentioned "300,000 ... families," but in a staff-written story on A-6 the same day the reference  is to "300,000 of the state's 1.3 million uninsured."

On Page 1 today, the paper reports Governor Christie will bring "104,000 citizens" into the program next year.

F.U. to middle class

What is clear is that Christie continues to give business-tax breaks to the wealthy, throw crumbs to the poor and screw the middle and working classes in the state.

You won't find any mention of how a modest tax surcharge on millionaires -- which Christie has vetoed at least twice -- would raise $1 billion in sorely needed revenue or what the governor plans to do to boost the economy and job creation.

Yet, today's coverage is so upbeat, and even includes another wildly exaggerated Stile column on the GOP bully's "leadership style," and his chances for reelection and an eventual White House bid (A-6). 

More A-1 errors

More sloppy work by Production Editor Liz Houlton's wrong-way copy desk is evident in Mike Kelly's column on the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (A-1).

The photo caption starts with a typo: "Flower were laid ...."

And sticklers would insist on a comma after the first line of the headline:

Attack overshadowed

but never forgotten  

  

Then, readers encounter a Kelly who fails miserably in an attempt to write a coherent, hard-hitting column, and the reason is clear.

He's has been beating the pathos out of the 1993 attack and 9/11 as if they were dead horses, using them as the basis for numerous, long-winded columns. Enough already.

Mr. Trite

Look at his first line: "The calendar told us 20 years had passed."

As if a talking calendar isn't bad enough, the second paragraph contains a multitude of sins:

A "stoic group of 100 relatives and friends ... huddled in the February chill ... at the patch of landscape known as Ground Zero," and "the terrorist bombing ... that killed six people ... was as real and vivid as morning coffee."

Give me a break. "As real and vivid as morning coffee"? How trite can you get?

At the end of the third paragraph, Kelly mentions the truck bomb exploded on Feb. 26, 1993, and follow that with a quote: "And then 9/11 happens."

Huh? Not "then." It was more than eight years later. 

As usual, he pads his column shamelessly, using six extra words to say "Ground Zero." In Kelly's desperate try to fill space, it's "the patch of landscape known as Ground Zero."

"Landscape"? This man is a tongue-tied hack. 

Where was head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza or whichever assignment flunky sent this disaster to the copy desk for spell-checking?   

Another local snooze

On the front of Local, readers looking for news find another Road Warrior column based on a highway safety "report,"  and a big story about a dog that was shot and beaten in Iraq.

At the top of the page, the Englewood City Council rejects a $674,000 plan to repair the Mackay Ice Arena, which is in a minority neighborhood (L-1).

Hackensack news is conspicuously absent.

But The Record carries yet another story about the Paterson book drive it is sponsoring (L-1).

Laughing at death

Most of the readers of The Record are over 50, and tens of thousands of them take Lipitor and other statins to lower cholesterol and prevent heart attacks.

Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill says grapefruit "is downright dangerous" to statin users, yet she promotes National Grapefruit Month with three recipes for the citrus fruit that include butter, sugar and vanilla bean "creme" (BL-1).

Check out her what-me-worry grin in the thumbnail photo with the "IN YOUR KITCHEN" column. 

Taking a holiday from The Record

Terminal B at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Eye on The Record is taking a holiday from three straight days this week of Page 1 coverage of the Rutgers University football team.

I'm taking a holiday from the editors' notion that living successfully or colorfully usually isn't enough:

As today's A-1 demonstrates: You have to save a life to make Page 1.

I'm taking a holiday from the intensely car-centric coverage by the Road Warrior and other reporters that appears to be a payback for all the automobile advertising in the paper.

I'm taking a break from coverage of mass transit that only appears when something goes wrong, such as Hurricane Sandy damage to NJ Transit rolling stock (A-1 on Wednesday).

I'm going on a diet today, swearing off Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill, who believes readers aren't getting enough artery-clogging cholesterol or meat and poultry raised on harmful animal antibiotics (Better Living on Wednesday). 

In her Wednesday column on BL-1, Sherrill advises readers with a straight face: "Generously slather the turkey with softened butter."

None of the hot lines she lists include cardiac-surgery units at local hospitals.

Finally, I'm taking a holiday from Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, local-news editors who have substituted Law & Order news for municipal news, including the total neglect of Hackensack and other communities (See today's Local section).

See previous post 

on Road Warrior errors

 
  

Editor runs robotic rewrite on Page 1

Although the dumpsters are gone, not much has changed at The Record's old 150 River St. headquarters in Hackensack since I took this photo on a hot day this summer.

The Record's editors have given us a new breed of reporter who is skilled in rewriting press releases, studies, surveys and reports, and who thinks "legwork" is a dance routine.

Staff Writer John Cichowski -- the so-called Road Warrior -- is one of those office-loving reporters who is almost robotic in rewriting press releases or handouts, as his Page 1 column today demonstrates.

I've read the column twice, and can't find the reason crashes declined dramatically after New Jersey drivers under 21 were required to stick a red decal on their license plates.

Did the law keep many young drivers off the road altogether? Cichowski doesn't say. 

Gave voice to morons 

And the columnist doesn't take responsibility for the many negative columns he wrote about the red decals by giving voice to hysterical arguments from all those moronic parents who opposed the law.

He's been doing the same recently by quoting every lead-footed idiot he can find to blast red-light cameras, which not only cut crashes, but give cash-strapped towns a badly needed source of new revenue.

By putting Cichowski's mea culpa on Page 1 today, instead of leaving it on L-1 where it belongs, Editor Marty Gottlieb gave readers one of the most uninteresting Local fronts in memory.

A trial for readers

As usual, Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, couldn't find any municipal news, so four of the five elements on L-1 today are Law & Order stories, and more appear inside.

It's been more than a month since any municipal news from Hackensack has appeared in Local, and I haven't seen Staff Writer Stephanie Akin's byline recently.

Could she be on vacation or does her absence have anything to do with a lawsuit The Record's parent company filed against the city, seeking unspecified documents? 

Cooking blind

In the most definitive explanation of her role since she became food editor, Susan Leigh Sherrill confesses today that she is in a dither over the stacks of free cookbooks she has to publicize (BL-1).

"So many cookbooks, so little time" is her lead sentence.

Sherrill doesn't explain how giving free publicity to cookbook writers who use butter, heavy cream and other artery clogging ingredients advances readers' desire to eat healthy.

Now Romney is lying 100% of the time

Official photo of  President Barack Obama, born Aug. 4,  1961; assumed office Jan. 20, 2009. (Credit: Wikipedia)

In the first presidential debate, GOP hopeful Mitt Romney expressed a new-found concern for the middle class -- part of the 47% of the electorate he wrote off when speaking behind closed doors to  wealthy conservatives.

At the second debate with President Obama on Tuesday night, Romney claimed he would be the leader of 100% of the American people.

Clearly, the Republican candidate can't be believed, but The Record and other media aren't as quick to declare who won the second debate as they were the first (Page 1).

A new war?

Who likes that curious front page headline? 

In the chill morning air, I read the words "Fierce fighting" through the plastic bag, and thought a new war had broken out.

The drop headline on the lead A-1 story doesn't even contain the word "debate." 

Turd polishing

Romney tried hard on Tuesday night to polish a turd, but Obama exposed the Republican plan for what it is: 

Continued tax cuts for the richest Americans that will only add to the deficit while failing to create jobs.

Those so-called job creators are, in fact, job haters.

They would much rather keep a bigger slice of their profits than contribute to their employees' health care -- while demanding more productivity from their current workforce.

Where is Marty?

Did Editor Marty Gottlieb call in that inflammatory headline, "Fierce fighting on every front"?

Gottlieb is clearly losing the battle for North Jersey readers, as you can see from the other major stories on Page 1 today.

I can't think of two other issues with lower reader interest than the trial of 9/11 terror suspects in Cuba or sports betting in New Jersey. 

What about the police?

An editorial condemning a plan to close Paterson businesses early to cut violence doesn't question the performance of the city's police chief or Police Department, even before many officers were laid off (A-18).

Reporter gets off ass

On the Local front, Staff Writer John Cichowski gives readers his third column in, what, 10 days on free rides for NJ Transit workers and retirees.

Though Cichowski appears to be completely reversing himself on eliminating the perk, he actually recommends that employees of Amtrak and police officers also be denied the benefit (L-1).

If you turn to the continuation page, it appears the reporter actually left the office and rode trains -- probably the first time he has done so since he took over the so-called commuting column in 2003.

Ignores crowding

But readers won't find anything in today's column on how NJ Transit can't accommodate all the people who want to take the train or bus to work, aggravating traffic congestion and pollution.

Readers will have to reassess who is lazier, Cichowski or the two assignment editors he works for, Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza. 

Butchering a recipe

Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill is positively giddy about a cookbook from food blogger Deb Perelman, so her recipe of the week features "Harvest Roast Chicken" (BL-1).

Yum. All those antibiotics and animal by-products prepared with grapes, olives and rosemary.

You can rest assured Sherrill doesn't serve mystery chicken to her husband, who took the photos with today's recipe.

So, why doesn't she at least recommend readers try to find a naturally raised chicken, such as ShopRites' Readington Farms or Stop & Shop's Nature's Promise? 


Related articles

• Brand-new section, same tired voices
• Editor shows how out of touch he is
• Choking readers with sports and politics
• Does our obese governor hate poor kids? kkidskids?
• Obama slams Romney on "47 percent"

Here's a lot more news you can't use

George Washington Bridge at night.

When Governor Christie grants an audience to The Record's unnamed editorial board, the editors fall all over themselves to save a slice of the front page for every juicy morsel from the Republican pit bull.

As you can see from today's front page, there is no "news" here -- just more divisive partisan rhetoric blaming the Democrats for everything that has gone wrong since Christie took office, including a state economy that can't get out of low gear.

What a dismal front page, and you won't find much else in an edition that seems designed to put you back to sleep. 

Instead of humoring Christie's chest thumping on Page 1, Editor Marty Gottlieb should have given better play to the governor saying he's disappointed in the Jets and Giants trying to stop the expansion of American Dream Meadowlands (A-6). 

Celebrity pest

It's too bad actor Andy Griffith died, but do we have to endure Bill Ervolino's fascination with the "television legend" (A-1)?

I'd much rather read about an interesting local resident, such as the 93-year-old man I met the other day in the Stop & Shop in Teaneck who still goes to the office.

Sports betting at Monmouth Park in the fall? Who cares, except gambling addicts who get high on the smell of horse shit (A-1)?

Pass the toilet paper

On the Local front, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes approved a Road Warrior column on "those little pieces of paper police hand out," instead of helping ease the commute of tens of thousands of readers (L-1).

Anyone who tries to read John Cichowski today will need their own little pieces of paper, the ones you use in the toilet.

Where's the local angle?

On the first Business page, a story about low lobster prices in Maine should appeal to the handful of readers who have a second home there, such as Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill (L-7 and L-8).

The rest of us would like to know whether those low prices will be seen in North Jersey, too.

That's news we could really use.

Editor jumped ship, landed in rowboat

Jumping off The Times' building in Manhattan might have done more for Marty Gottlieb's career than taking over the dysfunctional newsroom at The Record of Woodland Park.

Marty Gottlieb, a suave and sophisticated Paris-based editor for The New York Times, jumped ship and landed in a leaky rowboat called the S.S. Record.

Now, it seems, The Times is paying him back by scooping the relatively new editor of the Woodland Park daily with an expose of escapes, sex assaults, drug use and gang activity at halfway houses (A-1 on Monday and today). 

They are managed by a company with "deep ties" to Governor Christie.

Hard times

The Times broke the story on Sunday after a 10-month investigation that began before Gottlieb left the New York-based paper.

The Record's local-news rowboat continues to spring leaks and bail water under the ponderous weight of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her incompetent bosun's mate, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza.
 
Locals are yokels

Local, the section that is supposed to be filled with local news, was pathetically weak today, Monday and Sunday.

Today, so many of the stories on the Local front and elsewhere in the section are based on court rulings or sentences and lawsuits.

Where is the municipal news from Hackensack, Englewood and many other towns?

 

Living dead

Make sure you look at Staff Writer Denisa Superville's bright feature on FDU Professor John Edwin Cowin reading poetry at Louie's Charcoal Pit in Teaneck (L-1).

Her story only serves to remind readers how little they see about interesting local residents -- until they are given a sendoff by Staff Writer Jay Levin, the local obituary writer.

Food for thought

A story on the Better Living cover today delivers a hard-sell for krill oil, a supplement from a small ocean crustacean that helps give wild salmon their deep red-orange color (BL-1).

The story appears after Consumer Reports and other publications found little benefit from a wide range of dietary supplements. 

On Monday's Better Living front, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill praised "American Grown," the book by Michelle Obama, who started a kitchen garden at the White House as part of the first lady's focus on healthy eating and childhood obesity.

Of course, Sherrill doesn't acknowledge all the cookbooks she has promoted by publishing some of the unhealthiest recipes under the sun -- filled with lard, butter and heavy cream.

 
What Kelly missed

On Sunday's front page, Columnist Mike Kelly's opus on Garfield included a discussion of the city's demographics, but he somehow forgot to mention its large Polish population.

There is nothing like Page 1 play to reveal just how weak Kelly is as a reporter and writer.

Reviewer praises boss' old restaurant

Hackensack's Anderson Street rail station in the old days.

In The Record today, Staff Writer Elisa Ung's 3-star review of Village Green Restaurant in Ridgewood doesn't mention that her boss, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill, owned the place from 1989 to 2000.

Sherrill started the business with her husband at the time, a chef, and called it Village Green Cafe and Caterers. 

As usual in her reviews, Ung throws around the word "quality," but rarely backs it up.

She doesn't tell readers whether the third owner/chef's "buttery slow-baked salmon" is artificially colored farmed fish or wild-caught.

Mystery meat she sampled includes "stringy" foie gras, veal short ribs and filet mignon.

$76 dinner for one

Is this restaurant review the first that doesn't include prices for individual dishes in the body of the story? Only a range is given in the data box.

"Prices are among Ridgewood's highest," Ung allows, comfortable in the knowledge that the paper paid for all of the gorging she did, including one five-course dinner that cost $76.

She sets a great example during the obesity epidemic, calling puff pastry "smothered" in Chambord cream a "striking" dish.

It certainly is -- guaranteed to strike anyone who tries it right in the heart.

Weekly scoops daily

NJ Transit says it will build a new Anderson Street train station in Hackensack, according to the weekly Hackensack Chronicle.

The station was destroyed by a fire in 2009, the paper said.

Less than a block from the interim station -- a glorified bus shelter -- a new multi-story residential building is nearing completion. 

Rebuilding of the station was announced at the April 18 City Council meeting.

 

What a farce: Mitt beats Rick

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr
The two-party system wasn't such a great idea after all.

The Record is looking more and more like an official Republican Party organ, especially with the main elements on both Page 1 and the Local front today devoted to a celebration of the GOP's selfish conservatism.


On A-1, the outcome of the Republicans' hayseed vote wasn't known until well past the paper's deadline, but the headline had presidential overtones: 

A seesaw struggle

Romney and Santorum neck and neck in Iowa caucuses

Hey, interim Editor Douglas Clancy, are more than four people in North Jersey interested in this story? That's the best you could do for the front page?

Copping out

The off-lead is more relevant -- the Elmwood Park police chief and six other retiring cops are entitled to a total of $1.2 million for unused sick days and other time off (A-1).

Though the story notes Governor Christie wants to end such payouts for public employees, there's no discussion of why he hasn't capped police chiefs' ridiculously high salaries, as he's done for school superintendents.

Then, the third A-1 story is so poorly edited the first paragraph leads readers to believe the scandalous quid pro quo in Dumont occurred Tuesday night, when, in fact, it occurred at a meeting Dec. 23.

Two embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today, including the corrected photo of the Saddle Brook police chief.

More GOP news

In head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, I looked quickly at the big photo on L-1 and thought it was from "The Biggest Loser," but it turned out to be Christie at the swearing in of Fair Lawn's Republican mayor.

Is this the best local news Sykes could muster today? 

Road Warrior John Cichowski's stale L-1 column is the third in a row based on readers' e-mails, which deal with such monumental issues as whether drivers can use debit cards at the MVC.

More police news

Hackensack reporter Stephanie Akin reports on the swearing in of the city's first Muslim police officer, Mohammad Sheikh, who had been laid off in Paterson (L-3).

It's good to see some Hackensack news in the paper, but 97% of those stories are about suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa and cops who have sued him or have been charged administratively by him.

Sykes demoted to L-3 an amusing story on Rep. Steve Rothman, D-Fair Lawn, and Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, attending the same Bergen County Freeholder Board Reorganization meeting on Tuesday night in Hackensack.

Perfect photo

There's a great a photo of a glum Rothman, a smiling Pacrell and a goatee-wearing John Molinelli, the county prosecutor, who is sitting between them.

The two congressmen will be facing each other in the November election, because Rothman is too much of a coward to take on right-wing conservative Rep. Scott Garret, R-Wantage.

In Better Living, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill tries to make amends for all the unhealthy recipes she published in 2011 by offering readers "Yellow Winter Vegetable Soup," the first recipe of the new year (F-1).

Why do wealthy fly their own planes?

Image via Wikipedia
The small plane that crashed Tuesday on Route 287 was based at Teterboro Airport.

The Record's coverage of the fiery plane crash that killed five leaves a lot of unanswered questions, including why some wealthy men insist on piloting their own planes instead of flying first class with highly trained commercial crews.


Readers hoping for some insight into the mind-set of investment banker Jeffrey F. Buckalew, 45, and other small-plane pilots encounter two Page 1 stories filled with a lot of extraneous detail about the executive's charitable giving, his devotion to his children and how fast his plane could fly. 


The main story discusses the potential of icing as well as smoke "billowing" from a wing of the single-engine aircraft. 


This bizarre line appears on the continuation page (A-10): "Witnesses described a plane so unbridled they initially thought it was part of a stunt show."


Other unanswered questions: 


Was Buckalew and his Manhattan firm, Greenhill & Co., involved in the country's financial meltdown? 


Why would Buckalew risk his death and the deaths of his family and a colleague who was married and had three children by exposing them to the vagaries of weather, mechanical failure or faulty maintenance?


Road hog


If readers thought the line about the plane being "unbridled" and "part of a stunt show" was unusual, what do they think of the Road Warrior column reviewing unrelated incidents of malfunctioning planes landing safely on highways (L-1)?


Road Warrior John Cichowski ran out of ideas for his commuting column years ago, so when he heard Buckalew's plane crashed on Route 287, he flew into action, knowing he could wring a piece out of the tragedy, using the excuse that the deaths occurred on a "road" or "highway."


I wonder how relatives of the Buckalew family feel about the column headline, which says "highways have saved pilots," but suggesting the investment banker had run out of "luck."


Cichowski even offers advice to small-plane pilots on what to do when their engines stop while they are in the air. Of course, there's no indication the engine of Buckalew's plane stopped before the crash.


The column is a low point in a series of irrelevant and nonsensical Road Warrior pieces in recent years, but head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes doesn't seem to care one way or the other.


Hackensack news


On L-6 today, Hackensack reporter Stephanie Akin catches up to her weekly competition, reporting concern over the city's mounting legal bills.


She reports "the city and its insurers paid a total of $3.8 million in legal fees this year and in 2010, according to city documents obtained" by residents.


But one of the headlines states: "Hackensack officials defend $7.6M as cheaper than settling."


I couldn't find the "$7.6 million" figure anywhere in Akin's story.


How to ruin spinach


For the fastest way to ruin 5 pounds of fresh spinach, see the recipe on F-2 of Better Living today.


Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill continues to promote free celebrity cookbooks rather than modify the recipes to make them healthier for readers.


Santa Claus controversy


On A-20, two letters to the editor say a Dec. 18 article on the Better Living front, "The Santa mystique," could have been read by children who believe in him and should not have been displayed so prominently or been published in the first place.


One of the writers is Rene Mack, a freelancer who once reviewed restaurants for The Record.

Jock editor finds his soul mates

Image via Wikipedia

Editor Francis Scandale leads The Record today with Rutgers University officials he can call soul mates: Blinded by their obsession with team sports, they threw money at athletics while cutting academics (A-1).


Scandale hypes sports on Page 1 to fill local news columns head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions can't.


Or he grabs desperately at Law and Order news as a substitute for local news, as he does today with the A-1 story on an 84-year-old psychiatrist charged with illegally issuing pain-killer prescriptions.


Hyping the case


It's readers who need pain killers -- to deal with the clunky main headline from Liz Houlton's news copy desk, which suggests the Wayne suspect is a drug "dealer."


And what purpose does the map of Wayne and Lincoln Park serve except to fill space? Why did three reporters work on this exaggerated story? Why is this on Page 1, except as another example of the editors' shoddy treatment of seniors?


How did one of the insensitive reporters get away with saying the woman -- handcuffed and in leg irons as she stood before a federal judge -- answered with "a meek 'yes'"?


The Record and other media have succeeded in making "unions" a bad word, but why do commuters have to subsidize workers' jobs by paying higher tolls (A-1)?


Are the media suggesting voters choose their president on the basis of how quotable he or she is (A-1 and A-5)? They seem enthralled with that Texas bigot, Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who loves to talk about guns and shooting.


Absentee reporter


There's no substitute for on-the-spot reporting, as readers can see from the sixth or seventh Road Warrior piece in recent weeks on long MVC lines, this one an interview with the head of the state Motor Vehicle Commission (L-1).


On Tuesday, I spent nearly two and a half hours renewing my license in Lodi, and noticed a few things I haven't seen in John Cichowski's many columns:


The building has a capacity of only 80, so people have to line up outside. Two of the eight cameras weren't staffed, and you have to wait even longer, if you don't re-use the photo on your old digital license and want a new one.


It's not clear why your I.D. documents are checked three separate times, but this is the drill: 


You wait outside until you and about 20 to 25 others are told to go inside and get on another line, where your credentials are checked two separate times.


Then, you're given a number and told to sit down and wait some more -- until three to six of you are called up to get on a third line to have documents checked a third time, get your photo and pay.


If you want a new photo, you have to sit down and wait some more, up to 30 minutes, before your license is ready.


New Jersey residents have to endure this every four years, but in New York, license renewals are good for eight years. How backward can we be?


More Law and Order news


Besides the same-old Road Warrior column, every other story on the front of Sykes' Local section is a police or court story -- cementing the assignment desk's reputation as the laziest east of the California coast.


More police and court stories appear on L-2 and L-3, including major Fair Lawn news: a car crashed, causing minor injuries. 


Two stories from Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado riff on the same subject, the Police Department.


Alvarado covered the City Council meeting Tuesday night, but only reported comments about the police (L-6).


On L-7, Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais recommends drivers use off-brand gasoline to save money. But has he researched whether cheaper gas is harmful to car engines?


Bring home the bacon


In Better Living, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill promotes a shrimp recipe that calls for 10 strips of artery clogging , preservative-laden bacon and 10 ounces of beef broth filled with antibiotics and growth hormones.


So, the recipe she ran a week earlier for a healthy cold vegetable soup
was a fluke.


On F-1, a story reports food at a Demarest wine festival costs extra -- something omitted from an ad that ran last Friday in Better Living.