Editors claim main Bridgegate defendant is angel, not devil

A splash of fall color on Passaic Street and Poplar Avenue in Maywood, where this tree was sculpted by passing buses and trucks.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A Record columnist has done more than anyone outside of her defense team to portray Bridget Anne Kelly as a victim instead of as the central Christie administration figure in the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closures.

Veteran reporter Mike Kelly was granted unprecedented access to the defendant's lawyers, close friends and former associates -- as readers saw last Thursday in his flattering Page 1 profile of Governor Christie's former deputy chief of staff.

As a result, much of his coverage of Kelly's role in the Bridgegate scandal sounds like it was written by a publicist, not a veteran reporter:

We've learned Bridget Kelly, 44, grew up in Ramsey and attended Catholic schools and a Catholic university; and that she is a divorced mother of four with joint custody.

On Tuesday's front page, the editors even ran a photo showing Bridget Kelly wearing a blouse that looked like it was part of a maternity outfit.

That photo ran under a banner headline:

"Kelly feared she was being set up"

Under the banner, a sub-headline over Charles Stile's column said:

"At trial, Christie portrayed as

 something worse than a bully" 

Shed tear in court

"She's a Catholic kind of orderly person," one of her friends told Mike Kelly for his Thursday profile. "That's why I've always found it absolutely incredible that she would have cooked up this scheme to cause traffic problems in Fort Lee."

The reporter even noted in his lead paragraph for the profile that as she listened to prosecution witnesses testify in the Newark courtroom, she shed a "solitary tear."

In his column today, the reporter says "the other day," Kelly's lawyer, Michael Critchley, "asked her if she knew what a 'scapegoat' was," and before she could answer prosecutors objected "and the judge agreed" (A-1).

That echoed what the columnist had been told by her friends for his extraordinarily long Thursday piece, which appeared a day before she took the stand in her own defense for the first time:

"Kelly's friends say she is the target for unfair punishment," and that star prosecution witness and former Port Authority official David Wildstein "had set her up as a scapegoat" (Thursday's A-6).

Cross-examination

Today, the editors run a front page news story on cross-examination of Bridget Kelly, and yet another Mike Kelly column boosting her defense and again portraying her as a victim (A-1).

The prosecutor challenged the defendant's portrayal of herself as "a bit player in the administration," and tried to show the jury she ordered two of three access lanes closed for five mornings to punish Mark Sokolich, the Democratic mayor, for not endorsing Christie's reelection (A-1).

Of course, what the columnist or The Record's editors believe won't mean anything when federal prosecutors sum up and the case goes to the jury.

Bridget Kelly still has not been able to explain away her email to Wildstein, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," which she sent about a month before he put the lane closures into motion as part of a so-called traffic study.  

She told the jury the email wasn't "an order."

Publisher's rich friend was first to complain on GWB jams

The first of two 47-story residential towers in the Hudson Lights project overlooks Fort Lee's local-access lanes to upper-level tollbooths on the George Washington Bridge, below. The building's Web site boasts of "convenient access" to the bridge, a shuttle service to and from "the express Manhattan subway" and 1-bedroom apartments from $2,500 a month.

Three lanes were merged into one on Sept. 9-13, 2013, in a plot among Governor Christie's aides and his cronies on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the world's busiest bridge, to retaliate against Fort Lee's Democratic mayor.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In today's anniversary coverage of the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal, The Record again claims to have broken the story (A-1 and L-1).

And the addled Road Warrior columnist even takes credit for ending the four day-plus traffic jam on Sept. 13, 2013 (L-6).

A year later, little has changed at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Governor Christie has managed to insulate himself from direct blame -- and stick the public with more than $9 million in legal bills.

The infamous "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" e-mail launched state and federal investigations, but they grind on.

And Bridget Anne Kelly, the Christie deputy chief of staff who sent it to crony David Wildstein at the bi-state agency, and others close to the governor fell on their swords.

Media failed us

The Record and other media have let us down.

Instead of dogging the GOP bully at every public appearance to explain his innocence, they dutifully reported his dog-and-pony shows on Sandy and his purely political trips to Iowa and Mexico.

Meanwhile, tolls keep on going up, and Christie and his Port Authority appointees have refused to expand mass-transit alternatives to commuting by car.

You've seen little reporting about that.

"The Record's claim of a scoop is ringing hollow" is the heading for my Jan. 14, 2014, post, which can be read in its entirety by clicking on this link:

The Times was first with word of federal probe

Sloppy writing, editing drag down daily report

The Modern, a 47-story residential building under construction in Fort Lee, overlooks three local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge at the center of the Bridgegate scandal. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Stories on Page 1 of The Record continue to be poorly written and edited.

You'd think the front-page would get the most attention from assignment and news editors, copy editors and proofreaders, but A-1 today exhibits more sloppy journalism.

And it's not just the Monday editions, which are put out by a relatively smaller newsroom staff.

In today's story on the possible replacement of NJ Transit chief Jim Weinstein, he is described as "a low talker" in the first paragraph or "lede" in newspaper parlance (A-1).

The lede of a news story or column should sparkle, but this one is just puzzling.

'Hoisted'?

Later in the same paragraph, we learn Weinstein "had been steeped in nearly two decades of political and public service" -- like tea, I guess.

Then, the reporter tells us, Governor Christie "hoisted" Weinstein "to the helm of NJ Transit."

You'd hoist a dead body with ropes and pulleys, but I imagine Weinstein was elevated to or appointed executive director of the state mass-transit agency.

In the second paragraph, the word "tunnel" was dropped: "... constructing a commuter rail under the Hudson River."

Two tunnels

Once you plow through all of these errors (actually, the project was to build two tunnels), the reporter gets to the point: 

Weinstein backed Christie's decision to kill the Hudson River rail tunnels as a "loyal foot soldier, laying aside his own interests to deliver the orders of his boss."

This story, as well as all of the accounts about the Port Authority and the Bridgegate scandal, are nibbling at a single theme, which WNYC-FM (New Jersey Public Radio) has been exploring in recent weeks:

NJ Transit and the Port Authority have become political arms of the Christie administration.

Syrian refugees

In a second Page 1 story today, the reporter says Syrian refugees in North Jersey hear "horror stories" about "sons executed before their fathers" (A-8).

Does she mean "in front of" their fathers? 

The Port

Today and Sunday, The Record has been reporting on the possible involvement of Port Authority police officers in the George Washington Bridge lane closures (A-1).

Two news reports on Sunday raised "new questions about whether some officers at the bridge knew of the political motivations behind the lane closures" -- to punish Fort Lee's Democratic mayor for not endorsing the GOP bully for reelection, the paper reports today (A-1).

But on Jan. 17, I spoke to an employee of Babe's Taxi in Fort Lee who said he complained to a Port Authority police officer about the resulting gridlock and was told to send "a letter to Governor Christie."

The exit for the taxi company's garage is on Hudson Street, which provides three access lanes to the bridge's upper- level toll plaza. 

On A-8, a story on a journalism award to Staff Writer Shawn Boburg for his GWB stories ignores how little reporting he has done on the Port Authority's refusal to expand mass transit amid increasing traffic congestion.

Harvy Lipman

Non-profit news appears in the Local section today (L-3), but the reporter who covered the beat since 
2006 died "last week" at 63, the Woodland Park daily reported on Feb. 12 (L-6).

Harvy Lipman was hired after Publisher Stephen A. Borg directed the editors to create a beat to cover charities and news of non-profits.

If Lipman accomplished nothing else, he will be remembered for his June 2012 article, "Hardship Grows Amid Wealth" -- about how the recession "had left pockets of poverty in wealthy communities in North Jersey."

Lipman recounted "the experiences of people who made good livings and had risen through the middle class to obtain enough wealth to live in such communities as Mahwah and Ramsey, only to find themselves jobless, with depleted retirement accounts and living on food stamps," his obituary noted.

The article is all the more remarkable because it was written for The Record, where the editors have seemed completely undisturbed by Christie's assault on New Jersey's middle class or no-tax policies that have wrecked the state's economy.

More space is wasted on the musing of columnists

A man with a cane and a bag of groceries stopping to pray on West 165th Street in Manhattan on Friday afternoon, despite temperatures in the 20s and a biting wind.

On Broadway and West 168th Street in Manhattan is a Columbia University medical building named for patron Russ Berrie, the toy company mogul who lived in Englewood, where his name also appears on a wing of Englewood Hospital and Medical Center.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Newspaper readers rarely pay attention to bylines, but the lead story on Page 1 of The Record today speaks volumes about one veteran staffer who has struggled with column writing in the past decade.

Mike Kelly banged out a hard-hitting news story on how Christie administration officials courted Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for more than two years, then retaliated when the Democrat wouldn't endorse the GOP bully for a new term last year (A-1).

The payback took the form of George Washington Bridge local access lane closures that caused gridlock in the borough in early September, triggering the Bridgegate investigation that threatens Christie's viability as governor and presidential hopeful.

Kelly's news story is not only a scoop -- the first time Sokolich has directly linked the traffic jams to his refusal to cross party lines and endorse Christie. 

It is well-written and well-organized -- everything Kelly's columns are not, especially the one he did recently based on an interview with Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, another Democrat who has exposed the Christie administration's dirty tricks.

More wasted space

Readers usually are not well-served by The Record's columnists, as today's and Friday's front-page nonsense from sports writer Bob Klapisch shows.

Klapisch's dated column photo is the least of it. 

On Friday, he spent the first six paragraphs of his tribute to Mets broadcaster Ralph Kiner on an anecdote dating to 1983 that was lost on most readers.

Today, Klapisch appoints himself a legal and public relations expert in commenting on Alex Rodriguez withdrawing his lawsuits (A-1).

More road kill

The Record's accident photos, which have been used as filler by the inept local assignment desk, are the equivalent of drive-by shootings.

The photo of an overturned car on L-1 today is typical: 

Was the driver killed or injured? Were there any passengers in the car? Did the vehicle burst into flames? Did speed cause the accident? Readers don't have a clue.

Attorney's fees

A news story on a tentative $100 million settlement of suits against contraceptive maker Merck & Co. quotes an attorney as saying he doesn't how much money each plaintiff would get (L-1).

But the story fails to say plaintiffs' attorneys are expected to be awarded roughly one-third of the $100 million to cover their inflated fees and expenses.

Early Alzheimer's

The addled Road Warrior, Staff Writer John Cichowski, continues to demonstrate how much space is wasted on his columns, according to a concerned reader:

"In his Tuesday column, the Road Warrior marveled at how light traffic was on Super Bowl day, even though it had been widely predicted by TV and Internet news reports well in advance of the game. 

"[And] the Road Warrior failed to apologize for his atrocious, mistake-filled and irresponsible Super Bowl Sunday column that predicted endless traffic jams."

For the full e-mail to management and the editors, see Road Warrior Bloopers on Facebook:

Wishing for a Meadowlands miracle

Are taxpayers footing huge Bridgegate legal bills?

The Modern, a 47-story residential building under construction in Fort Lee, overlooks the three George Washington Bridge access lanes at the center of Governor Christie's biggest crisis since he took office in 2010.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The print edition still hasn't hit my driveway, so I turned to NorthJersey.com for the latest developments in the Bridgegate scandal.

Everybody is hiring highly paid legal heavyweights to represent them, but I can't find a word about whether taxpayers are going to be stuck with the bills.

Governor Christie; Bridget Anne Kelly, the deputy chief of staff he fired; and David Samson, chairman of the Port Authority, have retained new counsel, presumably to defend their official actions.

Are we poorer?

So, does that mean we have to pay the bills? What about the outside lawyer representing the state Legislature's joint investigative panel?

Kelly sent an e-mail to one of Christie's cronies at the Port Authority in August, saying, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

The access-lane closures on the George Washington Bridge caused gridlock in the Democratic borough in what is widely viewed as political retribution for Mayor Mark Sokolich's refusal to endorse the governor's reelection. 

Borgs get richer

The Record's print edition was several hours late on Wednesday, even though local streets had been cleared of snow.

At 1 this afternoon, today's paper is nowhere to be found.

We can thank the cut-rate, rinky dink delivery system the Borgs have used for eons, exploiting low-wage workers who have to hold two or three jobs to make ends meet.