To sell house without driveway, reporter exaggerates its size

Paterson's South Paterson neighborhood of Middle Eastern restaurants, bakeries and coffee houses continues to show signs of renewal, including a mobile telephone store and a three-story commercial building under construction at Main and Gould streets. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A Page 1 story in The Record today raises troubling questions about an error-prone reporter who has blurred the lines between journalism and real estate promotion.

And in Local, the Woodland Park daily reports for the first time that a Hackensack University Medical Center doctor played a key role in landing a Fox News interview with the mother of the first New Jersey-born baby affected by the Zika virus.

After the interview was aired and The Record's reckless editors published a Page 1 photo of the deformed baby, the woman is asking for privacy (L-2).

Property grows

In today's follow-up to his first front-page column, error-prone reporter John Cichowski grossly inflates the size of a Midland Park property that has proven to be a hard sell, because it has no driveway and overnight parking is supposedly "banned."

On A-8 today, Cichowski, also known as the Road Warrior, reports town officials "appeared unmoved when [owner Ken] Klabouch noted his 12,000-square-foot property was the only lot in the borough too small to accommodate a driveway" (italics added).

That's four times the size Chichowski cited in his original column on Tuesday, when he reported Klabouch's lot "measures slightly less than 3,000 feet."

The house itself is "1,200 square feet," he said on Tuesday.

Six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton completely missed today's wild exaggeration, as did all of the news, layout and copy editors under her supervision.

The embarrassing "12,000-square-foot" screw-up also appears on North Jersey.com, The Record's Web site.

Provide plate number

More troubling is that Cichowski has ignored the custom and practice in most towns, where residents and renters can call police with the license-plate number of a guest, and get permission for overnight street parking.

I called Midland Park police on Wednesday and confirmed this also is the practice in the borough -- for guests as well as homeowners who park on the street overnight.

Zika baby

On L-2 today, The Record reports Dr. Manny Alvarez played a pivotal role in landing an interview at the bedside of a Honduran woman who contracted the Zika virus and gave birth to a deformed girl on Wednesday at Hackensack University Medical Center.

But for the first time, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn reports the woman is Alvarez' patient. 

The doctor is "chairman of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive health" at the medical center, as well as "senior managing editor" at Fox Health News.

In today's story, Editor Deirdre Sykes appears to justify why The Record invaded the unnamed baby's privacy by publishing her photo on Thursday's front page.

"Labeled an 'exclusive,' it [the Fox News interview] included a video of the baby in a hospital bassinet" (L-2).

Heart-attack food

Readers are wondering why Elisa Ung's review of American Cut Bar and Grill is far more subdued than two elaborately promotional articles The Record published in the months before the expensive steakhouse opened in Englewood Cliffs.

Today, Ung says the service reminds her of  "a family chain," not "a fine-dining restaurant" (BL-14).

She gives the steakhouse -- which advertises in Friday's Better Living tabloid -- 2.5 stars out of a possible 4 stars.

Photos with her review show only heart-attack inducing food -- a steak burger, biscuits with cream cheese, hanger steak and a sundae -- but none of the fish and salads promised "for the ladies" by the celebrity chef owner in a December interview with Food Editor Esther Davidowitz.

Ung sampled the "prime dry-aged porterhouse for two" ($115), but doesn't tell readers whether the beef was naturally raised on grass.

"Prime" only tells readers its the fattiest cut of beef among USDA grades: Prime, Choice and Select.

After noting entrees cost up to $54, Ung says American Cut isn't appropriate for "anyone on a budget."

She must think her readers are dolts.

In shootings-suicides, the real crime is easy gun access

In Tenafly this morning, an employee of a nearby funeral home stopped traffic to allow a procession to pass.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today's front-page story on the "choreographed execution" of a Virginia TV reporter and cameraman doesn't even bother mentioning how easy it was for their deranged former colleague to get a gun.

And inside The Record, a full page of additional wire-service coverage mentions the gun only once:

Gunman Vester Flanagan, 41, an African American who shot and killed himself hours later, said he put down a deposit on the weapon on June 19, apparently to avenge the Charleston church massacre two days earlier (A-1 and A-6).

Ignoring the nation's continuing gun problem, Tamara Lush of The Associated Press describes the victims, reporter Allison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, as "two young journalists, eager and hungry for a story" (A-6).

The media are not only glorifying Parker and Ward, they're withholding images of their horrific slayings -- images that might give politicians the courage to do something except collect special-interest money to maintain the status quo.

Leave it to Parker's father, Andy, to say what The Record and other media should be saying every day of the year:

"We've got to do something about crazy people getting guns," Andy Parker said on Fox News, urging Virginia officials "to close loopholes and background checks."

Word pushers

The easy availability of guns also didn't concern The Record's editors, reporters and columnist who devoted more than a full newspaper page this past Sunday to Kevin Downing of Fort Lee.

A follow-up news story and a long Mike Kelly column didn't even mention how Downing got the gun he used to shoot a security guard inside a Manhattan federal building and then himself last Friday.

Most of the news story describes Downing's descent into hell after he was fired from his economist's job at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1999, and spent 16 fruitless years trying to get it back.

'My phone rang'

The long piece by Kelly -- The Record's sorry excuse for a New Jersey columnist -- goes on and on about the dilemma he and other reporters supposedly face when people like Downing call them: 

Are they telling the truth?

Kelly's column is filled with "I" and "me" and "my," as in, "I was intrigued but skeptical" of Downing's "whistle-blower case."

On Page 1, his first paragraph lands with the impact of a wet noodle:

"On an otherwise ordinary Wednesday morning, my phone rang."

Yawn.

After describing the variety of people who call him -- from an elderly widow on a fixed income" to "a prison inmate"  to a "father or mother in ... a difficult custody fight" -- Kelly laments:

"The stories are often compelling and heartbreaking.
But are they true ..., are they newsworthy enough to write about?"

Of course, unlike Kelly, columnists who have strong opinions, and are willing to challenge authority, might question a system that forced Downing to fight 16 long years before cracking and grabbing a gun.