Hater of women, Mexicans, Muslims will never get elected

Just before noon on Wednesday, driving in Englewood seemed pleasant, especially with trees blooming on Engle Street, above. But leaving in the afternoon only showed rush-hour traffic is as bad as ever as city officials refuse to eliminate a few parking meters and install turn lanes at Dean Street and Palisade Avenue, below, and other downtown intersections.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Donald Trump has tapped into a deep reservoir of racism and hatred of women, Mexicans and Muslims, but two things seem assured.

The billionaire and member of the 1 percent will never get elected president as long as Democrats and other liberals protest by going to the polls in November.

And as the Republican nominee, Trump will preside over the destruction of the Grand Old Party, which has been propped up too long by racism, conservative values and crackpot Tea Party members.

Trump's desire to punish women for having abortions in on Page 1 of The Record today, but he plays second fiddle to the so-called controversy over state exams (A-1).

Aircraft noise

Look at all the space Editor Deirdre Sykes has been giving to Ho-Ho-Kus, Mahwah, Paramus, Ramsey, Ridgewood and Rochelle Park over a flight-path change going into effect on Monday (A-1).

Sykes has ignored complaints of Teterboro Airport noise from Hackensack, South Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck and other towns for more than a decade.

Of course, Ho-Ho-Kus, Ramsey and Ridgewood are richer and whiter than long-suffering Hackensack, Englewood and Teaneck.

Shmuley's house

Shmuley Boteach, the publicity hungry rabbi who gives Jews a bad name, is trying to unload his huge pile of stone on the East Hill of Englewood (L-1).

In 2009, Sykes gave unprecedented coverage to Boteach, who knowingly purchased a mansion next door to a Libyan-owned estate in Englewood -- then complained about the planned visit of Moammar Gaddafi.

Given low turnout, why is GOP getting such big play?

Two-thirds of registered voters stayed home on Tuesday, according to some estimates, so why are the media giving so much attention to Republican demands?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Really low voter turnout and the failure of Democratic candidates to embrace President Obama's accomplishments are the untold story of Tuesday's election.

The Republicans won't regain control of the U.S. Senate until January, but they already are acting as if they are running the country, aided and abetted by The Record and other media (A-4).

"To all who didn't vote, I say shame on you for not taking advantage of a freedom we are blessed to have," Robert Daniello of Ridgefield Park said in a letter to the editor today (A-13).

"Triumph of the Wrong" was the headline on the Op-Ed column of economist Paul Krugman in The New York Times:

"So now is a good time to remember just how wrong the new rulers of Congress [the GOP] have been about, well, everything," Krugman wrote.

The column could just as well be called, "Triumph of Apathy."

Let them eat cake

The big local news today is the approval of the first drive-through Panera Bread restaurant on Route 17 in Paramus, a road that already has enough retail-generated traffic chaos (L-1).

On Friday, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung was really upset about the desserts at the 2-star Ranchero Cantina in Emerson (BL-19).

The butterscotch syrup on the flan she sampled was too sweet ($6), and the "Chocolate Outrage" was "indeed an outrage" ($7.50).

The poor woman! 

Local editors continue to flub breaking news

Drivers startled by a huge inflatable rat on State Street in Hackensack might think it's a marketing ploy gone awry for the luxury apartments going up on the site. In fact, members of Carpenters Union Local 254 put up the rat and picket the site to dramatize the developer's use of "rats" -- non-union contractors -- according to the union's Facebook page.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

When you compare The Record's Page 1 follow-up today to Friday's sensational lead story on a sibling rivalry that ended in death, they expose deep flaws in local-news gathering.

It's been apparent for years to many in the newsroom that head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who is taking a prolonged sick leave, and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza can't handle breaking news.

It's possible the lack of information in Friday's story can be traced to reporters who simply have never developed a rapport with Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli and local police chiefs.

But the assignment editors have encouraged their reporters to cover breaking news by telephone or by waiting for news releases -- like so many beggars on the street -- instead of aggressively mining other sources, including neighbors.

Missing information

Despite references to family photos on Facebook and adopted children, readers on Friday remained in the dark about whether a 17-year-old boy who allegedly stabbed and killed his older sister were among three children adopted by the Gallos in Washington Township (Friday's A-1 and A-7).

Today, thanks to three photos on Page 1, readers learn the brother, sister and a third adopted sibling are black, but that is never mentioned in the text today or Friday.

GOP screws jobless

Thanks to the Republicans in Congress, more than 125,000 New Jerseyans are being dropped from unemployment rolls in the next three months and losing emergency benefits (A-1).

House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican whose last name is pronounced "boner,"  has been quoted saying they should be out looking for jobs, not collecting benefits.

LG boycott

A letter to the editor on A-11 today calls for a boycott of LG products as the U.S. arm of the South Korean company moves forward with plans to build a 143-foot-high building that will project above the tree line on the Palisades.

Sounds like a good idea, but you have to wonder why the Woodland Park daily hasn't called for a similar boycott.


Second look

On Friday, The Record ran another wildly exaggerated, error-filled column from addled Staff Writer John Cichowski, according to a concerned reader who maintains the Facebook Page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"The Road Warrior makes up information about the Jan. 30, 2013, collision of a train and a truck carrying paint cans at a Little Falls rail crossing and exaggerates subsequent crossing improvements.

"The Road Warrior compounded his original errors from his Feb. 1 column, and contradicted The Record’s own reports when he indicated there were eight commuters injured in the Jan. 30 accident and reported a rail-crossing accident in Ridgefield in December.

"As The Record originally reported, five commuters and three train workers were injured in the January accident, and the December accident was in Ridgefield Park, not Ridgefield."

Even more troubling than the exaggeration and errors in Friday's column was Cichowski's recommendation in his original Feb. 1 column a few days after the Little Falls collision that no safety improvements were needed:

"But sometimes crash investigators at places that produce few crashes don't yield much more than headlines, especially if an engineering fix is considered too costly and an unusual driver error is the only readily definable culprit."

Thankfully, no one paid attention to the overpaid but clueless Road Warrior.

For the full e-mail alerting editors and managers of The Record about continuing problems with the Road Warrior column, see:

Road Warrior is off the rails once again

Sports, politics and apologizing for Christie

You won't read anything in The Record about improvements to the local bus system, such as the NJ Transit "talking bus" stopping in front of the South Paterson Library and Community Center on Main Street in Paterson, above. The paper's transportation reporters, including Road Warrior John Cichowski, have been ordered to write only about drivers and cars to boost sales at automobile dealers, whose advertising is keeping the Woodland Park daily afloat. 

By Victor E. Sasson

Editor

The Record's front page today has a strong New Jersey focus, but glosses over all the damage wrought by Republicans in Trenton and the nation's capitol.

The lead story on campaign donations to Republicans in the Garden State begs the question of how many millions lobbyists for health insurance and medical device companies are spending to get the GOP to shut down the government (A-1 and L-7).

New Jersey lags

The Page 1 story on a Chinese company bringing 500 to 600 jobs to Wayne notes that "while the state of New York has regained all the jobs lost during the recession, New Jersey has regained only around 60 percent."

But it doesn't link that to Governor Christie's failed policies of giving businesses hundreds of millions in tax breaks, but denying low-wage workers a hike in the minimum wage.

Further evidence that The Record's editors and the greedy Borg family are in bed with the GOP bully is burying the story on the second debate between Christie and Democratic challenger Barbara Buono (A-6).

Buono made another good showing, but the editors hope to obscure how Christie's favors millionaires and corporations over the middle class and small businesses.

Super Toilet Bowl

The front-page story on the delayed Route 3 project appears aimed at the out-of-towners who will be attending the Super Bowl next winter, and to hell with North Jersey commuters who -- thanks to Christie -- face the triple hells of worsening traffic jams, rising tolls and an overburdened mass-transit system.

In Local today, a photo over line says a granite sculpture is the "New Focal Point in Town," but the caption doesn't provide an address for the Leonia sculpture garden (L-6).

An A-3 story makes readers wonder what Christie is hiding about his health as he campaigns for a second term, and why The Record hasn't obtained his records in the more than two years since his June 2011 asthma attack.

Second look

The Borgs are so desperate for advertising revenue they got Deputy Assignment Flunky Dan Sforza to run a story on Monday's Local front, purporting that Bergen County residents are driving up to Nanuet, N.Y., to shop at a new mall.

I wonder if Sforza -- in the interests of synergy -- will be asked to get off his ass, drive across the border and solicit advertisements from mall tenants.

Zisaville still stinks to high heaven

Founders of Hackensack are turning over in their graves at the Church On The Green. (Wikipedia)

Politically connected lawyers continue to rule Hackensack months after the conviction of the former police chief, The Record reported today and Friday.

A Page 1 story on Friday reported:

"Hackensack zoning board attorney Richard Malagiere, lawyer Carmine Alampi and Anthony Errico -- the owners -- were not cited for any violations at 236 Johnson Ave. since they purchased the [house] in 2008, even though the previous owners had been issued such citations several times."

Hackensack is known as "Zisaville" after decades of rule by the Zisa family, including former Assemblyman and Police Chief Ken Zisa, who was found guilty in May of official misconduct and other charges.

Cousin on payroll

Ken Zisa's politically connected cousin, Joseph Zisa, remains as the city attorney.

Joseph Zisa's name doesn't appear in Friday's A-1 and A-8 stories on Malagiere, Alampi and Errico, or today's story on L-2, but the paper reported:

"Critics of the city's leadership, long dominated by the Zisa family ... say allies such as Malagiere, who has received at least $822,000 in fees from Hackensack for legal services since 2010, benefit from their ties and exert huge influence."

The legal fees were for zoning board work and Malagiere's "role in defending former Police Chief Ken Zisa in civil lawsuits filed against him by Hackensack police officers."

City Attorney Joseph Zisa has had to recuse himself from defending the chief, his cousin, forcing the city to pay yet another lawyer hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend the disgraced chief in those same cases.

Big production snafu

Friday's front page also contained a glaring production error that was completely missed by the six-figure editor in charge of such matters, Liz Houlton.

Sports fan were stopped dead on A-1 by a big block of missing type in Steve Popper's column about the hapless Nets, who fled New Jersey for Brooklyn.

Popper's breathless account ends abruptly after "Deron Williams" and picks up with part of a quote from the fired coach.

Jock publisher's role 

Sharing the blame for the screw-up is jock Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who fled Hackensack for Rockaway and Woodland Park.

When the paper was printed in Hackensack, some of the first copies off the press were rushed up to the 4th Floor, where copy editors would pore over the sections fronts and leaf through the paper, trying to find and fix errors.

Now, the paper is printed more than 40 miles way in Rockaway Township, where the first, error-filled copies apparently are fed to dairy cows grazing around the plant. 

Appropriately, the headline over Popper's column says, "Wherever Nets go, dysfunction follows."

All of the errors delivered to readers day after day show the same can be said for Houlton and The Record.  

The missing Popper type appears on A-2 today.

Dysfunctional columnist 

How about the Road Warrior column on Friday's L-1, where the lazy John Cichowski tries to alarm readers with a "57 percent rise in fatal New Jersey crashes for this year's 4-and-a-half-day Yule period"?

But only 7 people were killed last year, and that was in 3 and a half days -- so isn't the comparison flawed? (See the previous post for a longer discussion of Friday's troubling Road Warrior column.)


Leaving out Hackensack


On L-3 Friday, the Teaneck and Englewood reporters teamed up on a story about major substation work that is supposed to improve the reliability of electric service.

Did head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, forget that Hackensack and many other towns in Bergen County also get electricity from PSE&G, and may need similar work?

A story on Friday's L-6 doesn't explain why Carlstadt is biding farewell to its administrator and not firing its police chief, who probably gets paid more than $200,000 a year for going to fetch donuts.

Not worth the detour

In Friday's Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung tries mightily to sugar-coat the high prices at La'Mezza, a Lebanese fusion restaurant in Englewood that is more style than substance (BL-14-15).

La'Mezza charges $24 for a red snapper fillet -- or what can buy you an entire fish in many other restaurants.

The Englewood restaurant has only one lure: The owner leaves those unhealthy hookahs (water pipes) and their annoying smoke at his other Lebanese restaurant, La'Ziza in Clifton. 

GOP royalty 

Editor Marty Gottlieb leads today's paper with House Republicans' rebuke to Governor Christie, the GOP bully whose Sandy aid request faces major surgery (A-1).

Is that anyway for Christie's supposed allies to treat the governor, who The Record has already started to promote as a viable candidate for president in 2016?

More Republicans behaving badly appear in a second, front-page story today -- Bergen County's GOP-dominated Freeholder Board defeated a shared-services police contract with Demarest (A-1).

No cause of death

Sykes and Sforza show what poor editors they are with the obituary of former Paterson Mayor Martin Barnes, who died Friday at a relatively young 64.

Today's L-1 account says, "Barnes died of unknown causes."

The huge photo Sykes and Sforza use to fill out Local front today doesn't say whether the police cruiser a state trooper crashed on the turnpike was a Ford Crown Victoria, whose mechanical defects have been linked to the deaths of police officers and other troopers (L-1).

Today's heavy Law & Order report shows Sykes and Sforza are still taking a holiday from municipal news.