Christie's promise of more pension 'reform' is another lie

Retina Associates of New Jersey on Teaneck's Cedar Lane provides only limited angle parking in a lot so narrow departing patients and caregivers must back their cars out into traffic on the four-lane street, where speeding is common. How did township zoning officials approve this hazardous arrangement?

Upon finding a full lot, one visitor just left his car's engine running with the hazard lights flashing, partially blocking a lane on the busy four-lane street.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

One day after a judge scolded Governor Christie for breaking the law on funding the state pension system three years running, The Record has forgiven him.

What else can readers conclude from the upbeat Page 1 coverage of the GOP bully's budget speech on Tuesday, when he unveiled another round of so-called pension reforms -- a plan that may be months or years away from implementation (A-1)?

And as on too many days in the past, Editor Martin Gottlieb plays more favorable spin by Columnist Charles Stile next to the front-page news story, burying protestations from the teachers union that no pension deal was made (A-6).

Chief spin doctor

Good riddance to Michael Drewniak (rhymes with "maniac"), the foul-mouthed former Star-Ledger reporter who sold out his profession to become Christie's spokesman in 2002 (A-3).

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes, who often sounds like Christie's lap dog, actually calls Drewniak "a fiery defender" instead of a specialist in disinformation.

On Tuesday, The Record said Drewniak denounced as "liberal judicial activism" Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson's order that Christie fully fund the state pension system by June 30.

Serving as spokesman for the worst governor in New Jersey history is the equivalent of working as a male prostitute.

Another correction

The editors run a correction of an L-1 story that stated Glen Rock's former police chief was "featured" in photos that showed Officer Christopher McInerney baring his buttocks.

However, the correction omits the name of the town (A-2).

Last Wednesday, The Record's business editors ran the wrong photo for Harry Kislevitz of River Edge, onetime owner of a toy company called Colorforms, according to a Record reader who knows his widow.

Hackensack news?

The only Hackensack news today is a drive-by photo of a three-car Hackensack Avenue crash with a caption that is silent on whether speeding, running a red light or another factor was the cause (L-3).

When will the local assignment editors, who are unable to find enough news to fill their pages, learn that jury selection isn't news, and certainly doesn't deserve a full-blown story on the Local front today (L-1)?

New NJ Transit reporter leaves big hole in suicide story

NJ Transit's Secaucus Junction rail station is patrolled by transit police officers. Is that true at the agency's smaller stations? Today, The Record's story on suicide by train doesn't discuss whether more police officers could deter intentional and accidental deaths on the tracks.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You have to give points to Staff Writer Christopher Maag for what is likely The Record's first thorough discussion of whether fences and other barriers can prevent people from committing "suicide by train."

But strangely absent from today's Page 1 takeout is any mention of NJ Transit police officers, and how many stations are actually patrolled to prevent intentional and accidental deaths (A-1).

Maag, the new transportation writer, and just about every other reporter in the Woodland Park newsroom have a heavy burden:

Working with clueless local assignment editors who rarely leave the office and whose knowledge of the world fits comfortably inside one of the office toilets.

Still, The Record has been reporting on deaths at or near train stations for years now. Maybe, the next story will discuss the role of transit police officers.

The bottom line

Sadly, today's story notes "the one measure suicide experts believe would be most effective at preventing intentional deaths by train: Building fences to keep people off of the tracks" (A-7).

Maag goes on to say "that would be a daunting and expensive exercise, requiring the already cash-strapped agency to erect up to 1,000 miles of fence."

That last description of NJ Transit as "already cash strapped" is in keeping with the paper's long-held belief that mass transit should pay for itself or even make a profit.

But that's nonsense, and it fed into Governor Christie's mean-spirited move in late 2010 to stop the building of two new rail tunnels under the Hudson River, because they allegedly would cost New Jersey "too much."

That allowed the GOP bully to refuse to raise the low gasoline tax to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund -- secure in the knowledge he could divert hundreds of millions in unused tunnel money to road projects.

Recovering addicts

Today, The Record carries the second part of an investigative report on the lack of state oversight and regulation of numerous homes that "cater to recovering addicts" (A-1).

Leading the front page is another report on Elizita, a Guatemalan teen who entered the United States illegally this summer to join her father, who also is an illegal immigrant (A-1).

The latter story is sure to inflame readers in Saddle River and other wealthy towns where anti-immigrant sentiment is strong.

Local news

You know life is good in Ridgewood and Glen Rock from the lead headline on L-1 today:

"2 towns unite over car break-ins"

The story doesn't say how many of the 20 vehicles were left unlocked.

A second story on the Local front was written by the same reporter, Andrew Wyrich (L-1).

He describes the midgets that raced around the track of Hinchcliffe Stadium in Paterson as "tiny," and said "some operated with an engine comparable to that of a snowmobile or lawn mower."

Typically, the four-cylinder engine used in a midget race car produces more than 300 horsepower.

But a photo caption with the story describes the cars as "three-quarter" midgets.

That confuses readers. Were two types of midgets racing on Sunday?

How chief asthmatic manages the news

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Thanks to a compliant media in the state, Governor Christie never has to answer any embarrassing questions about his excessive weight or his diet.

Asthma? Inhalers? Where have I been?

The Record's front page today reports Governor Christie has "always spoken freely about his asthma and weight," but why haven't we seen that in the paper before now?

At the gym this morning, most of the people I asked didn't know the unpopular Christie had asthma until the media reported he was taken to the hospital on Thursday after suffering an asthma attack.

"They shouldn't have revived him," one personal trainer cracked. "No inhaler for you, Mr. Governor," another said.

Today, readers are bombarded with four stories starting on Page 1, a really unflattering A-1 photo of Christie after he spoke to reporters outside the hospital and upbeat, time-bending headlines that deliver far more than any of the text.

Christie back to work

Health

scare puts 

spotlight

on weight

Back to work? How could the copy editor writing this Thursday night possibly know he'd be back at work this morning? 

And would you look at the ridiculous caption under the photo of a flummoxed Christie: "Governor Christie leaving to go home and rest Thursday before returning to the State House today."

Huh? You mean he says he'll return to the State House today or he hopes to return to the State House, right?

And if the health scare "puts [a] spotlight on [his] weight," why do the thousands of words in the paper today omit the governor's weight, how much he may have lost and how much he wants to lose? 

What's up doc?

Why didn't the media question any of his doctors?

This is Christie continuing to manage the news -- just as he and his spin doctors have managed it since he took office in January 2010.

They do this knowing The Record employs pussies, including Editor Francis Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and reporters John Reitmeyer, Charles Stile, Mary Jo Layton and others.

Did anyone, God forbid, ask Christie how much he weighs or whether he still enjoys a steady diet of beer and pizza?

As if today's front page isn't embarrassing enough -- with everyone from Scandale on down trying to gloss over the governor's serious health problems -- two embarrassing corrections and a clarification appear on A-2 today.

Earth shaking

The big news on the front of Sykes' Local section is another detailed story on the 14 eighth-graders visiting Glen Rock -- Scandale's hometown -- from Japan (L-1). Two days in the country, two major stories.

The story about the sister-town exchange takes up so much space, there wasn't room for any Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck municipal news. 

Just desserts

In Better Living, only three of the 11 paragraphs in Staff Writer Elisa Ung's three-star review of Velo in Nyack, N.Y., discuss the food.

If it weren't for all the space the restaurant reviewer gives to a travelogue and the owner's resume -- and a wasted paragraph on the four desserts she made room for -- she could have told readers if the pork tenderloin was raised naturally or whether the restaurant serves fish.

Earthquake victims are back in the news

Image via Wikipedia

Japanese students visiting Glen Rock will have their first McDonald's Happy Meal, then see how a steady fast-food diet led to the growth of a 570-ton tumor. The tour guide will be Editor Francis Scandale of The Record.

After the devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March, The Record's local assignment desk couldn't find the address of the Japanese-American Society in Fort Lee or the big Japanese supermarket in Edgewater.


One minion suggested sending a reporter and photographer to Newark Liberty International Airport to interview Japanese residents rushing home to find missing relatives.


But head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes feared the staffers would jump on a plane to escape incompetent junior editors who knew less than they do about covering news.


So six days after the March 11 disaster, Editor Francis Scandale discovered that Glen Rock, where he lives, has a sister city in Japan "just 22 miles southwest" of the stricken nuclear plant, and cleared the front page for the story -- the first of several that mined this relationship for all it was worth.


Staff Writer Evonne Coutros even went out of her way to include broken English in the e-mails Glen Rock residents received from Japan.


They're back 


Page 1 today reports 14 eighth-grade students from Onomachi, Japan, arrived on Wednesday for a nine-day visit. Stay tuned for more.


Rocks in their heads


On A-8, the continuation page, a 570-ton boulder -- not Scandale living there -- is listed as Gen Rock's "notable feature." 


"We're all just guessing," Governor Christie says in the lead A-1 story on the possible New Jersey impact of a government default.


"I don't want to add to the hysteria," he went on, referring to how state residents have reacted to his cutting programs for the poor, women and working families.


An editorial on A-20 notes Christie's energy plan is silent on mass transit. Come to think of it, the same can be said of the paper's transportation reporters, including Road Warrior John Cichowski.


Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin publishes yet another laudatory OpEd column about Christie by Carl Golden, former press aide to two Republican governors (A-21).


Crime pays for studies


In Sykes' Local section, the big news today is $1.4 million in new funding to study police consolidation in 16 Bergen County towns. Don't hold your breath for stories on actual mergers.


The breaking news from Englewood is a 12-inch story on two burglaries at the same  Carvel shop on Grand Avenue (L-6). Sweet.

ADD knocks disaster in Japan off front page

Image by birdphone via Flickr

Rock Road in Glen Rock. This is the size of the rock in Editor Francis Scandale's head. 

It took only about eight days for Editor Francis Scandale and all the other editors at The Record with attention-deficit disorder to find an excuse to knock the disaster in Japan off Page 1 today. It's buried on A-14.

Reporters and photographers presumably had complained about how exhausted they were leaving the Woodland Park newsroom in search of the Japanese who live in North Jersey -- as the clueless assignment desk under Editor Deirdre Sykes tried desperately to localize the story. 

King-size and then some

We know Governor Cristie is in bed with all the police chiefs whose salaries aren't capped, but now we find out the mattress must be the size of Hackensack to accommodate all of those snobby charter school officials (A-1).

Food prices have been rising for several weeks now, so the news copy desk is from hunger with that outdated head on A-1 today: "Higher food prices coming your way."

Office-loving columnist

You know by today's L-1 Road Warrior column that Staff Writer John Cichowski has never spoken to NJ Transit bus drivers who compete with all of those privately owned commuter vans. 

They're grateful for the help, because the bigger buses are standing-room-only during the rush hour and simply can't accommodate more passengers.

Sour-grapes journalism

In the years after Scandale left The Denver Post for The Record (2001), the former Hackensack daily always seemed to carry an inordinate number of stories about the Mile High City.

Image by birdphone via Flickr

Scandale moved to Glen Rock then, because he couldn't afford Ridgewood on his six-figure salary. 

The other day, he discovered Glen Rock has a sister city in Japan, and milked that for three days. Today, Glen Rock's talented youth are all over the Better Living front. So is Ridgewood talent-less?

What's next? Glen Rock as the ideal American town? 

Fractured writing

Reporter Jean Rimbach writes infrequently, but she really breaks news when she does, as in today's L-2 story, which reports that Gore Vidal, Barbie, King George III and the Rolling Stones -- all go to high school in New Jersey.

Here's her lede:

"From Gore Vidal to Barbie, King George III to the Rolling Stones, teenagers from around the Garden State tested their knowledge on an eclectic array of history questions Saturday in an academic competition at Ridgewood High School."

I guess the news copy editors -- who are treated like shit by Scandale, Sykes and the other dayside editors -- deliberately overlook such obvious errors so that Rimbach and other bad writers look like fools.

Either that or they're asleep.

Please tell me the whole story

Image via Wikipedia















Look at that Page 1 photo of a fully loaded garbage truck seemingly suspended over a stream in Glen Rock, where Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale lives. Pretty dramatic. Read the caption, then the so-called story on L-6. Have questions? The answers are nowhere to be found today in The Record of Woodland Park.

Next to that A-1 photo, a story says the state has to borrow $2.25 billion to pay bills. Gee, would revenue from a millionaires' tax Governor Christie refused to impose on the Borgs and his rich friends help cut the borrowing? What about raising the low gasoline tax? No answers here.


I get a real kick out of the front-page story today on the new Meadowlands stadium, and the incomprehensible sidebar on A-6 about parking. Did jock-itching, high-fiving, ass-slapping Scandale put this on the front page to expose how the teams are gouging fans -- from $1,000 personal seat licenses to $25 parking passes to $19 steak sandwiches? Nope. These stories seem to promote, nay celebrate, the venue.


The same reporter, John Brennan, had two more stories about the new stadium on Thursday, though they looked out of place in the Local news section. Don't expect anything hard-hitting from Brennan, who has a lucrative public-relations career ahead of him. Do you think we'll see an editorial suggesting "Rip-Off the Fans Stadium" as the new name? 


Back to the garbage truck hanging over the stream. That L-6 photo is huge -- to fill space the Local staff and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes couldn't possibly fill. That's also why there are three wire obituaries (on people no one has heard about before) filling a half-page of L-5, and Star-Ledger stories about a man in East Brunswick (L-3) and a town near Cherry Hill (L-2).


The story about the garbage truck, by veteran reporter Merry Firschein, doesn't name the stream and doesn't say how much diesel oil was spilled, whether the driver was speeding, lost his brakes or fell asleep; whether police issued a summons or summonses; or whether the state or town will be suing the truck owner to recover cleanup costs. 



Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado writes about the plans of a Hackensack restaurant to expand and reopen, while ignoring  the problems of Main Street restaurants and other food businesses, some of which have closed during the recession, made worse by the move of hundreds of North Jersey Media Group employees out of the city. 

Did she do a story on The Restaurant on Prospect Avenue because it is represented by Joseph Ferriero, the onetime Democratic power broker?  

Does anyone edit any of these stories? What about Dan Sforza and the other clueless assignment editors? What about the news-cum-layout editors? What about the news copy editors? Or do the copy editors merely resign themselves to just processing an endless stream of waste matter, knowing that any attempt to improve stories or even make them complete will be soundly rejected by Scandale, Sykes and their minions?  

(Photo: New Meadowlands stadium and train station.)

The worst governor ever?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Do you need more evidence Republican Chris Christie -- in less than four months in office -- is rolling up a record that will earn him the worst-governor-ever title in New Jersey? Forget the bully pulpit. He's just a bully -- taking out his budget problems on schoolchildren, teachers, mass transit users and many others, while scoring big points with the rich and powerful business owners who bankrolled his campaign.

Now, as The Record of Woodland Park reports on Page 1 today, he's denied reappointment to the only African-American state Supreme Court justice and nominated a lawyer who has defended corporations to replace him. Christie is out to remake one of the most respected high courts in the nation; he complains it is too progressive.

At least the Editorial Page today has the good sense to call Christie's court maneuvers what they are: "Politics." Let's hope the Legislature stops his nomination cold.

Why crowd this court story into two columns on the front page? "Christie's high court makeover" suggests it's already accomplished -- far from the truth. Then look at the other ridiculous headline at the top of the page: "Costlier commute is reality." You can imagine a similar headline on a murder story: "Man is dead."

On the front of Local, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado reports Police Chief Ken Zisa has been suspended with pay -- then finally gets around to sharing with readers his inflated salary: $191,606. What has she been waiting for?

But there isn't much local news today, judging from the big photo of a minor traffic accident on L-1. Glen Rock, where Editor Frank Scandale lives, has an education story for the second day in a row -- while Hackensack schools and Englewood's segregated elementary and middle schools are ignored for yet another edition. Could you find a more wonderful head assignment editor than Deirdre Sykes?