On Page 1: Christie on trail, Mets, local trial -- readers yawn

The sign, visible to drivers on Route 4 east, went up in late July, but this walk-in urgent care center didn't open until Oct. 5. Patients presumably will get coupons for use at the Popeyes fast-food restaurant next door.

A vintage Volkswagen Microbus parked in the lot this morning carries the CityMD logo, but it's not known if patients will be transported in it.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Even the preview of a sensational Teaneck murder trial below the fold today can't save The Record's front page from being one of the dullest in memory. 

What's new about our absentee governor doing a good imitation of a chameleon on the presidential campaign trail or a sports columnist desperately trying to interest readers in the Mets (A-1)?

The real news about Governor Christie is buried -- a new poll turns even more thumbs down on the GOP bully (A-6).

The debate among Democratic presidential contenders won't be a contest (A-1).

But it will affirm to many voters that all is not lost, despite conservative control of Congress, the National Rifle Association and a Republican Party that seems intent on destroying the middle class.

Local news?

The Local front isn't any gift to readers, either.

A county road-salt plan is all the Hackensack news today, but if that doesn't interest you, there is plenty of parking news from Paterson and Passaic city (L-1 and L-2).

Local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza were so desperate they had to run a large, gee-whiz photo of downed utility poles and wires on Routes 1 and 9 on the fringe of the circulation area (L-1).

There are four other items from Paterson on L-2 and L-3 besides the story on the Local front about a parking garage proposal for the Great Falls.

Eye on The Record 

will return later this week

Christie caught in another whopper

At least one reporter at The Record and many editors aren't aware the agency changed its name in 2004.

A 29-page report from the General Accountability Office says Governor Christie doesn't just eat Whoppers.


When it comes to the Hudson River rail tunnels he scrapped in 2010, Christie told a lot of whoppers about potential cost overruns, taxpayer exposure and other issues, the GAO said.


(The name of the agency -- the investigative arm of Congress -- was changed in 2004 from General Accounting Office, but the column on Page 1 of The Record today uses the old name.)


The GAO report comes as no surprise to residents who recall all the shucking and jiving the GOP bully did after the state blew $400 million in federal education money.


Times broke story


The New York Times broke the GAO story, not The Record.


Although Charles Stile doesn't know the agency's new name, his column today is one of the few clearly critical accounts he's written about Christie (A-1).


"He routinely tells fawning television talk show hosts how he closed an $11 billion to $13 billion budget deficit, when, in fact, he didn't," Stile reports today on A-6.


Grabbed $4B


After Christie killed the project, he grabbed $4 billion in Port Authority and New Jersey Turnpike money for the state Transporation Trust Fund, avoiding the need to raise the low gasoline tax to fix roads and rebuild bridges.


Stile says "that allowed Christie to keep his campaign pledge not to raise taxes. That also bolstered his national reputation. That looks like it was the priority all along."


Neither the news story nor the column on A-1 today reports that by killing the rail tunnels to Manhattan, Christie set back the progress of public transit a decade or more.


High-heel hysteria


Nor is there any mention Christie told the media the overweight first lady didn't like the project, because she would have to walk too far to connect to the New York City subway.


On the front of Local, readers are puzzled by what purports to be a photo of the Great Falls in Paterson after the Passaic River was diverted (L-1).


Broken headline


They're also scratching their heads over the headline on the Road Warrior column, which says, "Topping off tank may do car harm."


But the column clearly says filling the tank with as much gasoline as possible would result in "poor gas mileage" and escaping fumes would contribute "to air  pollution."


Neither of those would "harm" or hurt the car, so the headline is incorrect. 


More troubling is yet another piece by Staff Writer John Cichowski that relies on reader e-mails, instead of reporting on commuting problems -- the column's original mission.


Is today's paper the best Editors Marty Gottlieb, Deirdre Sykes and Liz Houlton can do?

Transportation reporters are trippin'

Image via Wikipedia

A commuter bus, followed by a private transit van, emerges from the Lincoln Tunnel in Manhattan. So-called Spanish buses take the overflow from NJ Transit's SRO buses.

Manhattan-bound trains are standing-room-only and packed buses inch into the Lincoln Tunnel every weekday morning, so what do transportation reporters at The Record of Woodland Park write about?


If you're Staff Writer Karen Rouse, you comb your e-mail for press releases on surveys, reports, studies and grants that you can shape into a "transportation" story with a few phone calls -- the better to ignore the agencies you're supposed to cover, NJ Transit and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.


No news today


Today, Rouse reports on drivers who can't afford to fix their cars. What does this have to do with her beat, and why is someone who skipped repairing his car's air conditioner Page 1 news?


More relevant -- and a story on her beat she has never done -- are the largely minority North Jersey residents who can't afford to own a car and rely on decrepit NJ Transit local buses to get around.


Maybe Rouse gets a pass because she was hand-picked for The Record by Editor Francis Scandale from their old newspaper in Denver.


She moved into a Hackensack apartment next to the tracks, but that's the closest she has come to a real story on the sad state of public transportation in North Jersey.


A Will and a way


Get a load of Columnist George Will's fairy tale about Governor Christie and the millionaires tax he rejects (A-11).


Far better reading is the piece on the Great Falls by E.A. Smyk, the Passaic County historian (A-11).


Two sensational crime stories dominate the front of Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, which is put out by the laziest news assignment desk in North America, South America and the Caribbean.


A second major "transportation" story appears just below that -- on federal grants to repave streets in five towns -- by the hard-working Rouse. You just can't stop her.


Even with Rouse and a second reporter, Shawn Boburg, ignoring important public-transportation stories, the editors might argue Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski is taking up the slack.


But Cichowski has been stuck in the same groove of writing about driving minutiae for years. Here's a comment from a reader of northjersey.com on a recent Road Warrior column:

1. SUNDAY AUGUST 21, 2011, 4:56 PM
   wondering says:
   The Road Warrior situation has no clear exit strategy. This column continues to offer clueless advice and inaccurate info. UNBEKNOWNST TO THE ROAD WARRIOR, Pascack Valley�s dense population and crowded roads began their assault decades ago, and not just recently as was reported in today�s column. Traffic back-ups at GSP exit 168 at Washington Ave. have existed for more than 2 decades and certainly was not the last, as reported in today�s column, of many chronic Pascack Valley trouble spots. VANISHING INTELLIGENCE by clueless drivers and reporters seem to make them worried about the imminent end of driving safety, as we know it, if those missing white lines east of Route 4 and 208 junction are not immediately repainted. I have never been confused or saw any drivers confused or driving erratically due to any missing lines recently or in the many years of driving at that junction. MISSING SIGNS OF INTELLIGENCE seem to flourish for those concerned about that missing itty, bitty Route 4 sign well in advance on Route 20. I and thousands of drivers have had no problems exiting Route 20 on the left with the larger Route 4 exit sign nearer to the exit. WASTING TIME seems to be a frequent occurrence with the endless, inaccurate, and clueless reporting on MVC problems and long lines that continually conflict with MVC official quotes and claims that long lines are �much shorter�. Even with today's interesting tidbit of another MVC problem, the MVC situation is much worse than the Road Warrior ever reports.
   SUNDAY AUGUST 21, 2011, 1:15 PM

Bow wow


On Page L-11 today, two men are shown sitting in chairs facing the camera, and each has his hands folded, but the caption identifies them as American and Japanese auto executives "exchanging greetings" at a news conference on Monday.


On Saturday, months after watermelons appeared in the market, Better Living ran a cover story on how to choose one. Today, with fall in the air, the cover food story is on Asian cold-noodle dishes that refresh you in hot weather.

Readers are stuck, too

Image via Wikipedia

Theodore C. Sorensen died on Sunday at 82.

The featured piece on Page 1 today is a sob story about the thousands of homeowners who can't afford to live in North Jersey or leave. The headline declares: "Stuck with no exit." What about the tens of thousands of readers who are stuck with The Record of Woodland Park?

Where are readers going to turn when editors and reporters routinely ignore their concerns -- from the quality of local governments to the need for more mass transit to ease choking traffic congestion to a desire for a newspaper that doesn't depend almost completely on handouts, reports and surveys for story ideas.

Editor Francis Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and their lazy minions could have done a lot more with today's paper. 

The A-1 real estate story should have been honest with readers and acknowledged the factors that grossly inflated housing values before the recession let all the air out. And some of the sad stories are from homeowners who refuse to sell unless they make a killing. Who says the sale of a condo or home is supposed to make you rich?

The paper also should acknowledge the importance of real estate advertising to its bottom line and the special section Publisher Stephen A. "Greedy Stevie" Borg created -- largely to celebrate the industry and paint a rosy picture of home ownership, while hiding the shocking amount of interest banks charge over the 30 years of a mortgage.

$3.65M company mortgage

Thanks to a company mortgage, the young, arrogant Tarnished Silver Spoon lives in a $3.65 million dollar Tenafly mansion while many of his staffers can't afford even a modest home in Bergen County.

The death of Theodore C. Sorensen, the eloquent confidant of President John F. Kennedy, could have been a platform for one of The Record's political writers to note that what Republican and Tea Party candidates in Tuesday's election really are saying is:

"Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what you can do for yourself."

Today's Local section contains only three stories that could be considered municipal news, but nothing from Hackensack or Englewood or a lot of other towns.

Buried in the back of the section (L-6) is an inspiring vision of Great Falls National Park in Paterson, with a gorgeous photo by staffer Tyson Trish. Why isn't this story on the front of the section or even on Page 1 with this great photo blown up to a size readers can appreciate?

The likely reason is that Scandale and Sykes, who I'm guessing rarely visit Paterson, have spent years portraying the Silk City as a center of drugs and prostitution that have ruined many suburban lives, and as a murder capitol.

Clown loose in food store

What happens when you turn a clown loose in H Mart in Ridgefield, a large Korean supermarket that has one of the best selections of fresh fish, Asian greens and other produce in North Jersey? 

See the Better Living front, where Staff Writer Bill Ervolino chooses to buy and eat mystery pork and beef, and in the process makes fun of one of his Korean guides' English and parodies her diet, focusing on live octopus while ignoring all the healthy tofu and vegetables Koreans eat in main and side dishes.