Stale Cuba reporting distracts from Christie's 'dictatorship'

11:30 a.m. FRIDAY: Getting a new driver's license at the state motor vehicle agency in North Bergen took about an hour from when I got on line behind a dozen other people, above, outside the building in a shopping center at 90th Street and Bergenline Avenue. Last Tuesday, I went to the Lodi agency, but was told the wait was at least 2 hours.

12:10 p.m. FRIDAY: I waited on an even longer line inside the building to have my documents checked, then was in sight of the camera, above. After my photo was taken and I paid with a credit card, I had to wait about 10 minutes more for the making and laminating of the license itself. The clerk said I may be able to renew by mail when my 4-year license expires in 2019. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When a pope visits Cuba, Editors like Martin Gottlieb of The Record and reporters like Mike Kelly always manage to find a long-suffering island resident who complains about the lack of free elections and yearns for democracy.

Yet, on the third day of Kelly's stale reporting from Cuba, The Record is silent on how special-interest money, a gullible media and voter apathy have made a mockery of free elections in the United States, including New Jersey.

Despite inheriting a Democratic majority in the state Legislature, Governor Christie has managed to get his own way and wage war on the middle class by executing more than 350 vetoes since early 2010.

And despite all his bluster, Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney, a Democrat from Camden County, has failed to overturn a single Christie veto.

The GOP dictator won his first term by promising to lower property taxes and save millions through consolidation of inefficient local governments, but accomplished neither.

Page 1 news?

Local readers don't find much to interest them on Page 1 today unless they are Catholic or Rutgers football fans (A-1).

From Havana, Kelly files a rewrite of the stories The Record published when other popes visited Cuba.

The first pope to visit Cuba, in 1998, was John Paul II, so what it meant by the use of "historic visit" in front-page coverage today of Pope Francis' trip to the biggest island in the Caribbean?

Pope Benedict XVI also visited the island in 2012.

Local news?

Why does a fundraiser for the Girl Scouts get such big play on the Local front today?

It's because they staged their "rappelling fundraiser" in the same Woodland Park building where The Record and Herald News rent space for a newsroom and executive offices, though there is no mention of that (L-1).

That meant the lazy local assignment editors didn't have to move a finger to send a reporter and a photographer to cover "the big story."

After The Record moved to 1 Garret Mountain Plaza from Hackensack in 2009, the number of stories and photos on nearby Route 80 accidents and other neighborhood happenings rose dramatically.

Missing pages?

Today, the Business editors publish a "reporter's notebook" on the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce's first business summit (B-1).

Staff Writer Hugh R. Morley managed to cover a dozen speakers, "some saying the state faces an emergency situation, and even a 'crisis'," without once mentioning Christie.

Did Morley lose pages of his notebook or did the Woodland Park editors sanitize his story on B-1 today?

Opinion columns

On the Opinion front, don't bother with a second rambling Kelly column on the pope's visit to Cuba, but do turn to Brigid Harrison's piece under the headline:

"Christie learns where pandering gets you"

"The man who spoke about putting the country's domestic house in order occasionally comes home to New Jersey to a ransacked and ramshackle state, with little vision for how we can get our own house in order," Harrison says of Christie on O-2.

Media's obsession with political conflict cheats readers

Tulips blooming in Manhattan's Central Park last Sunday.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Conflict. Controversy. Confusion.

The Record and other news media love conflict, and every issue is presented in such a way as to fan the flames of controversy and confuse issues.

A legislative proposal is never presented on its merits. 

For example, on Friday's first Business page, a Democrat proposes to suspend corporate tax breaks until the state Treasurer documents the cost to New Jersey.

That sounds reasonable, given the low level of job creation in return for hundred of millions of dollars in corporate incentives.

Instead, The Record's prints a vicious reaction from the spokesman for Governor Christie, a Republican.

"We don't respond to the political games of notorious, unashamed partisans," said Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts (Friday's B-2).

To confuse the matter further, the story by Staff Writer Hugh R. Morley completely omits any data on the state's unemployment rate, job creation or anything else that would allow readers to judge the merits of the proposal by Sen. Ray Lesniak, D-Union.

Political column

Since Christie took office in early 2010, Record Columnist Charles Stile has specialized in analyzing the GOP bully's every word, burp and fart in terms of their political impact, most of the time on Page 1.

You never see Stile discussing whether a Christie policy is good for the state. His job is to spin it and try to measure the impact on the governor's White House dreams.

Politics causes gridlock in Washington and Trenton, and it also is one of the most boring subjects one can imagine in a general interest newspaper.

The real story behind the politics -- the battle of the wealthy against the middle and working classes -- is never told.

Inside journalism

Would you believe that Stile has been honored by The Society of Silurians, a nationwide organization, for editorial writing and commentary?

That was the case even though his column is never labeled as "opinion" or "commentary" -- apparently to fool readers into thinking Political Stile is objective reporting.

The Silurians' awards aren't intended to gauge service to readers; that isn't even a factor in the judging.

In fact, Stile's fellow journalists cited him for "a yearlong series of riveting columns that chronicled in keen-eyed detail the political evolution of the embattled governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie" (Thursday's L-3).

Riveting? What about the uncounted thousands who are put to sleep by Stile and The Record's other veteran columnists, including Mike Kelly and Road Warrior John Cichowski?

Today's paper

We won't find out the truth about Christie's role in the September 2013 George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal until he and others testify under oath in federal court.

Today, Stile reports Christie defended cheating quarterback Tom Brady, and Staff Writer Melissa Hayes says the governor repeated the same I-knew-nothing answer to a Bridgegate questioner in New Hampshire (A-1).

Meanwhile, the Christie lawyers who whitewashed his role in the lane closings have billed the state $311,000 more, bringing their total fees to $7.8 million (A-4).

Hackensack news

The Record is reporting a $4.5 million tax-appeal settlement with Hackensack University Medical Center from the viewpoint of the City Council's political opponents (L-1).

That's pretty much the way almost every story on City Council actions and policies has been reported since a reform slate took over in 2013, defeating allies of the Zisa family.

Even though the election was "non-partisan," we are still talking Democrats (losers) v. Republicans (winners).

Readers don't have any way of judging the arguments presented in today's he said/she said story by Staff Writer Todd South, who is reporting what happened at Tuesday night's council meeting.

At one point, school board attorney Richard Salkin is actually quoted as predicting how a court would rule on the hospital's challenge to a 2008 air-rights agreement he "authored" (L-5).

Nowhere does South report Salkin was totally unconcerned about a $1 million loss to the city when it was discovered the school board had never been billed for a high school resource officer.

According to press reports at the time, Salkin advised the board not to pay the city.

Editors see politics in every Christie belch, burp and fart

Plunging gasoline prices continue to have an adverse impact on the environment: Sales of hybrid cars fall, owners postpone trading in their gas guzzlers for more efficient vehicles and many people drive more, aggravating air pollution. This Delta station is in Teaneck.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

For the third time this week, The Record's front page features Editor Marty Gottlieb's Three Bimbos, including yet another Charles Stile column on how Governor Christie's actions play in Iowa.

The third bimbo, inmate Teresa "Real Housewife" Giudice, appears in a Page 1 brief.

Stile isn't even doing any original reporting, but merely regurgitating "Republican operatives and donors in ... Christie's corner," as his first sentence notes (A-1).

Missing from nearly every Stile column in the past five years is how Christie's actions play in New Jersey, where he has tried to kill the middle class and repeatedly vetoed a tax surcharge on millionaires.

GWB scandal

Today's off-lead is Staff Writer Shawn Boburg's retrospective on the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal -- one year after the media uncovered an explosive e-mail from Christie's chief of staff:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

But even this story tries to put Christie's likely involvement in political retribution against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee in the best light.

Boburg's second paragraph notes the e-mail "unleashed a massive political scandal ... and caused changes big and small" (A-1).

Though the reporter mentions "action by the legislatures in both New Jersey and New York," he is silent on the veto of those reform packages by Christie and his New York counterpart.

So, it's unclear what Port Authority "reforms" are being cited in the Page 1 headline.

And The Record and other media haven't acknowledged their failure to uncover the roles of Christie aides and cronies in the scandal in the two months before his November 2013 re-election. 

Paris massacre

Gottlieb, former global editions editor of The New York Times, gave up business trips to Paris for a trans-Hudson commute.

But in today's Page 1 coverage of the attack on a satirical newspaper in Paris, no one asks whether police could have prevented the killing of 12 people on Wednesday.

That was the same way Gottlieb handled the invasion of Westfield Garden State Plaza by a disturbed young man with a rifle on Nov. 4, 2013.

The show of force by Paramus police was too late to prevent panic among shoppers and employees, as well as the man's suicide.

Mercedes-Benz

Two more stories on the move of Mercedes-Benz USA to Atlanta appear in the paper today (A-1 and B-1).

Staff Writer Hugh R. Morley tries to compare the quality of life in Charlotte and Atlanta -- including restaurants, museums and art center -- to North Jersey, where residents and visitors have the world's greatest city, New York, just across the river.

The stories also put into context the loss of up to 1,000 jobs by 2017, when Mercedes is expected to move into a new U.S. headquarters in Atlanta.

Mercedes' employees are a small fraction of the more than 22,000 workers who commute to corporate headquarters in Montvale, Park Ridge and Woodcliff Lake every day (B-2).

Reporter deserves a pat on the back

Image by Ed Yourdon via Flickr













Business reporter Hugh R. Morley deserves a hearty well-done today for his profile of an Oakland man who lost his job two years ago and who remains unemployed. It's filled with detail, and the reporter does a good job of exploring all the sacrifices the man and his family have made.


The story gets the play it deserves, on the front page of The Record of Woodland Park, but a nagging question remains: Why have the editors waited so long to try and tell the story of North Jersey's long-term jobless? Would a man out of work only one year make for a less-compelling story? And is this the only story readers will see?


I heard a horror story about a former colleague who left The Record more than two years ago, but have been unable to confirm the details. Surely, there are other stories about the long-term unemployed out there. Why stop at just one? 


Nothing says more about the abysmal state of local news under the so-called guidance of head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes than the lead story on the front of L-1 today. When the addition of turn lanes and traffic signals to a downtown intersection dominates the Local news section, you can only throw up your hands in disbelief and disgust.

The headline, "Traffic plan inches ahead," is about as dull as you can get. For the second week in a row, the word "inches" appears in black headline type. Last week, it was associated -- nonsensically -- with Hurricane Earl.


Now, the Johnson Public Library apparently has become so alarmed about the lack of Hackensack government news in The Record in the past couple of years that it is giving a seminar on "the city's inner works," according to an L-2 headline.


The story was written by Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado, who joins Sykes in shouting to all far and wide, "See, naysayers. We cover Hackensack government."


No. They cover their asses.

More sloppy work

A careless reporter, a sleepy news copy editor and the desk supervisor at The Record of Woodland Park combined to produce an embarrassing typo yesterday.

In a story about the Baha'i faith on L-6 in Local, the reporter, Hugh R. Morely,  misspelled it as Baja'i in the second paragaph. The copy editor, probably just awakened from a nap Sunday night, grabbed a hold of the misspelling and put it in really big letters in the main headline.

The desk supervisor completely missed it. The newspaper is so pathetic these days, no correction ran today on Page A-2.