Delivering another slow-news edition

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Tolls are going up for New Jersey buses. Above, the midtown Manhattan bus terminal.

The Port Authority raised Hudson River tolls and PATH fares on Aug. 19, so why are readers of The Record just finding out today the hikes apply to thousands of NJ Transit and private buses, too?

Tolls will hit buses hard

Strapped operators may pass hike on to riders

Editor Liz Holton's news copy desk tries hard to sell the Page 1 story with those headlines, but no bus company quoted says it has decided to raise fares to compensate.

The $4 toll on buses is going up 150% -- to $10 on Sept. 18 -- and will continue to rise every year until it tops out at $13 in 2015, Staff Writer Karen Rouse reports.

There are holes in this story big enough for a No. 165 NJ Transit bus. 

Pedestrian reporting

Rouse doesn't say whether the toll hikes apply to all those commuter vans --which take the overflow from NJ Transit and other operators -- because Editor Francis Scandale told her their riders speak little English and don't buy the paper anyway.

And Rouse doesn't bother questioning Port Authority officials on what huge bus toll hikes say about the bistate agency's commitment to mass transit.

Three embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today, including the use of an incorrect photo for a 9/11 victim. But both men are dead and can't sue.

I don't think hapless flood victims will be amused by Margulies' cartoon caption: "Shower ... Rinse ... Repeat ..." (A-10).

Water on the brain

In an OpEd piece by James Ahearn, the former managing editor doesn't mention how strongly the paper's editors oppose a tunnel to funnel flood waters to Newark Bay (A-11).

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes has argued that without repeated flooding, her local-news assignment desk -- the world's laziest -- wouldn't have anything to cover.

Commuters hoping for news besides the toll hikes on buses won't find anything today from Road Warrior John Cichowski, who is on litter patrol (L-1).

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes has another Englewood story today (L-3), her fourth in four days.

However, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado seems to be covering everything but the city she is assigned to.

I'm surprised Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais didn't call first before schlepping into the city on a bus, only to find the French tourist office had moved and is no longer open to the public (L-9).

But at least DeMarrais provides readers with more information on how online reviews on Yelp and other sites can be manufactured to put restaurants in a good light.

Second look

Most photographers aren't "word people," but Thomas E. Franklin's moving piece on 9/11 photographers on Tuesday showed he is both an accomplished photographer and an accomplished writer.

In fact, his lean, powerful style puts to shame Columnists Mike Kelly, John Cichowski and others who seem to be pushing around words or whose florid prose leaves readers dumbfounded.

Editor ignores the pain all around him

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Dioxins aren't evident in this photo of the Passaic River in Essex County.

Editor Francis Scandale is a lot more comfortable dramatizing events on the other side of the world than reporting on what his readers are experiencing every day.


Contrast the large photo of African famine on The Record's front page today with the lack of local reporting on the widening wealth gap between whites, blacks and Hispanics -- a shocking story he buried on Page L-7 on Tuesday.


Readers know Scandale gave the boot to the paper's only Hispanic and black columnists, and that the departure of Staff Writer Liz Llorente has meant fewer stories about North Jersey's Latino community.


But this well-off white guy -- who works for a filthy rich, white publisher -- has no shame in showing his true color when it comes to covering minorities.


And if he is going to put a famine photo on the front page, why would this editor or any editor shy away from the one of a 7-pound, 7-month-old near skeleton that was relegated to A-9 today? 


Why wasn't this photo on Page 1? Too shocking for your readers, Francis?


Freedom to pollute


The upbeat A-1 story on the cleanup of the Passaic River never explains why it took more than 40 years for the battle to reach Superior Court ("Company found liable for river cleanups"). 


Nor does it tell readers the suit likely will drag on in the courts for two or three more years before the polluters have to pay anything. 


And would you look at that nonsensical drop headline from Liz Houlton's news copy desk, "Dioxin bill could cost hundreds of millions." Does a bill "cost" money?


NIMBY


New Jersey officials have jumped through hoops for decades to subvert the state Supreme Court's Mount Laurel rulings and keep poor people out of their towns, but you wouldn't know that from James Ahearn's obit for the Council on Affordable Housing (A-11).


Stepping in where head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes refuses to go, another OpEd column today details the impact of Governor Christie's budget cuts on children and working families in Englewood, Teaneck, Hacensack and Fort Lee (A-11).


Three cheers for Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, who wrote the column, and a chorus of boos for the clueless local assignment editors.



After a break to write about pets left in hot cars, Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski returns today to beating the dead horse of long lines at MVC offices (L-1). 


You wouldn't know from his campaign that readers have to go to an MVC office only once every four years, and can conduct other business by mail.


Stuff your face


Just in time for the obesity epidemic, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill devotes her single recipe of the week to mixed-berry streusel pie, which is made with a stick and a half of butter, cream cheese and sugar (F-1).


In his Sunday column on supermarket promotions and food shopping in North Jersey, Staff Writer Kevin DeMarrais completely ignores Korean supermarkets and such warehouse stores as Costco Wholesale in Bergen, Passaic and Morris counties.


The Korean markets are especially strong on produce and fresh fish, while Costco's balance of low prices, high quality and variety can't be matched by any other food store.


At least his Your Money's Worth column appears to contain the paper's first acknowledgement of a decision to sell land in Hackensack to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Editors climb into bed with Christie

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The Road Warrior tackles boating issues at the start of Fleet Week.

Why is Governor Christie's statement on the state Supreme Court education ruling printed in full on Page A-13 today?

This unprecedented sellout by Editor Francis Scandale, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin and OpEd Page Editor Peter Grad is the journalism equivalent of a blow job.

If Doblin again has climbed into bed to have sex with the Republican bully, Scandale or Grad better join them to prevent the governor from rolling over and snuffing out their diminutive colleague. 

More Christie coverage

Christie also is quoted in the Page 1 story by Staff Writer Leslie Brody and in Doblin's A-12 editorial, both of which continue to portray court-ordered education funding as a battle between rich and poor -- while ignoring the broken property-tax and home-rule systems.

More Christie jaw-boning appears in the column by Staff Writer Charles Stile on A-8. Enough already.

The Christie statement on unlucky A-13 also displaced Jim Ahearn's column -- on Bergen Community College President Jerry Ryan -- from its usual spot at the top of the page.

This is the first time I've seen an editor or former editor publicly criticize any story as ill-conceived, unfair and poorly reported.

Journalism whores

Of course, Ahearn is referring to last week's Page 1 hatchet jobs on Ryan's expense account from head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Staff Writer Pat Alex. What trash.

In a nod to the start of Fleet Week in New York, Road Warrior John Cichowski makes commuters sea sick with an L-1 column on boating (&*@????#!$%).

Staff Writer John Gavin's assignment editor deserves a journalism award for guiding his story on the purchase of breathing equipment for Wood-Ridge  firefighters (L-2).

Imagine the local news possibilities. A story could be written on every purchase by the hundreds of municipal agencies in North Jersey -- from ambulances to firetrucks and police cruisers to more breathing apparatus.

Missed story

The Woodland Park daily hasn't covered the liquidation in Hackensack of the Best Western Oritani Hotel and adjoining Ichiban Japanese steakhouse, which are closed and will be demolished to make way for apartments.

The liquidator, a tall, gray-haired man, said Wednesday this is the first time in his 20 years in business the media have ignored such a liquidation in a city the size of Hackensack. It began May 5.

Long-time staffers may remember the Oritani as one of the hotels where management put them up during blizzards and floods.

Another ho

Better Living's comprehensive food coverage continues today with a recipe and cookbook promotion by Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill (F-1). 

Sherrill appears beholden to promote every free cookbook that lands on her desk.

Road Warrior puts driving foot in mouth

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The Chevy Volt. Errors by Road Warrior John Cichowski continue to mount.

A reader of northjersey.com points out errors in John Cichowski's recent column for The Record on the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid, which the reporter insists on incorrectly calling an "electric" car:

"The Road Clown rides again for a good laugh. Check out link below for a FIOS1 follow-up video interview with John based on his 4/24 online article on the Chevy Volt.  In speaking about students not using NJ-mandated seat belts in school buses [start at 3-minute point of the video], John mistakenly indicates that “it took years for the NJ legislature to BAN [instead of correctly stating something like “require” or ”mandate”] belts on school buses…… [Hee! Hee!]  As I was laughing about how John not only confuses his readers, but he now also confuses himself, the FIOS interviewer never corrected hm.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/transportation/road_warrior/120560019_Volt_not_green_enough.html

"John also apparently likes to double-down on his mistakes. In his 4/24 article, he thoughtlessly repeated over and over the Volt did not qualify for NY’s Clean Pass [toll discount] due to relatively lower fuel efficiency in gas mode. He then repeated this same nonsense on the FIOS1 interview.

"Based on past experience, John thinks that repeating something over and over makes everything he states correct.  However, John was badly mistaken based on the facts, which I guess he did not bother to properly verify, for EPA’s combined fuel efficiency ratings for the electric and gas modes of the Volt are within NY Clean Pass requirements. And the NY Clean Pass Web page clearly states the Volt is not approved solely because it does not meet the more stringent, California-based emissions limits -- a second requirement for being approved for NY Clean Pass."

Eye on The Record notes Cichowski omitted saying the toll discounts denied the Volt driver from Teaneck are part of the Port Authority's Green Pass program.

The day after the column appeared, an A-2 correction noted Cichowski had erred on the Volt's gasoline mileage.

Not on my front page

What's this nonsense on Page 1 of the Woodland Park daily today? 

Do people who bought homes "less than 30 feet" from railroad tracks have any right to complain about a plan to build a station near them?

You'd think they would be thanking NJ Transit for 1) increasing the value of their homes by making mass transit available to residents, and 2) reducing noise by stopping the 30 trains that roar by every day.

But Editor Francis Scandale is so desperate for copy, he allows the reporter to disguise a not-in-my-backyard issue as one of "privacy." How ridiculous. 

The reporter even has the nerve to call the neighborhood "secluded." 

The front-page photo shows a man on his deck as a commuter train passes. His shit-eating grin tells you he is relishing the tens of thousands of dollars he saved by buying a house next to the tracks. 

Also on A-1 today is a rare obituary -- an intimate portrait of folk-jazz singer Phoebe Snow and her ties to Teaneck. 

Two embarrassing corrections on A-2 involve names that were screwed up. Getting names right is a cardinal rule of journalism, but not at The Record.

Another bad head

Who wrote the misleading headline on former Editor James Ahearn's OpEd column today (A-11)?

Ahearn doesn't link a favorable Supreme Court ruling on educational funding in the Corzine administration and Governor Christie's threat to defy the court now.

Much of the Local section is devoted to Law & Order news, with hardly a municipal story in sight. Another good job by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions.

'I'm not going to be governor in 2014'

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How did everyone miss this?

On Tuesday, in the last paragraph of a Page A-6 story on Governor Christie, Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson quotes him as saying he won't be governor in 2014 -- the year he would begin a second term. 

So does that mean he won't be running for governor again in November 2013 or that he'll seek to unseat President Obama as the conservative juggernaut of the Republican Party? There's no clue in Tuesday's paper or today's paper -- or even any comment from The Record on his statement.

In Washington for a meeting of the National Governors Association, Christie:

1. Told Katie Couric to shove her Times/CBS News poll results, showing that a majority opposes his efforts to cut the benefits of public employees.
2. Accused Obama of "playing politics" when he told the governors to play nice with public workers.
3. And commented on the president's so-called flexibility on health care reform.

"I'm not going to even be governor in 2014, so the fact that he's offering flexibility in 2014 is really of no moment to most governors who need to balance their budgets this year," Christie told Jackson.

The Woodland Park daily didn't even report the Times/CBS News poll results or Christie's comments about it and Couric, anchor of the CBS Evening News.

Fat of the land

The big news on Page 1 today is a report on how immigrants are healthier than native New Jerseyans when they arrive, but the longer they stay, their diets get worse, they smoke and drink more and they are less physically active.

Is that a commentary on North Jersey's dog-eat-dog mentality or on how the features staff bombards readers with stories on cookies, cakes, artery-clogging desserts and crappy hamburgers? 

But I liked the headline: "Arrival of the fittest." 

Too bad the news copy desk and its supervisors, Liz Houlton and Vinny Byrne, only manage a great headline every couple of months or so.

Dial-a-typo

The features copy desk again missed an incorrect phone number for a fund-raiser listed in Friday's A la Carte column in Better Living, according to a correction on A-2 today. 

Maybe the copy editors have lost their phone privileges in a cost-cutting move and can't call numbers in stories they are editing to check their accuracy. 

'The steamroller'

Another column praising Christie's style appears on A-11 today. 

James Ahearn, a former managing editor, concludes the governor has the Democratic-controlled Legislature boxed in on drastic cuts to public employee benefits in return for doubling property tax rebates.

"He will be one-up on them, one way or another," Ahearn says.

Stale news, stale headline

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Why was Paterson left out of the Page 1 story on growing diversity in North Jersey?

Growing diversity 

The splashy, front-page story in The Record today describes big changes in North Jersey from 2000 through 2009, but the main headline (above) is as stale as they get.

All the statistics and photos reviewing change in the past decade expose a huge flaw in news coverage under Editor Francis Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who prefer chasing big journalism prizes over covering local news.

For the most part, growing diversity that transformed Fairview and other communities was ignored by the reporters on the ground. And any conflict between newer and older immigrant groups -- such as Korean and Japanese residents -- never makes the paper.

The report by Staff Writers Harvy Lipman and Dave Sheingold covers many communities, but mentions Paterson only once in passing. And the writing seems clinical, completely overlooking how the huge influx of new immigrants changed North Jersey's eating habits and world view.

Roaming far afield

You don't have to look past Page 1 to see how far Columnist John Cichowski has roamed from his mission of covering commuter problems or how desperate the editors are for something -- anything -- to put on A-1.

Today, the Road Worrier seizes on a freak highway accident in Montana to deliver the breathtaking news that falling asleep while traveling at high speed in a huge, gas-guzzling SUV can be dangerous. 

Former Managing Editor James Ahearn is the first of three Record writers to identify former New Jersey Supreme Court Justice John E. Wallace as black (A-23).  

Blowhards on stage

Shmuley Boteach, that publicity hungry rabbi from Englewood, suckered the paper into covering him again with a lavish story on the front of Sykes' Local section today. Rosie O'Donnell came along for the ride. Here are comments from readers of northjersey.com:

1. Wednesday December 15, 2010, 7:16 AM - bergenNEWS says:
   "Hundreds" showed up? BergenPAC holds 1,400. Oh, wait: Bad weather, you say. Too cold to go out. Really??? You ever live anywhere outside of Jersey? Funny that you would make excuses for the poor turnout after televising the city council meeting. Common denominator in both: Huttle. Bunch o' bottom lickers you are. If you'd taken the time to research, you'd have found that Boteach is (a) ignored and (b) reviled in the community he presupposes to speak for. The only credibility he's ever had is what YOU have tried to give him. In turn, you damage your own credibility. Then you wonder why no one reads you.
   
   
2. Wednesday December 15, 2010, 7:11 AM - bergenNEWS says:
   This guy is the biggest publicity hound going, and you folks play right into it. She's nobody. He's even less. But by virtue of the fact that they managed to stage a performance, you gave it credibility. No critical thinking. No rational assessment. All knee-jerk. The killer: Neither is particularly popular anymore, so you've no justification. It certainly wasn't what you'd call high-minded. So why did you invest all that time, money and energy into it? Makes us feel you wouldn't know a real story if it kicked you in the nuts.
   
   
3. Tuesday December 14, 2010, 11:45 PM - NJ Dissident says:
   I think the both of them are a waste of time. I did enjoy the Rabbi's radio show on WABC, but this side show is an insult to any thinking person. They should have sold rotten tomatoes for the audience to throw. So much for selling your soul to show business.

Paper turns back on readers again

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Will New York City's No. 7 subway be Lucky 7 for North Jersey commuters?

The news copy desk at The Record of Woodland Park is in disarray. The stupid headlines are bad, but it's the inaccurate ones that annoy most of all. The copy desk, where I worked for 19 years, once had high standards, and copy editors who didn't meet them got poor performance reviews. Now, anything goes.

And the safety net -- proofing the early, so-called good copies of the paper just off the press -- was ripped away by Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who moved printing from Hackensack to Rockaway Township more than three years ago.


Stupid headline of the week

Virtually all of The Record's circulation is in North Jersey, so what do you make of the moronic streamer above the masthead on A-1 today? What dummy wrote it, what dummy approved it?

TAKE THE SUBWAY TO SECAUCUS? IT'S ONE IDEA ON THE TABLE. A-4

That streamer is of no interest to North Jersey residents. You wouldn't be able to "take the subway to Secaucus" unless you live in Manhattan, because the plan is to extend the subway from Manhattan to Secaucus, so North Jerseyans arriving at the huge transfer station by rail or car have another way to get into the city. 

After all, the new subway plan would use federal funds left over from the Hudson River rail tunnels Governor Christie killed based on his wife's complaint. She moaned and groaned that after getting off the train at a proposed new station under Macy's, she'd have to walk too far to catch a subway in Manhattan.

Are there any other exciting, mass-transit proposals to replace the rail tunnels? Who knows? You wouldn't know mass transit is the only solution to the region's infamous traffic congestion, because not one but two transportation reporters today are all worked up over airport scanners.

First, Staff Writer Karen Rouse has what amounts to a huge graphics package on Page 1 about the scanners, accompanied by two sidebars on A-6. Then, Road Warrior John Cichowski tries to gain altitude with an entire column about them on the front of Local. 

Rouse is Editor Francis Scandale's pet (he brought her all the way from Denver, site of his glory days), and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes thinks Chick is the cat's meow. Often, she can be seen stroking his hair as he turns another phrase.

Airport security is working

I dislike airport security as much as anyone, but in return for the inconvenience, I get to live in a country where planes aren't blown up; hotels and other buildings aren't destroyed by terrorists and I can shop for food without updating my will.

What really troubles me is how both Rouse and Cichowski disdain commuters, especially the poor souls who are stuck with NJ Transit's decrepit local bus system, which uses decades-old white elephants that are literally falling apart -- in stark contrast to buses on Manhattan routes that are changed every decade or so.

Rouse is especially disappointing, because as an African-American journalist, she has turned her back on fellow blacks and a sizable number of Hispanic residents who can't afford cars and must rely on local buses. Cichowski, under pressure to fill space, is just lazy.

Scandale is a joke

Scandale today, for the second day in a row, squanders more A-1 space on the Meadowlands Racetrack, when New Jersey Network, which is far more important to state residents, faces extinction (A-3). 

Someone must have lit a fire under Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano, who has two more Englewood stories on L-1 and L-3 today -- her 10th and 11th stories since Nov. 5. She actually had three in Tuesday's paper. 

Unfortunately, she tends to ignore what's really going on in Englewood, including schools with few  white students, an embarrassing number of empty downtown storefronts and traffic tie-ups worthy of Manhattan.

Sykes' Local section today includes a blown-up accident photo by staffer Tariq "Crash" Zehawi on L-3, and a good number of municipal stories and crime news, but no stories about Teaneck, Ridgewood or other major towns. 

Hackensack news is a proposal to replace an abandoned gasoline station. Does everyone know where East Kennedy Street is? Is that the station near Route 80? You're guess is as good as mine, because the story doesn't say.

Editors should read this

Former Managing Editor James Ahearn is a sane antidote to all the fawning editors do over Christie. In his OpEd column today on the governor's battle with teachers (A-21), Ahearn concludes: "He looks more like someone fixated on getting his own way."

A front page with the blahs

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Today's front page is about as soft as you can get, except for the photos at the bottom of the page on cleanup of the magnificent Great Falls in Paterson, one of the most neglected natural attractions in the Northeast. As far as The Record of Woodland Park is concerned, life stood still. 

Maybe the recent lack of sunshine has affected the editors, including Frank "Castrato" Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes.

Do the editors talk with one another? Is Page 1 play planned or just done haphazardly by Scandale while he sits on a toilet in the men's room? The main element on A-1 today and a column on the OpEd page both go over essentially the same ground on the controversial medical marijuana law.

In the Page 1 story, the reporter seems bored with her subject, quoting one bureaucratic delay after another. Couldn't she find anyone to express outrage over the denial of relief to the terminally ill, including the poor man with the face tumors in the big photo? "We're working diligently," a state Health Department spokeswoman is quoted as saying. Give me a break.

Former Managing Editor Jim Ahearn's column (A-9) is more focused, pinning some of the delay on Governor Christie, who did a major about-face on medical marijuana.

The lead story on A-1 finally gets around to reporting new regulations to keep emergency responders safe on state highways that went into effect in June. I guess the staff was on vacation then.

In Local, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado covers a school board meeting for the first time in more than a year (L-1), and it is cut short by a disruptive former employee.

There is no other Hackensack news, or anything from Englewood or Teaneck, but there is a follow-up story on partisan politics in Englewood Cliffs, where one council Democrat resigned abruptly and another said he wouldn't run for election. The second Democrat has changed his mind.

The original Cliffs story -- in which one council member stormed out during an argument with another -- and today's lead L-1 story on voters backing Ridgefield's indicted mayor belong on the front page, in place of some of the nonsense Scandale loves. The Cliffs story reflects so well what is happening nationally, and deserves better play.

The process stories, such as the one on medical marijuana, don't really grab readers. Ahearn's column would have been enough.

I wonder why The Record didn't report an Appellate Division ruling in a dispute between two lawyers over hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees in a case that was covered extensively by the paper? One of  the lawyers is a good source for Kibret Markos, the Bergen County Courthouse reporter.

According to Cliffview Pilot.com, which reported last week's ruling on Monday, lawyer Rosemary Arnold of Fort Lee has been fighting with fellow attorney David Mazie, who took over a DWI case, brought it to trial, and won what originally was a $105 million verdict that later was pared to $25 million for young Antonia Verni’s Cliffside Park family. 

For his trouble, Mazie got more than $4.6 million, while Arnold collected only $227,500 -- even though Mazie argued that she should have gotten nothing. Arnold went in demanding half. In a published interview, Mazie said Arnold did little on the case when he was finally brought in.

But the appeals court said the lower court  judge erred in 2008 by not explaining why he cut Arnold's request so drastically, and sent back the legal-fees dispute to be heard by another judge.

Cliffview Pilot.com reported that when Arnold realized the drunk driver, Daniel Lanzaro, had only $100,000 in insurance, she brought in other defendants, including the New York Giants, National Football League, New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority and Giants Stadium, where Lanzaro had a staggering amount of beer during a game, as well as Aramark Corp., the stadium vendor that served him before he smashed head-on into the Vernis' vehicle in Hasbrouck Heights in 1999.

Have you noticed subtle typographical changes that allow more vertical room on some pages? The change is most noticeable on the editorial page, where the names of managers and editors now appear below the editorials. On the fronts, the changes seem to accommodate ads that run along the bottom of the pages.