Readers get more crime news, doubts about rail tunnels

Euclid Avenue is a two-way street in Hackensack's Fairmount section that forks into one-way streets before Summit Avenue -- Euclid Avenue North, right, and Euclid Avenue South. A long story on Euclid Avenue in The Record on Thursday devotes only a couple of paragraphs to the street itself.

Since at least 2007, the owner of 177 Euclid Ave. has defied all attempts by city inspectors to get him to repair his front steps.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers find more local news on the front page of The Record today and Thursday, but much of it is the same old sensational crime and court coverage.

Check out the tortured first paragraph of today's lead story on squatters in the Englewood home of a veteran (A-1).

And why is Editor Martin Gottlieb wasting all this space on a proposal to curb smoking in public housing (A-1)?

The story questioning how new Hudson River tunnels will be financed is another in a long line of anti-mass transit pieces in a daily paper that relies heavily on ad revenue from car dealers and automakers  (A-1).

Transportation reporter Christopher Maag also covered a news conference urging extension of NJ Transit's light rail to downtown Englewood, and the hospital and medical center (L-3).

But The Record has a history of writing anti-light rail stories, and slanted its coverage to support Tenafly's decision to reject the project.

Getting nauseous

In today's 3-star review of Jack's Cafe in Westwood, just the description of the desserts sampled by sugar-obsessed Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung is making me nauseous (BL-16).

Seafood lovers who don't eat meat or poultry apparently are out of luck unless they want a lobster roll padded with cheaper langoustine tails ($20). 

A corner house for sale on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack.

Awful headline

The lead Page 1 headline on Thursday -- "Hard drive a clue to GWB defense -- flummoxed readers.

The word "drive" had nothing to do with driving or the George Washington Bridge.

The "hard drive" was a reference to a "computer hard drive," but readers didn't know that until they actually read the first paragraph, defeating the purpose of the headline to tell the story at a glance.

Local news

In Thursday's Local, The Record reported the swearing in of Deborah Keeling-Geddis as a Hackensack city councilwoman two days earlier.

By focusing on Route 17 traffic jams, Road Warrior John Cichowski is, like the editors, in denial about the growing crisis throughout North Jersey, and the need for more mass transit (Thursday's L-1).

Euclid Avenue 

Thursday's Better Living cover story on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack's Fairmount section is typical of the superficial local reporting the paper is known for.

Freelancer Jeffrey Page devotes most of his Name-Dropper column to Euclid, the Greek mathematician who is called the father of geometry.

To outsiders, the Euclid in Euclid Avenue is hard to pronounce and even harder to spell. 

The street is under the flight paths of Newark and Teterboro airports, and aircraft noise is a major quality of life concern.

Page calls Euclid "a wide, quiet street."

The Fairmount section was named after a park of the same name in Philadelphia, and many of the trees in the neighborhood came from that city, as reflected in street names:

Poplar Avenue, Elm Avenue, Pine Street, Cedar Avenue and so forth.

Drivers took commuting columnist hostage 12 years ago

An NJ Transit bus on Main Street in Hackensack. In a dozen years of writing the Road Warrior column for The Record, Staff Writer John Cichowski has largely ignored bus and train riders, and in the process, racked up more errors than any reporter past or present at the Woodland Park daily.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In a front-page headline today, The Record's editors admit that drivers have been allowed to hijack a column that was aimed at all commuters when it was launched 25 years ago:

"Keeping drivers in the loop"

And John Cichowski, the reporter who turned his back on bus and rail users, is still writing the column today, a dozen years after he took over from the original Road Warrior, Jeffrey Page.

This Page 1 anniversary column also is flawed by the photo of a highway project that was completed about 15 years ago, and an awkward sub-headline.

I'm sure the drowsy copy editor who write the sub-headline was looking for "delays" instead of "holdups," which was two meanings (A-1).

Dissing seniors

Besides ignoring mass-transit users, Cichowski has spent little time reporting on the challenges facing his contemporaries, older drivers who mistake the gas pedal for the brake pedal with often fatal consequences.

If there is retraining available to seniors or other programs to improve their driving skills, readers haven't seen it in the Road Warrior column.

Shaky reporting

Chichowski made so many errors he inspired one Record reader to set up a Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers in an attempt to correct what the newspaper refused to set right.

And because Cichowski's reporting has been so shaky readers are questioning some of what he says today:

"It took nearly a decade to get E-ZPass to work correctly," the reporter claims, without ever elaborating anywhere in his overlong column (A-1 and A-10).

He also takes credit for a column that stopped "four mornings of horrific traffic jams" at the George Washington Bridge in September 2013 (A-10).

But Cichowski, a lazy reporter who rarely leaves the office, doesn't tell readers that he was tipped off by Publisher Stephen A. Borg, whose friend called from the bridge to complain about being stuck in traffic.

Shortcuts

Cichowski's chief weakness is relying on the eyes and ears of his readers, and publishing hundreds of their emails as the basis for many of his columns.

Their only motive is to see their names in print, and their observations and knowledge of driving laws and regulations are even shakier than Cichowski's.

Among his other failures as a journalist is his refusal to embrace mass transit as a way of cutting traffic congestion and reducing air pollution.

EV charging

A story on the Local front today doesn't tell owners of plug-in hybrids and pure electric cars how much they will have to pay to gain access to chargers in Englewood's municipal garage (L-1).

Nor does the story report on the rate of charge or whether the electricity is free. 

With employees of a Mercedes-Benz dealer using the spaces from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, public access will be limited.

Guessing game

A caption on L-1 identifies only one of the four people whose faces are clearly visible in the photo, which runs with a story on Englewood's hometown sports heroes.

Stories or photos from Closter, Mahwah, Tenafly, Maywood, Clifton and Woodland Park also appear today.

But there is nothing from two of the biggest towns in the circulation area, Hackensack and Teaneck.

Christie the manipulator, Hackensack High roaches

Student art from Bergen Arts and Science Charter High School displayed at Johnson Public Library in Hackensack, above and below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Governor Christie has been a master manipulator of the media ever since he took office more than four years ago, and The Record's editors, columnists and reporters have been his chief dupes.

For months, the GOP bully's $33 billion budget plan has been endangered by shortfalls of hundreds of millions of dollars, principally due to his refusal to tax the wealthy (A-1).

But The Record's reporters are still waiting for the press releases detailing programs cuts Christie will make by the June 30 deadline to balance the budget on the backs of the middle and working classes, as he has done since 2010.

Don't such reporters as John Reitmeyer, Melissa Hayes and Charles Stile have sources in state government departments that can tell them about anticipated cuts?

Now, Christie is playing the blame game to explain away the drastic decline in tax revenue, just as he has for every crisis his administration has faced, up to and including the George Washington Bridge lane-closure/political-retribution scandal (A-1 and A-3).

Tabloid news

A sensational story on today's front page is designed to sell papers.

The follow-up to a double suicide leap from the George Washington Bridge doesn't say whether drug addicts Nickie Circelli and Gary Crockett, her boyfriend, were holding hands when they jumped (A-1).

It also is unclear from the stories whether the 11 a.m. Monday double suicide affected traffic on the bridge, which has gained worldwide exposure from the Christie administration's lane closures last September.

Suffern, N.Y., police say the couple stole money from Circelli's uncle, William Valenti, then killed him during an argument over the theft.

Today's A-1 story and Wednesday's gee-whiz account on the Local front is a lot of coverage of a couple who lived way outside the circulation area.

What is bigger news -- that the Little Ferry Circle floods decade after decade or that a highway collapsed near Pensacola, Fla.? 

Why is the Florida photo on Page 1, and the North Jersey weather story and flood photo buried on the Local front?   

Race for ratables

The lead story on the Local front today doesn't mention what is obvious to every resident of North Jersey's inefficient and wasteful home-rule communities:

Borough officials' approval of LG's 143-foot corporate headquarters atop the Palisades in Englewood Cliffs is a naked grab for tax ratables (L-1).

At 9 feet per story, the building would be nearly 16 stories high.

On the first Business page today, there is no mention of Englewood, where the construction of downtown apartments has done little to prevent vacant storefronts and high turnover among Palisade Avenue merchants (L-7).

Staff Writer Joan Verdon, whose byline is most often seen on stories about highway and mall retailers, reports "real estate experts" say the key to reviving downtown Hackensack and Paterson "is to get more people living downtown."

Roach patrol

Meanwhile, a student at Hackensack High School reports the building's basement cafeteria was invaded by a "horde of cockroaches" during Wednesday's heavy rain.

Students jumped up from their lunches, screaming, and headed for the exit, he said, adding that roach and mice sightings are nothing unusual in the old building.

The food is so bad many students eat or buy lunch elsewhere, including at nearby pizzerias, Starbucks on Essex Street and the cafeteria of Hackensack University Medical Center.

Editorial hemorrhoids

The Record has done its best to ignore Hackensack's Board of Education and food service in the schools.

Before the school board election last month, the Woodland Park daily didn't bother telling readers anything about the four, unchallenged candidates or report what they stood for, and residents didn't receive any campaign mailings.

It is believed that in the last month alone, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza acquired a couple of new hemorrhoids from sitting on the toilet reading tabloids and ignoring local news.

Staffers make blog

Better Living today debuts a new feature -- Name-Dropper -- to give readers "the lowdown on some of the people whose names you see on public statues, memorial plaques, park signs, highways and even some local streets around North Jersey" (BL-1).

The first piece is on Paul J. Foschini, who was mayor of Hackensack in 1933 and from 1937 to 1953. Today, his name is on a 28-acre park near The Record's old headquarters in the city.

The editors took freelancer Jeffrey Page, a former staffer who was the original Road Warrior columnist, out of mothballs for the new feature.

Page also wrote reviews of so-called budget restaurants before that column was dropped last year, likely a good move for his waistline if not for his bank account.

Throughout the profile for some reason, the City Council in Hackensack is written in lower case: "city council."

Sampson, Markos

Another change that has been evident recently is assigning Peter J. Sampson to cover the busy Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack (A-1).

It's not known whether Sampson is filling in for a vacationing Kibret Markos or has replaced Markos, who could be seen smoking outside the 10 Main St. courthouse entrance several times a day.

Sampson is a veteran reporter who once worked for United Press International at the federal courthouse in Newark, where he also covered the U.S. Attorney's Office.

He also covered the federal beat for The Record.

Second looks

Page 1 reported matter of factly on Wednesday that drivers are "zipping along -- often at speeds exceeding 75 mph" on the Garden State Parkway near two Route 17 exits in Paramus.

The reporter didn't bother saying the speed limit there is 55 mph or that state police have apparently stopped enforcing the law along the entire length of the parkway and turnpike.

Bad photos

Also on Wednesday, I was struck by the reptilian image of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling and the thumbnail photo of Tara Sullivan, a sports columnist reporting on the NBA's lifetime ban of the racist (A-1).

Sullivan's lopsided smile -- and Columnist Mike Kelly's shit-eating grin -- suggest that a single thumbnail photo doesn't really fit all subjects.

PA change?

Other Page 1 news on Wednesday -- Governor Christie naming former Attorney General John Degnan to be chairman of the Port Authority -- doesn't address the need to break away the bi-state agency's transportation functions.

The Record refuses to cover commuting by train and bus or call on the Port Authority to expand its PATH system or express bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.

Bill the driver?

On Wednesday's Local front, the duplication of emergency services in North Jersey, where property taxes are rising steadily, is evident in the photo of more than a dozen police and fire vehicles that responded to a single-vehicle crash.

This despite non-life threatening injuries suffered by an unidentified Garfield woman, 30, whose SUV broke through the guardrail on the parkway in Woodcliff Lake.

If the woman was texting or speeding before the crash, she should be billed for the emergency response.

Editors fail us miserably -- again

In August, there were several signs of change on Hackensack's Main Street, including Main Dish Restaurant, which replaced Naturally Good, above, and plans by a famous Hoboken deli to open a branch not far from the county courthouse, below.

After years of ignoring the epidemic, The Record's editors put two stories about obesity on Page 1 today.

New research links soda and other sugary drinks to the obesity epidemic -- something all of us have known for years (A-1).

And our obese governor has reverted to acting like the prosecutor he once was, threatening to impose fines on people who speak the truth about the state's faltering economy (A-1).

The governor is in denial about his failed business and no-tax policies -- just as he is in denial about his increasingly poor health and weight. 

Editor Marty Gottlieb also is in denial about the many lazy, incompetent sub-editors and columnists he inherited when he took over in late January.

The Sykes Curse

The so-called Local news sections today and Friday are dominated once again by court and Law & Order stories.

Two days after former Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa was sentenced for official misconduct and insurance fraud, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes continues to ignore ordinary city residents and their opinions about the legal saga.

Friday's coverage of the sentencing hearing on Thursday was filled with quotes from lawyers, experts, officials and Zisa himself (A-1). 

Zisaville dispatch

Inside, Staff Writer Mike Kelly gives the arrogant Zisa a platform to portray himself as "a victim"  (A-8 on Friday).

But all the veteran columnist does is try and fail to satirize "the Zisa-as-victim-storyline." He doesn't have the balls of most columnists to put the claim in perspective.

Indeed, readers expect Kelly to call Zisa's preposterous "victim" claim what it is:

A joke, a fraud, the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard from a former police chief and former assemblyman who knowingly broke laws he was sworn to uphold.

Failed columnist

Kelly being objective and more he said/she said reporting are the last things we need when it comes to Zisa and others who abuse their power.

But Kelly is a failed columnist. All he can do is push around words, and fill up space with some of the clunkiest prose known to journalism.

The editors continue to disappoint readers by showcasing Kelly and other tired columnists. 

Bad news bear

Friday's front page had a double dose of bad news for Christie:

State unemployment edged up to 9.9% -- the highest in decades -- and an "ANALYSIS" revealed that Roche Group's CEO refused to take a call from the GOP bully, who was trying to persuade the pharmaceutical giant to open a new research center in New Jersey.

In the Garden State, the company, which is closing its former headquarters on the Clifton-Nutley border, will forever be known as "Roach." 

Dissing Hackensack

In an editorial on Hackensack in Friday's paper (A-22), The Record says:

"We cannot see what people are excited about in a city that should have experienced the same downtown growth seen in communities like Westwood these past decades." 

Of course, the editors have completely ignored new stores and restaurants on the city's Main Street, in keeping with a seeming embargo on news outside of Zisa and related turmoil on the school board.

But the biggest problem is one The Record has never acknowledged:

The wholesale abandonment of Hackensack by the daily newspaper and North Jersey Media Group in 2009, when Publisher Stephen A. Borg scattered many hundreds of employees to the wind.


Road Worrier, food warriors

On the front of Friday's Local section, failed Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski rewrites "a new State Police report" on road deaths (L-1).

In Friday's Better Living tabloid, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung concluded her lukewarm appraisal of the refurbished Sessions Bistro in Maywood this way:

"Personally, I'd love to revisit in a few years ...."

Now that she has damned the place with faint praise, doesn't Ung know Sessions may not last that long? 

Also on Friday, a Better Living piece by free-lancer Jeffrey Page makes readers wonder if he really is the best person to be writing about budget restaurants?

In his Eating Out on $50 review of Mama Fina's in Elmwood Park, Page shuns the Filipino fish dishes, eats only pork and then stuffs his face with dessert.

Is he allergic to seafood? Why does he spend only "a shade over $33" of his $50 budget?

Editors really know how to puck the reader

Hackensack residents are gathering in churches and synagogues, and praying for some municipal news from the editors of The Record. All they hear is "Puck You!"

Pro hockey all over Page 1 of The Record today is Editor Marty Gottlieb's way of saying, "Puck You!" to readers looking for North Jersey news.

Pro football at the bottom of the Local front today is head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' way of saying, "Puck You!" to readers looking for news of their towns.

Using the word "Hackensack" instead of  "Hospital" in an L-1 headline is Production Editor Liz Houlton's way of saying, "Puck You!" to residents who were fooled into reading a story about the medical center that has gobbled up a neighborhood.

Instant snoring

The editors dare you to read today's front-page headlines and stay awake:

"Fracking debate," Utilities authority," "Romney" and "Bank accounts" are guaranteed ways to put insomniacs to sleep.

Staff Writer Stephanie Akin is spending so much time in bed with the defense attorney for suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa (L-1), she hasn't found time to write about passage of the city's budget and any property tax increase -- unlike her counterpart in Englewood  (L-3).

 

Gas guzzling

Road Warrior John Cichowski and all of his gas-guzzling readers simply don't get it: 

If you can't afford to say, "Fill it up," you need to buy a hybrid or other fuel-efficient car (L-1).

Cichowski isn't the only columnist who needs to be replaced.

From the fat files

Staff Writer Elisa Ung and free-lancer Jeffrey Page turn out two of the least-interesting restaurant reviews I've seen in a long time (Better Living).

Most of the food at Tutti Giorni in Norwood sounds awful. 

A desperate Ung ends the review by saying the desserts "are still capable of redeeming any prior flaws in your meal" (Pages 18-19).

That's the sugar-addicted reviewer's way of saying to readers who don't eat artery clogging desserts, "Puck You!"

Up the river

If Page again went over his $50 limit on dinner for 2 (at River Kwai in Totowa), then he should order less food and certainly pass on ice cream for dessert (Page 20).

Editors tug on readers' heartstrings

Bogart to Bacall: "Baby, hold my gun!"

For the third day in a row, The Record explores the relationship between a young Korean art student and the boyfriend who allegedly used his car to kill her after he "discovered" she was "seeing someone else."

Could there be a more touching portrait of Aena Hong, who is shown in a Page 1 photo today at the Palisades Park Library, where she painted a mural and took English lessons?

Look at that angelic face. But why did Editor Marty Gottlieb put the story, written by former Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado, on the front page? 

What begins as a profile deteriorates into a blow-by-blow retelling of the ups and downs of her relationship with Charles J. Ann, 26, who was charged with murder this week.

Many of the interviews echo those published in a front page story on Wednesday. 

Ridiculous quote

Look at that silly quote from Steve Cavallo, the library's program coordinator: "The saddest thing is that she looked like a person who enjoyed life."

What is that look exactly? And if she didn't enjoy life, would her death at 25 be easier to take? 

And would The Record profile the victim if she was a Hispanic woman from Hackensack or an African-American woman from Paterson? It's doubtful.

Finally, the photo caption on A-8, the continuation page, commits a common error of saying the library mural was painted "by slaying victim Aena Hong." Did she come back from the grave?

Another A-1 story today -- on Governor Christie's school-aid proposals -- isn't clear on whether all of his previous education cuts would be restored in this budget. 

Driven journalist

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, the Road Warrior column rises to a new level of irrelevance, relating the experiences of a Wayne man who is "North Jersey's chauffeur to the stars."

Any moron can drive a limousine, so why does Stew Resmer deserve an entire column in The Record? And when is Staff Writer John Cichowski going to get off his ass and write about commuting problems?

Hackensack readers will search in vain for any news of their city. On the other hand, police and court stories appear on almost every page of Local today.

But, hey, be thankful. How many times do you get an anecdote about actress Lauren Bacall in The Record's Local news section? 

Did you ever hear the one about when Bacall was married to actor Humphrey Bogart? She leaned out an apartment window and called down to the street, "Hump-free, hump-free," and three men ran up to her room.

Or, how he got so involved in preparing for movie roles, he'd awake in the middle of the night and say to her, "Baby, hold my gun!" 


Stomach turning

Two restaurant reviews appear in the Better Living tab today, but I had a hard time getting through them.

I've had fondue once in my life and certainly have no interest in repeating the experience at the pricey Westwood spot called The Melting Pot. 

The last time I saw the reviewer, Elisa Ung, she was pudgy (in 2008). Can you imagine what she looks like now, given her obsession with dessert, including the chocolate fondue with cake she sampled for this piece?

In Eating Out on $50, free-lancer Jeffrey Page doesn't explain what makes the salmon he ordered at Fish of the C's kosher and why he was charged so much for it in a small storefront restaurant in Teaneck. 

The fool paid $20 for artificially colored farmed salmon and never asked why he wasn't being served wild-caught fish. And he really blew his $50 budget for two by ordering cheesecake.

Isn't anyone at The Record watching their weight and their cholesterol levels? 

Desperate editors hype the news

Image via Wikipedia
A young Bruce Springsteen performing in Norway. A ticket-selling "disaster" for his New Jersey concerts is front-page news today.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!


Would you get a load of today's Page 1 comparison between "horrific incidents seared in American memory" and two attacks, plus a third planned attack, on Bergen County synagogues.


"A loner from Lodi" has a certain alliteration, but does suspect Anthony Graziano, 19, really deserve mention in the same paragraph as "the Unabomber, the Virginia Tech shooter and the Anthrax attacker"? 


I stopped reading there, but the story goes on and on.


The hard sell


Half the front page in The Record is devoted to bias crimes that killed no one, clearly showing that head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes is out of control, desperate to fill space and sell papers. 


Three reporters worked on the story about new charges in the firebombing case, including Staff Writer Stephanie Akin, who has neglected her Hackensack beat for the last 10 days.


And if that isn't enough, part of the front page is devoted to a story by three more reporters on fans who had trouble buying tickets to Bruce Springsteen concerts. Now we know the world is ending.


Page A-2 carries another embarrassing correction -- for the second day in a row.


Flawed reporting


An editorial on A-13 today incorrectly blames a proposed $515,000 budget cut for the Englewood Public Library on the city manager, as did earlier news stories.


But the idea to cut the library budget -- which would hit minority families hardest -- was floated first in November 2010 by a group of wealthy residents from the East Hill, where Chairman Malcolm A. Borg lives. 


They were members of a budget-review panel that called itself  "Englewood F.A.S.T or Fiscal Accountability Starts Today Coalition." 


Here is a link to an Eye on The Record post: In Englewood, whites know best


Muni tunes


I searched for municipal stories in Sykes' Local news section, but had a hard time finding any among even more Law and Order reports on L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6.


Maybe most of the assignment minions took Friday off to make it a three-day weekend.


Mixed message


Contrast today's Better Living cover story on "stocking a healthy pantry" to the unhealthy food described in Friday's Eating Out on $50 restaurant review (Better Living, Page 20).


Why did free-lancer Jeffrey Page chose Stacks Pancake House and Cafe in Paramus for dinner and why did he spend only $27.42 on two meals, including tax and tip?


Page is The Record's original Road Warrior columnist. With his strong point of view and command of the language, he wrote circles around most of the reporting staff, including John Cichowski and Mike Kelly, two of the paper's weakest staffers.


Page also was obese for most of his working life. What kind of example does he set by ordering an artery clogging dessert to split with a friend that was composed of "two large scoops of ice cream and four large dollops of whipped cream with a brownie"?

Exposing Christie's half-truths

Image via Wikipedia

The Record reported Khloe Bistrot in Fort Lee, above,  serves organic meat and
farmed fish. In this week's review of Savini in Allendale, readers are left in the dark.

Governor Christie has been speaking in half-truths since taking office in January 2010, but a new TV ad has Editor Francis Scandale of The Record really taking notice and planting the story in the middle of the front page today.

Ad for Christie

leaves out key facts

Boy, does it ever skimp on facts. I've been seeing this ad for several days, and it sounds like the first in a series of campaign ads for a presidential bid. God speed, and get out of  our lives.

Staff Writer John Reitmeyer treats the governor deferentially, never confronting him on distortions in the ad about bipartisan support, balanced budgets or education funding.

Reitmeyer says the ad includes statements that "don't tell the full story," and the same can be said about his story.


Sloppy editing, editors

Sloppy editing continues to let down readers, as in an A-4 story that reports: "A third toll collector pleaded guilty ... to taking for stealing an estimated $2,282."

Even with three inside pages filled with stories on higher education, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes couldn't find enough local news for the front of Local today.

Does a car that hit a fence in Westwood deserve a photo, let alone the enormous, staged one on L-1 today? How desperate can the newsroom's most powerful editor get?

Is this Sykes' flawed news judgment we're seeing? Or, are the placement of stories and photos left to the layout editor? 

Yet, when readers turn to L-8 today, they find Staff Writer Melissa Hayes' moving story about Christopher Rim, an Academies@Englewood student who founded an anti-bullying group.

Why is this compelling story buried here? Are the editors sick of the anti-bullying message?


Laziness in review

Also on L-1 today, Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski reviews a year of setbacks for commuters -- because he neglected to actually cover most of them when they were happening.

But his stubborn bias for drivers over mass-transit users is clear in the headline, which refers to "motorists," not "commuters."


Stomach turning

A week ago, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung told readers that Khloe Bistrot in Fort Lee serves organic meat and farmed fish, but today, she doesn't provide any details about the origin of the food she sampled at Savini in Allendale.

Ung continues to order swordfish at restaurants, including this one, apparently unaware the Environmental Defense Fund warns women and children up to age 12 to avoid it altogether, because of its elevated levels of mercury.

In the data box, she says "value [is] generally good," listing appetizers at $7 to $15, but the review gives $16.50 as the price of an appetizer portion of rigatoni Bolognese.

Finally, why is Ung reviewing a 12-year-old restaurant (Better Living centerfold)?


Last supper

Free-lancer Jeffrey Page continues to damage his credibility with today's Eating Out on $50 review of Sparta Taverna in Ridgefield Park (Page 21, Better Living).

Page and one other person had dinner there, but insisted on stuffing their faces with dessert, spending  a total of $55.95, with tax and tip. The whole point of the review is to keep the dinner tab under $50.

Page also doesn't tell readers that when he reviewed the previous Greek restaurant at the same address in 2009, his $50 likely bought dinner for four people.


Page's downward slide began with his recent endorsement of Barcelona's in Garfield, one of the worst Italian-American restaurants in northern New Jersey. 

Obesity got worse in the newsroom, too

Image via Wikipedia

The Record's editors should be journalists first, despite their obsessions.

Obesity is a subject the editors of The Record have tried to avoid for decades, but it won't go away, just like all the extra pounds they haul around the newsroom.


Even after Governor Christie took office in January 2010, there appeared to be no greater awareness of the obesity epidemic -- the editors of the Woodland Park daily just continued throwing their weight around.


On Page 1 today, a story reporting nearly 62% of state residents are overweight appears at the bottom of the page, even though it belongs at the top, in place of new air-pollution rules. The headline:

Obesity problem

gets worse in N.J.

and across nation

The reporter, Mary Jo Layton, who was always in great shape, is sort of flip in her lead paragraph: "More bad news on the fat front."

Of course, the "fat front" has been as close as her supervisor, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, and Projects Editor Tim Nostrand, among other severely overweight newsroom workers.

Apparently, Sykes and Nostrand have kept a stranglehold on newsroom investigations for a decade or more -- and their uncontrolled eating hits too close to home for them to launch a project on the obesity epidemic.

At least when it comes to reporting on obesity, Editor Francis Scandale seems to be under Sykes' thumb. 


That's despite him being an athletic man who came to The Record in 2001 from Colorado, listed in today's story as among the five "thinnest states."


New food editor


In 2006, then-Features Editor Barbara Jaeger hired Bill Pitcher as food editor, despite his obesity and his well-known appetite for meat and sweets.


Pitcher, in turn, hired a new restaurant reviewer, Elisa Ung, a pudgy woman who didn't hide her overriding obsession with dessert.


Although Pitcher wasn't named in the article, he undoubtedly was one of the "Fat Pack" discussed by The New York Times Dining Section -- food writers or bloggers who can't control their eating.

It never occurred to Pitcher in his four or so years as food editor to use his own attempts to lose weight as a launching pad for a series on the obesity epidemic and advice that goes beyond the latest diet or exercise fad.

In fact, he turned his daughter, once a normal 2-year-old, into a grossly overweight little girl, whom he paraded through the newsroom. 

Other A-1 news

The big, front-page photo of the arena in Pamplona is another gee-whiz image that has little to do with life in North Jersey. It's just more of Scandale's newsroom bull.

Staff Writer Stephanie Akin again demonstrates the legwork and hustle that makes her such an outstanding reporter with both an interview of Secaucus ex-Mayor Denis Elwell (A-1) and a town reaction story to his bribery conviction (L-1).

The one question she doesn't address is why do New Jersey politicians such as Elwell, who also heads a trucking company, sell their offices and their souls for such little money? 

Woops

On A-2, another embarrassing correction notes a quote from a prepared statement, also called a handout, was attributed to the wrong Democrat in an A-3 story Thursday on Christie's budget cuts. 


Boy, that's sloppy.

A story on A-9 today doesn't mention the staff of the News of the World tabloid hacked into e-mail accounts, as well as voice-mail messages. 

How is that any different from Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg having IT staff hack into newsroom employees' e-mail accounts, and then disciplining workers? 

Another screw-up

On the front of Sykes' Local section, a caption refers to a sign on Route 20 in Paterson, but the photo above it shows only cars, a truck and a tire retread.

The Road Warrior column with them is another editorial eyesore -- and continues John Cichowski's boycott on the commuting problems of bus and rail riders.

In recent weeks, there seems to have been an uptick in municipal news, but the Hackensack, Englewood and Teaneck reports continue to rely too heavily on police and fire news.

Bar fire

In Better Living, Ung offers readers a lukewarm review of Vesta Wood Fired Pizza and Bar in East Rutherford. Is the bar on fire, too?

That 12-inch pizza for $12; is it the most expensive in North Jersey? She doesn't say, but she did sample four desserts.

On Page 18 of Better Living, free-lancer Jeffrey Page finds one of the tens of thousands of restaurants where two people can eat dinner for $50. How is this of any service to readers?