Conventions are over, but not mindless political coverage

On a sweltering Thursday, we boarded NJ Transit's No. 165 Express in Hackensack and arrived in midtown Manhattan in about 30 minutes. The regular round-trip fare in $9, but seniors pay only $4.10.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Just when you thought all the shouting at the political conventions was over, The Record continues to waste the front page on boring politics.

If Charles Stile's column on Hillary Clinton's New Jersey supporters doesn't have your eyes rolling, a USA Today story on Donald J. Trump should really put you to sleep (A-1).

The news media keep on trying to make the wacko racist New York businessman sound intelligent, but try as they might, he keeps shooting himself in the foot.

Trump -- who has never served in the military, but wants to ban all Muslims from the U.S. -- complained about the speech at the Democratic National Convention made by the father of a Muslim-American soldier killed in Iraq.

Khizr Khan said Trump has "sacrificed nothing for his country" (A-1).

Trump's rebuttal is that he's "made a lot of sacrifices" by building "great structures" and creating construction jobs.

None of the reporters interviewing Trump asked how putting up buildings is a "sacrifice."

Local news

Editor Deirdre Sykes' front page does have two local stories today.

The main element is a plan to remove a traffic bottleneck on Kinderkamack Road in Emerson, but there are so many other traffic nightmares in Bergen County the paper's so-called Road Warrior columnist has ignored for more than a decade.

The second local story is the obituary for a Clifton woman who was such a big fan of Amelia Earhart that she moved to Atchison, Kan., the aviator's birthplace.

Bergen County readers find five major stories from Passaic and Morris counties in today's Local section, and a column about a "momentous" event in Paterson on the Opinion front.

Hackensack readers looking for news about their city should take a look at what the Hackensack reporter was doing on Saturday -- covering police news in Butler (L-1).

Lying down on job

Readers who wonder whether there is a dress code in the Woodland Park newsroom find the answer today on BL-3, where a photo shows Staff Writer Jim Beckerman lying down or at least semi-reclining on the job.

I guess the veteran feature writer was just taking a load off as he gathered information on "Bergen County's long-awaited dine-in multiplex" in Fort Lee (BL-1).

The Better Living cover is The Record's third and most elaborate plug for iPic, which hasn't even opened yet, so it's no wonder the owner has got a big, fat smile on his face, as readers can see from another photo on BL-3.

Aircraft noise

Saturday's front-page story -- "Flight-path test sputters" -- is the latest in what has to be one of the most bungled and biased reporting jobs in recent memory.

Residents of Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood have been complaining about noise from Teterboro Airport for years, but that was rarely, if ever, reported in The Record.

Then, the Federal Aviation Administration proposed a new flight path for business jets that would prevent them from flying over Hackensack high-rises and the nearby medical center to land, starting in April.

The shift of the flight path over Route 17 communities had them howling, and The Record quoted their officials extensively on the front page and elsewhere in the paper.

Readers are hoping they'll survive Thanksgiving editions

On Thursday, The Record's useless Sports section joined numerous Black Friday sales fliers in going straight to recycling. The Thanksgiving edition's predictable front page focused on why a handful of people are giving thanks, ignoring the millions of middle-class residents targeted by Governor Christie.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Six years after Chris Christie broke his campaign promise to lower property taxes -- the one that likely got him elected governor -- The Record continues to ignore the millions who can't wait for his reign to end.

Today, Editor Martin Gottlieb devotes precious front-page space to a Wayne man who has overcome a childhood illness to help hold the Ronald McDonald balloon aloft during Thursday's parade (A-1).

Gee whiz. Isn't that heart warming? All our troubles are over.

Covering the few

On Thursday's front page Columnist Mike Kelly apparently could find only two people "who turned a personal tragedy into a rallying call for change."

Meanwhile, Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado interviews a handful of "refugees and asylum seekers" who are marking their first Thanksgiving in the United States.

Couldn't the local assignment editors and reporters find the energy to interview 20, 30 or 40 state residents on what, if anything, they are thankful for in the fifth year of Christie's mean-spirited rule?

2017 election

The Woodland Park daily already has started covering the 2017 election to pick the GOP bully's successor, but today's A-1 story is predictable.

Staff Writer Dustin Racioppi focuses on politics -- Democrats v. Republicans -- instead of issues or what would be good for New Jersey.

He also doesn't mention some of Christie's many failures, including vetoing a hike in the minimum wage (A-1).

For more wasted space, see Staff Writer Jim Beckerman's piece on "Betamax devotees" devastated by Sony's decision to end production of the videotapes in March (A-1).

Tens of thousands of older readers have been shut out by advances in technology -- from smart phones to computers to navigation systems -- yet I have yet to see that story reported in The Record by Beckerman or anyone else.

Traffic on Route 4 east in Paramus just before 8 this morning was much lighter than during the usual weekday rush hour.

One driver received a gift in the parking lot of 24 Hour Fitness in Paramus.

Christie and Syrians

An editorial on the contributions of Syrians to New Jersey is muted in its criticism of Chritie's hate-filled speech in the wake of Paris attacks on Nov. 13 (A-20).

"Christie, who refuses to call out [Donald] Trump for his anti-Muslim rhetoric, seems totally unaware of the Syrian community's long-standing contributions to this state," according to the editorial.

As was local Editor Deirdre Sykes, who waited eight or nine days after Christie sad he would bar Syrian orphans from New Jersey to assign a reporter to interview law-abiding Syrian merchants in South Paterson. 

Homeless

Today, a story on the Local front is The Record's annual recognition of the homeless problem in Paterson and Hackensack (L-1).

But more important than the homeless are Thanksgiving Day shoppers, because that gives the editors another excuse to write about the retailers whose ad revenue is keeping North Jersey Media Group afloat (L-1).

Poor editing

Staff Writer Christopher Maag covered Zach Blaifeder of Wayne, who held a line to the Ronald McDonald balloon in Thursday's parade (A-1).

His story begins:

"Walking 45 blocks down the spine of Manhattan, tethered to a giant balloon and surrounded by 3 million people, is an exercise in endurance."

Pretty good. But the editors missed a glaring error.

If any street could be considered "the spine of Manhattan," it's Fifth Avenue, which divides the East Side from the West Side.

Yet, Blaifeder and the rest of the parade never got near Fifth Avenue.

Zinburger

Restaurant critic Elisa Ung deserves some credit for praising "the most flavorful veggie burger I have ever tried" at Zinburger in Westfield Garden State Plaza (BL-14).

But, as usual, her review avoids discussing how the cows who gave their lives for the regular burgers were raised.

When you pay $10 to $15 for a Zinburger, do you get grass-fed ground beef or meat from cows who were fed chicken-coop waste and the slaughterhouse remains of chickens and pigs?

Ung doesn't dare say.

Tens of thousands of Jews say: Shame on you, Boteach

Four photographers from The Record managed to cover Memorial Day parades in only five Bergen County towns, according to today's Local section, but none visited Englewood, above and below.

VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Shame on you, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, for your publicity mongering and your support of Governor Christie, the worst leader in New Jersey history.

And shame on you, Editor Martin Gottlieb and Columnist Mike Kelly, for devoting more than 100 inches in The Record today to a rabbi who makes tens of thousands of Jews cringe at the thought that they have anything in common.

How can Kelly -- himself a walking question mark --dare ask on Page 1, "Who is he [Boteach], anyway?" (A-1).

Readers know Boteach purchased a mansion on Englewood's East Hill, even though it was next door to the home of the Libyan ambassador to the U.S.

Then, in 2009, the shamelessly self-promoting rabbi grabbed the front page of The Record several days in a row, protesting the planned visit of Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi.

Folloing those news stories was a glowing profile by Staff Writer Jim Beckerman, who described pop king Michael Jackson's visit to the Boteach mansion for Friday night dinners.

The reporter referred to the mansion as "an ordinary house in Englewood."

Must-read list

Head Assigment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza managed today to find room for Memorial Day photos from only a half-dozen North Jersey towns (L-1, L-2 and L-3).

Any other photos were held to make room for thousands of names in a huge Dean's List (L-5), which Sykes and Sforza rely on frequently when they can't find legitimate municipal news.

Monday's paper

The Record's front-page story on the crash death of Princeton University mathematician John Nash fails to report the Nobel laureate and his wife weren't wearing seat belts in the back seat of a taxi.

NJ.com reported the Nashes were ejected from the cab during the national "Click It or Ticket" campaign on seat-belt use, a stepped up enforcement program that runs through May 31.

In mid-May, Road Warrior John Cichowski warned more than 4,400 tickets were issued in Bergen County alone during last year's two-week crackdown.

Yet, The Record consistently fails to report whether people killed in car crashes were belted in.

Christie and crime

In another front-page story on Monday, Gottlieb and the other editors managed to hold Christie blameless for police layoffs that resulted in a spike in violent crime in Camden, Newark, Paterson and other cities.

The story by Staff Writers Abbott Koloff and Melissa Hayes goes on and on, but never reports the GOP bully cut state aid to poor cities in 2011.

Camden lost 163 officers and Paterson -- which has twice as many residents -- let go 125.

The Record's revisionist theory is that the layoffs were caused by the "recession, coupled with a freeze in state aid and a 2 percent state-imposed cap on local property tax levies" (Saturday's A-11).

Different story

In 2011, The Record and other media attributed the layoffs to Christie's state aid cuts. 

On July 1, 2011, NJ.com reported the governor cut aid for the state's most troubled cities to $10 million from $149 million.

On Monday, The Record described that drastic aid cut as "a freeze in state aid."

Now, the Woodland Park daily -- which struggles to report what happened yesterday completely and without errors -- can't be relied on to accurately report what Christie did in his second year in office.

Bergen editors' three-day weekend robs us of local news

Spring getting a chilly reception in Hackensack's Fairmount section on Friday.

A winter scene only a block or so from the former Little Ferry Circle, as seen from the bus to Manhattan on Thursday.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If you live in Bergen County and subscribe to The Record, do you really have any interest in two court cases involving the Passaic County superintendent of elections and the legal bills of an imam at a Paterson mosque (L-2)?

Or the extended registration for a new all-boys elementary school in Silk City (L-8)?

The local Bergen County editors must have stayed home on Friday, forcing the layout editors to scramble for just about any old story to fill today's Local news section.

Page L-8 also carries wire service obituaries for the inventor of ceramic body armor, a drummer for a heavy metal band and an astronaut trainee no one has ever heard of.

Another dead rocker, Michael Brown,65, of Englewood Cliffs, "who helped put the Bach in rock," gets a royal send-off from Staff Writer Jim Beckerman, himself a musician (L-1).

Cool reception

Sticking with the Local front, who is the moron who wrote the photo-package over line, "Winter Overstays Its Welcome," and what incompetent supervisor approved it?

Did anyone in North Jersey "welcome" the brutal winter we've just experienced?

One of the captions with the weather package also doesn't make sense: 

"Jessica Silva of Ramsey leaving the Route 17 train station as she headed to work" (L-1).

Why would a Ramsey resident be leaving the NJ Transit station in the same town? Did she take the train one stop from the downtown Ramsey station?

Obesity news

One of the few Bergen stories in the section ignores the elephant in the room, an obese Ed Sinclair, the director of public works in Mahwah (L-3).

His photo might remind former staffers of overweight local Editors Deirdre Sykes and Tim Nostrand in their heyday, when they did their best to keep news of the obesity epidemic out of the paper.

More corrections

Two of the four corrections on A-2 today try to fix editing screw-ups in local stories.

Also on A-2, a photo of schoolchildren in London has readers wondering whether local kids tried to see Friday's solar eclipse.

Today's paper ranges from the boring to the scandalous

What's the explanation for this complaining sign from riders of NJ Transit's No. 165 bus in view of a recent story in The Record, reporting that rush-hour delays have eased for commuters leaving the Port Authority Bus Terminal for Bergen County? I saw the sign on Tuesday afternoon on Platform 232, where I caught the 165 Turnpike Express back to Hackensack.

Earlier Tuesday, while I was waiting for the 165 Turnpike Express to the city, I saw this SUV leave the parking lot of the 7-Eleven on Main Street in Hackensack and drive through the red light. The intersection doesn't have a red-light camera.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The most important story on Page 1 of The Record today carries a headline that is an instant turn-off to many readers:

Assessing the damage

to Berry's Creek

How boring. The real news is in the smaller sub-headline: 

Chemical, oil and other companies "will be asked to pay" for restoration of habit and replacement of lost natural resources (A-1 and A-4).

Still, that's not very riveting for the front page, but the rest of the A-1 stories aren't much better.

The off-lead is about Medicare penalizing Hackensack University Medical Center and other hospitals "for hospital errors and infections" (A-1).

Shame on Staff Writer Lindy Washburn for using "Obamacare," which has become a conservative curse word for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Are readers worried about the free-speech implications of threats that prompted Sony to pull some goofy movie with a sinister message from theaters (A-1)?

And check out the story's bewildering introduction under the byline of Jim Beckerman. What is he trying to say, with a reference to Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and blah, blah, blah?

Cuba coverage

Everyone except Staff Writer John Petrick knows Cuban cigars, especially those made totally by hand, are the world standard.

So, what is the explanation for the scandalous story leading the Local front today, quoting a Ridgewood cigar salesman who offers mere imitations (L-1)?

Gary Kolesaire claims the only reason Cuban cigars are desirable is that they're illegal in the United States. That's just sour grapes.

Until 2004, when U.S. regulations changed, American journalists were among the privileged few who were allowed to bring home those forbidden Cuban cigars.

Little crime, drugs

A package of Cuba stories from the wire services appears on A-11 today as part of the follow-up to President Obama's announcement that the U.S. will resume diplomatic relations with the island.

"Some fear ... that crime and drugs, both rare in Cuba, will become common along with visitors from the United States," according to The Associated Press story from Havana.

What a condemnation of America's gun- and drug-loving society. 

For decades, Cuban music, food and art, along with mile after mile of beaches and the charms of Old Havana, have lured tens of thousands of tourists from Canada, Europe and Japan, without affecting crime and drug use.

Cuban restaurant

Better Living would seem to have a timely review of Rebecca's, a Cuban restaurant in Edgewater that has a new owner (BL-18).

But Staff Writer Elisa Ung makes absolutely no reference to the easing of relations with Cuba.

I ate at the original Rebecca's many years ago, but won't be returning for the privilege of paying $30 for a red snapper special that Ung liked.

Another dish she liked was guacamole, which is Mexican, with plantain chips!

I'll stick with Casual Habana Cafe on Main Street in Hackensack for Cuban fare, and if I want guacamole, I'll head for Rosa Mexicano.

Deceptive advertising

I rarely look at the Open House real estate advertising section that is inserted in The Record on Fridays, but the lead promotion on an Englewood development caught my eye today.

The headline:

Homebuyers drawn to city centers 

-- The M measures up in Englewood

The text and photo captions actually claim the condo building "borders" the small city's downtown or is located downtown.

But the buildings are only a couple of blocks from Route 4 and more than a half-mile from Palisade Avenue, the main shopping street.

Hollywood, editors ignore today's racist backlash

Compare this comfortable bench for Coach USA commuters at the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, above, to the spring-loaded implements of torture NJ Transit provides in another part of the terminal, below.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor


Picking up The Record's report today on new movies about racial issues in the 1950s and 1960s, readers must be wondering what the editors and Staff Writer Jim Beckerman are smoking (A-1 and BL-1).

They completely ignore the continuing racist backlash to the 2008 election of President Obama and implementation of his Affordable Care Act, which is still under attack by Tea Party crackpots like Steve Lonegan, former pipsqueak mayor of Bogota (A-1 on Friday).

"It's as if America in 2013 was just beginning to address, rather than finally laying to rest, the racial issues that tore the country apart 60 years ago," Beckerman says, ignoring the present in a desperate search for an angle.

What about all of the voter-suppression proposals in North Carolina and other states with a large number of minorities? Don't they count as "racial issues."

News biz films?

Hollywood directors are famous for period pieces that twist the past even as they expose decades-old injustices.

Many readers are wondering when Hollywood is going to make movies about newspapers:

Their greedy publishers, big and small; and their editors and reporters, who will sensationalize and distort anything for a story, such as today's silly promotion of three new films (BL-1).

More screw-ups

Judging by 3 detailed corrections on A-2 today, Production Editor Liz Houlton and her snoring  copy editors are unable to perform their main job: keeping errors out of the paper.

Of course, all of the errors -- published and unpublished -- were missed by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her crack staff, including Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza.

Errors are bad enough, but what about omissions, such as the lack of information on the cause of a one-car accident that killed Erin Quinn, 18, a Wayne woman who was driving to college on Thursday (L-6), according to a death notice on L-5 today.

Forced busing

I'll let NJ Transit investigate a black customer's complaint "that he was racially profiled," but I have to question Alonza Robertson's judgment in taking a bus from Rockland County to Paramus to shop at a Nike outlet on a Sunday, when just everybody else knows all stores are closed (L-1).

For many years, The Record ignored NJ Transit's systematic discrimination against minorities, forcing them to ride decrepit, decades-old local buses, while the agency regularly replaced rolling stock on Manhattans runs. 

Don't hold your breath for town news

The Local news section today is dominated by a story about war criminal Joseph Kony.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her tireless minions deliver another fun-filled but ultimately disappointing Local section in The Record today. 

Rep. Steve Rothman, D-Englewood, met with the paper's unnamed Editorial Board, so that guaranteed him the lead position on L-1 -- just above a story about war criminal Joseph Kony.

The Kony story doesn't try to explain how the brutal Ugandan war lord has escaped capture since he was indicted for war crimes in 2005.

There's news for illegal immigrants, too, in the guilty pleas of two clerks who sold black-market driver's licenses (L-1).

Another photo-op

Sykes exploits another elderly driver's accident for a photo-op on L-3, blown up to fill the space of local news her desk failed to generate.

A story that should have been on L-1 is pushed back to L-3 to lessen the embarrassment for the Rev. James F. Reilly, who is in critical condition with burns he suffered in a fire early Saturday.

Reilly apparently fell asleep while smoking in the rectory of a Palisades Park church.

Hackensack news? Check back next year.

Tone deaf

On Page 1, Staff Writer Jim Beckerman reports "it's hard for customers to put their feelings about the closing of Ronnie I's Clifton Music into words."

Judging from the poorly written and edited story, Beckerman also had trouble putting his reporting "into words." 

Beckerman lists doo-wop and rock-and-roll radio shows, but omits WBGO-FM's "Rhythm Revue" and Bob Porter's "Saturday Morning Function."

 

Exhausted editors take a break

Image by PeaceCouple via Flickr

The Record's editors don't care whether this woman or any of
the other Wall Street protesters live in North Jersey.

Editor Francis Scandale and the assignment desk must have run out of steam after producing a strong North Jersey front page in The Record on Friday.


Page 1 today looks like most of the editors took a three-day weekend and Scandale ran off to the golf course, only to get soaked by Friday afternoon storms.


Scandale made no effort to localize the two main A-1 stories today -- a great week for the S&P 500 and the occupy Wall Street protesters.


Borg calls shots


Since the protest started in mid-September, The Record has ignored it, running wire service stories and photos. 


Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes just don't care if there are North Jersey residents taking part in the occupation of Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan.


That's understandable. The editors get paychecks signed by Publisher Stephen A. Borg, a fake journalist whose greed and executive perks are the kind of excesses being exposed by the protesters.


Even The Record's caption for today's AP photo is clunky. A protester is shown with his hands up as a police officer grabs his shirt with one hand and holds a baton with the other. 


The caption says "protesters marched through the streets ... Friday after the cleanup of their park was postponed." 


News from Twitter


The third A-1 story is about the New Milford High School principal, who uses Twitter to keep in touch with educators around the country. That's mildly interesting, but is it really Page 1 news?


When is The Record going to tackle a more important education story, exploring the social and political forces that have left Englewood's elementary and middle schools with hardly any white students or updating readers on desegregation efforts at Dwight Morrow High?


More old news


As usual, I leafed through pages of international news I saw the night before on the CBS national news and PBS. I didn't even read the headlines. What a waste of space. 


If you doubt Steve Jobs was a master manipulator of the media before he died, look at the thinly disguised, million-dollar advertisement for the new Apple smart phone masquerading as a news story on A-12.


Unfortunately, the success of the iPhone has never translated into jobs for Americans because it is made in China -- in a naked grab for bigger profits.


The boring Local front today is notable only for the rare appearance of Staff Writer Jean Rimbach's byline.


Page L-3 is devoted to police and court news, and L-5 carries two, long wire-service obituaries of people you have never heard of.


Sour notes


In Better Living, a cover story reports a jazz-and-blues vocalist from Bloomingdale is hosting a vegan cooking show on National Public Television called "Jazzy Vegetarian" (F-1).


Stranger than that is the awkward lead paragraph from Staff Writer Jim Beckerman, who is also a musician, containing the phrase "Skeep-Beep De Bop-Bop Beep Bop." Beep Bop? It should be bebop, if it's needed at all.

Where is the father, the pastor, the counselor?

Image via Wikipedia

Why doesn't the Road Warrior write about rail and bus commuters?

I plowed through Mike Kelly's cliches on Page 1 today, his unanswered questions and his wasted paragraphs on how Damian Williams got from Teaneck to Bound Brook on the day he was shot dead, and I scanned the full page of text and photos on A-6, the continuation page.

The Record columnist spent weeks "investigating" Williams' life after the 24-year-old was killed on March 19, but he doesn't say a word about the man's father, the family's pastor or school counselors.

Kelly show here, as he has many times before, that he feels more comfortable dealing with cops, prosecutors and coaches than exploring the emotional and psychological details of family life.

Hey, Editor Francis Scandale, do you read any of the Page 1 stories before they're  published or do you just go by faith?

The columnist also shows that he gets no assignment editing before his stuff is sent over to the news layout desk and then the copy desk for headlines and photo captions. 

And why does Kelly allow the news editors to sandbag him with that ridiculous photo, showing a smile that carries all the sincerity of a used-car salesman?

More Christie pain

At least readers have a lead A-1 story from Staff Writer Lindy Washburn detailing the pain awaiting low-income Medicaid patients under Governor Christie's mean-spirited budget.

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, her hand-picked Road Warrior columnist, John Cichowski, has his fourth straight piece on the Motor Vehicle Commission in five days.

No forced busing

NJ Transit's trains and buses bump and grind along, raising hundreds of complaints from commuters, and Cichowski is unmoved. I'm not leaving the office, he mutters. I'm not leaving the office.

What a coward Columnist Charles Stile is, putting the words "mean-spirited" in quotes to describe Christie's line-item vetoes of Democratic spending. 

How many times did he and other reporters use the Christie-sanctioned words "reform agenda" without quotes in his stories and columns on the governor's budget in recent months?

A bloody butcher

On the Better Living front, Restaurant Reviewer and Columnist Elisa Ung profiles Pat LaFrieda III, "New York's most famous butcher," who is "the guy behind the country's most acclaimed steaks and burgers" and who is "held in high regard by so many top chefs ...."

But when you read on you find out 75% of the beef LaFrieda sells is raised with antibiotics. Eat too much of that and the antibiotics your doctor prescribes won't work. 

Ung doesn't even mention whether the cattle are fed animal by-products -- kitchen scraps and bits of dead animals.

However, she's careful to say all the beef is "humanely raised."

Yeah, Ung, that's right up to the instant -- just inside the slaughterhouse door -- when a bolt is shot into the animal's brain to kill it and it's hoisted by its rear legs for skinning and dismembering.

He's died in '01

Also on the Better Living front today, Staff Writer Jim Beckerman reports the paper's former shopping blogger is to shoppers "what Dale Earnhardt Sr. is to stock car racing. A champ."

The elder Earnhardt died in a crash during the Daytona 500 in 2001, but there are plenty of stock-car champs who are still around, Beckerman. Try Jimmie Johnson next time.

The Record debuts slow-news edition

Image via Wikipedia

Will another shark-sighting story get bored readers to bite?

Governor Christie slashed the Democrats' budget by nearly $1 billion, put the kibosh on the millionaires tax for the second year in a row, and signed his own budget on Thursday afternoon.


So why did it take Editor Francis Scandale more than two full days to get the winners-and-losers story onto the front page today?


News sharks


There are two major shore stories in The Record today, but the best one is relegated to sidebar status on A-6, while readers get yet another one of those nonsensical, is-it-safe-to-go-into-water pieces all over Page 1.


On A-6, Staff Writer Jim Beckerman does a great job contrasting neighboring Ocean Grove and Asbury Park -- a story of interest even to shore denizens -- and puts his musician's knowledge to good use. 


On A-3, readers learn the adventure is over for a baboon that escaped from an amusement park, but not that several others are on the loose in the Woodland Park newsroom.


Why two Georgia immigration law protest stories on A-3 and A-11, and why wasn't a refer used?


WWI, not DWI


On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, Road Warrior John Cichowski  must have used a mind-altering substance to turn out his umpteenth column on holiday drinking and driving.


This is writing while "intoxicated."


Hackensack news is still away on vacation.


Christie as savior


In Opinion, an editorial on budget pain and the death of NJN is conspicuous by its absence (O-2).


But Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin found room on the front of the section for a glowing story on Christie under the headline:

A signature accomplishment

The subhead spins all the cuts into "ground-breaking budget reform." What else can you expect from the author, Carl Golden, former press aide to two Republican governors?

Why didn't Doblin use his section front for a column on the budget process by Political Science Prof. Brigid Harrison, who calls all "New Jerseyans the losers" (O-2)?

Scandale on Spencer

You can't keep that Scandale down, despite more than a decade of failure as editor of The Record. 

Scandale once worked for newspaper editor Gil Spencer, and when Spencer died last month,  Scandale ordered the wire editor of The Record to insert his quotes into the obituary that ran in the Woodland Park daily.

Here is Scandale again today, reviving his Opinion front column and making Spencer seem like a journalism god (O-1). 

Anyone who has ever worked for a newspaper knows no editor could be that good. And anyone who has ever worked for Scandale knows none of his praise for Spencer could ever be applied to him.

Another freebie?

Did Travel Editor Jill Schensul take another free trip with other editors and travel professionals in return for today's lavish cover story on guided, private-jet tours (T-1)? 

Where are the prices in the other T-1 story, about Barcelona for foodies? Hey, Jill, readers don't get free trips and want to know what it will cost them before they go.

The Travel section today has two full photo pages of readers on the road, instead of just one, but I guess all of North Jersey's black families stayed home.