Are editors doing enough to stop heroin deaths?

Have you seen any pothole-filling crews in Hackensack?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Newspaper readers are accustomed to seeing light, bright and tragic stories on the same front page.

But Page 1 of The Record today sets a new low, devoting more space to a new Jets quarterback than to the rising number of heroin deaths in Bergen County (A-1).

Couldn't Editor Marty Gottlieb find room in today's thin Sunday edition for a sidebar on whether customs officials, state lawmakers, local police, parents and the media are doing enough to stop drug overdoses?

Deep in the text on the continuation page (A-8), where Caitlin Reiter's heroin addiction and tragic death are described, a throwaway line continues the paper's one-dimensional portrayal of Paterson as a drug bazaar.

Second thoughts

Well, at least the morons in the Woodland Park newsroom are having second thoughts about their light treatment of the theft of $460,000 in parking-meter revenue in Ridgewood (A-1 and L-1).

"Questions are being raised" about the plea deal with a former village employee who is "likely to be spared any jail time," The Record reports today, quoting famed defense attorney Frank P. Lucianna and Ridgewood Mayor Paul Aronsohn.

Thursday's front-page story referred to admitted thief Thomas Rica as a "coin collector," and compared the weight of the stolen quarters to nine Honda Civics.

Joke is on voters

A third front-page story today reports on all of the jokes about Governor Christie in the wake of the politically motivated George Washington Bridge lane closures, resulting in four days of gridlock in Democratic Fort Lee last September (A-1).

Of course, the joke is on readers and voters who were let down by the media, which didn't uncover the scandal before the GOP bully was elected to a second term in November, in what was the lowest turnout ever for a gubernatorial election.

More road kill

Gottlieb and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza continue to treat readers with contempt by publishing Staff Writer John Cichowski, the confused reporter behind the Road Warrior column.

Today's rambling discussion of mass transit -- from buses to trains to ferries -- makes flawed comparisons and shows Cichowski's ignorance about service problems he has rarely addressed in more than a decade (L-1).

Reporting that NJ Transit diverted nearly 700 bus riders caught in a massive traffic jam to a trans-Hudson ferry, Cichowski wondered whether the agency was "responding to withering customer complaints" about delays at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan.

But the ferry diversion was in the morning; the long lines at the PABT are in the afternoon and evening, so there is no way they are related.

Water on brain

The idiot also reports that paying private ferry services to carry bus riders is "certainly cheaper" than expanding rail service by building new rail tunnels under the Hudson, a project killed by Christie in 2011.

But Cichowski doesn't seem to know Amtrak, the federal passenger railroad corporation, is completing the tunnel project, which won't increase bus capacity into the city.

Only another express bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel can do that.

Cichowski's previous column also was confusing, and focused on highway lighting, not poorly lighted streets where pedestrians are killed routinely by drivers who get away with murder by claiming, I didn't see him.

Cursing the Road Warrior's dim bulb


Celebrating hard work

For a change, the featured obituary on the front of Local today is about an ordinary, previously unsung African-American woman:

Levonia Chaney, who died this month at 104, was the great-granddaughter of a slave who worked as a seamstress and lived in Hackensack, where she and her husband, a porter, put two sons through medical school and saw their daughter become a music teacher (L-1). 

An editorial today questions the lack of security at the new World Trade Center, where a New Jersey teenager was able to climb up to the iconic building's antenna mast (O-2).

Good for Justin Casquejo of Weehawken. Too bad he or someone like him didn't do the same at the mall in Short Hills, where a young lawyer was murdered, or Westfield Garden State Plaza, the Paramus shopping center invaded by a gunman who fired random shots before committing suicide.

More Ung nonsense

If you believe Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung, restaurant goers have no "pet peeves" concerning the low quality of the food they are served or the ridiculously high prices for a glass of wine (BL-1).

The problem may be that she doesn't have to pay for her meals; the paper's expense account has completely spoiled her.

On Friday, The New York Times gave a rating "just shy of excellent" -- its top endorsement in New Jersey -- to Terre a Terre in Carlstadt, where Ung claimed she was served seafood that "smelled and tasted past their prime."

Contrast The Times' review to Ung's lukewarm appraisal:

New American amid the salt hay

For commuters, no real change at NJ Transit

A bus broke down this morning in the Route 495 express lane to the Lincoln Tunnel, delaying commuters aboard hundreds of Manhattan-bound buses, above, including NJ Transit riders standing in the aisles. The Port Authority has ignored calls to add a second express bus lane into the city, and The Record's lazy editors and reporters have taken no notice.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Dozens of commuters who couldn't find a seat on an NJ Transit train between Secaucus and New York's Penn Station were probably cursing Jim Weinstein on Wednesday morning.

Weinstein announced he will be leaving his job as executive director of NJ Transit on March 2, The Record reported on Wednesday (A-1).

But Weinstein, who is another of Governor Christie's many cronies, failed in his job long before Superstorm Sandy, when hundreds of rail cars and locomotives were destroyed, and the Super Bowl, when thousands of fans waited hours for trains.

Ignoring commuters

For years -- in a story The Record has never bothered to tell -- NJ Transit has been unable to provide a rush-hour seat for every commuter or guarantee their on-time arrival.

Why The Record's editors and reporters immediately went to bat for Super Bowl fans after years of ignoring North Jersey commuters is a question only the Woodland Park newsroom can answer.

The assignment editors and reporters don't seem to think they have anything in common with their readers who commute by bus or train.

In fact, Editor Marty Gottlieb and his many underlings appear to have contempt for readers who use mass transit, judging by the lack of coverage in the paper, especially in the Road Warrior column.

Drivers engage in the daily ritual of crawling down Route 495 to the entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel. This morning, a trip by car from Clifton to lower Manhattan took an agonizing 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Sky high salaries

Weinstein is being paid "upward of $261,000 a year," compared to Christie's $175,000, The Record reported.

He will be replaced at NJ Transit by Ronnie Hakim, another one of the governor's many cronies, who is in line for a $90,00o raise when she leaves the New Jersey Turnpike Authority -- by far the most expensive toll road in the tri-state area.

She now gets $174,000-a-year as executive director of the authority, which also runs the Garden State Parkway.

Early Alzheimer's

Meanwhile, Road Warrior John Cichowski finally emerges from hibernation to report on the challenges in the wake of last Thursday's nor'easter, which dropped 12 inches to 18 inches of snow on North Jersey (A-1 today).

The befuddled Cichowski doesn't have the courage to criticize state and municipal snow-removal crews for the half-assed job they did of clearing streets and highway ramps, and repairing potholes.

I also don't see any mention in his column today of pedestrians forced to put themselves in harm's way by walking in the street because of sidewalks and crosswalks still buried under snow.

The idiotic editors run a Page 1 photo today that tells readers nothing about the dangers of merging into high-speed traffic on highways when a mound of snow blocks the driver's vision or the acceleration lane suddenly disappears.

The mound of snow in the image blocks the view of the photographer (!!!), not the driver of the van shown merging onto Route 17 north in Upper Saddle River (A-1). 

Asylum's inmates

A news story and column on Page 1 today are about David Samson, the head of a powerful law firm who Christie named chairman of the patronage mill also known as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Check out the dated, unflattering column photo of Mike Kelly, whose shit-eating grin seems to undermine just about anything he has to say (A-1).

Burned-out Columnists Kelly and Cichowski appear to be just two of the patients in the newsroom's asylum.

A homeless man on the No. 2 train in Manhattan today had two hand trucks loaded with his belongings.

Today's edition of The Record is a real snorefest

Observers argue whether Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza of The Record or Road Warrior John Cichowski is the laziest member of the Woodland Park newsroom, and which one of them modeled for this sculpture at Hackensack University Medical Center. Others say this is the reaction of most readers to today's front page from Editor Marty Gottlieb.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The only human element on The Record's front page today is the heart-breaking photo of children outside a Ridgewood church after services for Michael Feeney, who succumbed to bone cancer at age 10.

What kind of "battle" is it when cancer kills someone so young? I wish The Record and other media would stop using that silly term in headlines and stories (A-1).

More boring news

The rest of Editor Marty Gottlieb's front page today is boring institutional news -- about Rutgers, Hartz Mountain Industries and the National Football League -- and yet another A-1 column on Governor Christie's standing among GOP presidential contenders (A-1).

Actually, the story on offsetting the electricity used for the Super Bowl with "renewable energy credits" raises a question.

Why can't the NFL reach a deal with the state police to keep drunken fans off the road after every game in the Meadowlands?

And don't you wish The Record would report on immigration reform in terms of whether it would be good for the country, and not spin it for what it means politically to Christie and every other official?

Two embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today.

Road litter

Given how little Road Warrior John Cichowski writes about NJ Transit's crowded trains and safety measures at stations to prevent pedestrian deaths, why is he tackling the train crash in New York that killed four (L-1)?

Cichowski's Sunday column on road projects was chiefly written to correct all the deficiencies of his previous, Nov. 24 column on the same subject, including missing completion dates.

But on Sunday, The Addled Commuter only supplied the years, not the months or anything more precise, and continued to make his readers sound stupid:

"What kind of  construction is being done that takes two-plus months of traffic tie-ups?"

That's from Leigh Kurtz, a Clifton resident who must have moved to New Jersey from the moon. 

Two months is nothing. Delays caused by road repairs are quantified in years, not months. And we're prisoners in our cars, because mass transit operates at capacity.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior column needs a complete overhaul

Why do editors continue to shaft older drivers?

The 14 acres of woodland that once served as Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg's playground, behind a columned white mansion on Summit Avenue, are one of the few instances where Hackensack residents defeated a development proposal. In this case,  68 town houses were to be built on the land.

I am sick and tired of reading The Record's endless reporting on teen deaths in automobile accidents -- as in today's Page 1 column -- while the challenges faced by older drivers are virtually ignored.

Seniors get behind the wheel, mistake the gas pedal for the brake pedal and kill themselves or someone else -- then become a photo op for head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who uses accident photos as filler in the Local news section (see L-3).

You'd think Editor Marty Gottlieb, who is in his mid-60s, or veteran reporter John Cichowski would care about this issue, and report on the challenges facing older drivers and the help available to them. 

Today's Road Warrior column cites a number of reason for fewer deaths among 16- to 20-year-old drivers, including red decals on license plates.

Of course, Cichowski doesn't tell readers how many hysterical parents he allowed to vent in his column in opposition to the decals when they were first proposed, just as he has done for lead-footed drivers trying to kill another life-saving measure, red-light cameras.

If past Road Warrior columns are any guide, the statistics cited in today's piece are probably reported incorrectly by Cichowski, but don't look for corrections on Wednesday.

Donovan v. Democrats

I am sure I wasn't the only lifelong Democrat repelled by the greed of Bergen County's Democratic Party who voted for county Executive Kathleen Donovan, a Republican.

Now, Donovan, who has been hospitalized for a month, has vowed to veto a pay-to-play ordinance -- proposed by majority Democrats -- that would allow special interests to contribute up to $20,000 a year to county political parties (A-1).

Dissing Hackensack

Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, turn out another lame Local section today, with no Hackensack news.

A story on plunging gas prices (Business, L-7) includes photos from Vermont, suggesting that all of the gas stations near the Woodland Park newsroom have gone out of business.

The photo with the 15 Minute Chef, supplied by The Washington Post, makes Cumin-Cilantro Chicken Patties look like vomit (BL-2).

Welcome to the United States of Ford

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Eric Cantor, left, gives a bad name to cantors. John Boehner or Boner?

The brutal treatment of a close-knit North Jersey community by Ford Motor Co. is a tortured tale of corporate greed and racism, of government inaction and media indifference.


Now, the lead Page 1 story in The Record today reports the automaker also used Rockland County, N.Y., as a dump site for tons of toxic paint sludge from a Ford plant in Mahwah, and a cleanup will start soon.


How long has it been there, Editor Francis Scandale? More than 30 years. What a great corporate citizen Ford is, what a great journalist Scandale is.


The story by Staff Writer Scott Fallon is filled with lots of background and numbers, but the cleanup is reported matter of factly, as if he had just covered a Zoning Board of Adjustment meeting.


On A-4, an Associated Press story reports suspect Levi Aron, 35,  "has denied molesting" 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, "but police still consider that a possibility," contradicting the Daily News story that ran Thursday.


Grand Old Bullshit


On A-14, an Associated Press photo shows House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., covering part of his face with his hand, suggesting he is getting ready to tell more lies about debt negotiations.


Months after Cantor and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Oh., took over, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin finally seems to have grasped the full meaning of their obstructionist tactics.


His hard-hitting editorial appears on A-20 -- a day after letters from readers made many of the same points. Here's part of it:


"These [Republican] politicians with their blind insistence [that taxes should not be raised] are not making America better, they are sacraficing it."  Tea Partiers and hard-line conservatives "are saddling Republicans with the image of a party run amok ...."


But Doblin speaks out of both sides of his mouth, and on the page opposite the editorial, his column portrays Republican Governor Christie as a more pro-active leader than President Obama (A-21).


What about Christie's blind insistence that taxes on millionaires shouldn't be raised or his assaults on programs for working- and middle-class families, the poor, the old and others who can't defend themselves?


Deja vu news


On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski has his umpteenth list of survival tips for a visit to the MVC office, even though local readers are crying out for a survival guide to the paper itself (L-1).


Smelly fish


Why would anyone want to go to Tani in Glen Rock, a Chinese-run restaurant that tries to serve food  from six different Asian cuisines, especially when the reviewer got a "tough, fishy smelling piece" of raw tuna?


In her two-star review (Good) in Better Living today, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung recommends the five-flavored Chilean sea bass, without noting that one of those flavors comes from elevated levels of harmful mercury.

Rebuilding the spirit of readers

Image via Wikipedia

Readers are biting their nails as the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches.

What would it take for Editor Francis Scandale of The Record to rebuild the spirit of readers?


It may be too late for him, having filled the front page day after day with the inconsequential or hitting the reader over the head with the same story month after month.


Today, here is Staff Writer Shawn Boburg with at least his third major Page 1 takeout this year on the 9/11 memorial and rebuilding of the World Trade Center site.


This may be one of the biggest construction projects in memory, but why didn't the reporter ask Port Authority Chairman David Samson why commuters should swallow higher bridge and tunnel tolls, if they're needed to help meet the $11 billion price tag? 


Readers are sick and tired of reading about rich and powerful people like Samson. Look at the stupid drop headline: "Port Authority chief committed to WTC project."


We should hope so, but this isn't supposed to be P.R. for the humongous bi-state agency.


News or views?


What other earth-shaking news is on the front page? 


Here's another process story from Road Warrior John Cichowski on fixing the MVC -- the 300th in an unending series.


Here's sports Columnist Tara Sullivan praising the U.S. women's World Cup soccer team just days after writing another column that trashed the team by comparing the women unfavorably to the '99 squad.


Obesity news


Former Food Editor Bill Pitcher may be on the run now that the Journal of the American Medical Association argues parents of extremely obese children should lose custody for not controlling their kids' weight (A-5).


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section seems filled with stories, but when you examine them, there isn't any municipal news from Teaneck or Englewood.


Brass balls


Staff Writer Melissa Hayes -- who wrote today's L-1 story on a strip mall fire --  reported on Englewood's fiscal mess on Monday, noting the police chief is being paid more than $241,000 a year, the fire chief gets $220,000,the deputy police chief receives $219,000 and even police lieutenants are paid $206,000.


Did it occur to Hayes' clueless assignment editor to ask her to write a story on why  Governor Christie has given a pass to police brass on having their salaries capped at his salary of $175,000, just like all those haughty school superintendents?

Road Warrior screws up in Page 1 column

Image via Wikipedia

A correction on an A-1 Road Warrior column highlights an ongoing problem with accuracy.

Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski's biggest failure as a journalist is ignoring the plight of tens of thousands of North Jersey commuters who use crowded buses and trains -- while churning out a mind-numbing series of stories on the problems of drivers.

You'd think he is in the pocket of all of the automobile dealers who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising in The Record of Woodland Park, including the many pages that made today's paper so fat.

A correction on A-2 today throws a spotlight on his accuracy:

Correction

The Road Warrior column on Page A-1 on Friday about motor coach safety incorrectly identified a Haledon company that had an alert placed on its record by the federal government. The name of the company is Charter Coach & Travel LLC.

I can't stand reading most of Cichowski's tortured prose, so had to go looking for how the company name was rendered in the paper on Friday. I finally found it, on the continuation page (A-10): "Carter's Coach."

Carter's Coach isn't even close to the correct name. How many other errors has Cichowski made over the years that were never corrected?

Judging from what I hear from readers and from my own experience in editing his columns for many years, Cichowski makes quite a few errors that are either caught on the news copy desk or get into the paper and are never corrected.

Even today's correction is flawed. The word "alert" should have been written "ALERT," as it was in Friday's story, signifying "warning evaluations" for "unsatisfactory performance" from the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration.

Disaster in Japan

Editor Francis Scandale keeps on squeezing as much as possible out of the sister-city relationship between Glen Rock, where he lives, and Onomachi, Japan (A-1). 

Today, free-lance Columnist Pat Kinney was taken out of mothballs for the second time since the quake hit a week ago Friday (L-3). 

Among the many angles Scandale has overlooked is publishing a profile of the Japanese community in North Jersey. 

Right now, all readers might know from reading Kinney is her oft-repeated statement that most Japanese families live here temporarily during the husband's job posting.

An enduring mystery is why head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes hasn't asked the only  Japanese staffer in the newsroom, feature writer Sachi Fujimori -- who can do it all -- to help out  or even why Fujimori wasn't sent to Japan to cover the big story.

The assignment wouldn't be that expensive for the paper, especially if she can hitch a ride on Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg's private jet.

Amtrak to Christie: Drop dead!

Image by JonathanCohen via Flickr

The debate over the Hudson River rail tunnels suddenly lost focus Friday.

A day after the editors welcomed Governor Christie with open legs and almost all of Page 1 to stake out his positions on education, transportation and other issues, federal officials told the Republican bully to drop dead.


The Record of Woodland Park tried to minimize the story's impact today, but a one-column head below a tabloid story on a Peeping Tom couldn't hide the terrible news: 

Amtrak slammed the door shut on salvaging the Hudson River Rail Tunnels to Nowhere -- meaning cash-starved New Jersey may get stuck with a bill that approaches $1 billion. (NJ Transit already spent $595 million on the project, and the feds want $271 million of their money repaid, plus interest and penalties.)

Christie double-speak

Amtrak's decision "late on Thursday" apparently caught Editor Francis Scandale and his hand-picked transportation reporter, Karen Rouse, off-guard. There certainly was no hint of it in Thursday's lavish coverage of Christie, who was quoted as saying the Amtrak talks were active.


NJ Transit can still salvage the project if it extends electrified light-rail service from the base of the Palisades into Manhattan. The use of light rail may also reduce costs, but I haven't seen anything about that possibility in The Record.


Look at the rest of Scandale's pathetic front page today. 

He must really be losing it in his pursuit of readers if he resorted to this ridiculous story about a hidden restroom camera that caught a man urinating. And the patch -- about improving science education -- what's that doing on A-1? 


Look at the headline -- right next to the Amtrak-NJ Transit rail-tunnels story. Why didn't the news copy desk avoid the cliched "on right track" here?

Lessons shaped to get 

students on right track

Let's see what head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes did with the Local section, her pride and joy.

L-1 has a large photo of a non-fatal accident today -- one of Sykes' favorite ways of filling all the space that her lazy minions can't fill.

What red light?

At the bottom of the page, Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski seems to be siding with drivers who blow through red lights -- endangering all of us -- with what is at least his second screed against red-light cameras. 

"Limp Chick," as he is known around the office, also has virtually ignored the commuting problems of mass-transit users, because he is in the pockets of the car dealers who advertise so heavily in the former Hackensack daily.

Staff Writer Joseph Ax reports on L-6 that "mechanical failure" has been ruled out in the fatal crash of Teaneck Police Officer John Abraham early Oct. 25, though he makes no reference to the safety problems of the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor.

Also on L-6 are a photo and brief on two more elderly driver accidents, which Sykes and Cichowski are doing their best to ignore. 

They should have launched a project on the driving challenges facing seniors and the help available to them long ago, but they'd rather grow warts on their asses from the hours they spend in front of their computers. 

$200 for mystery meat

I simply don't understand how Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung can blow more than $200 on dinner for two and come away with so little knowledge of the food she ate and so much contempt for the reader. 

Her three-star Better Living review of The Park Steakhouse in Park Ridge is a celebration of gluttony with no details on the quality of the meat served. And she says the restaurant serves Chilean sea bass, but doesn't tell you it is an over-fished species that is high in mercury.

Don't readers deserve to know if the $41 sirloin they order comes from an animal that is raised naturally on grass or one that was confined to a feedlot, pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones, and fed animal byproducts (bits of dead animals)?


Instead, Ung quotes the menu, telling readers it's "an exceptional cut of meat." Her opinion? "It  was quite good." And she loved the four desserts she stuffed down her gullet on two visits, including a $14 souffle.


There are no local restaurant health ratings in the paper today, but you will find wire-service stories on wine and bourbon

Columnist says F.U. to elderly drivers

Image via Wikipedia

This is how John Cichowski prefers his old people -- waiting for a ride.

Liberty Mutual and many other insurance companies would like nothing better than if thousands of seniors gave up the keys to their cars. That would cut claims from the hundreds of accidents caused by elderly drivers and boost profits, even as it curtails their independence.


So can you imagine a more shameless performance by The Record's editor, Francis Scandale, and Columnist John Cichowski than today's lavish, front-page coverage of a Liberty Mutual-financed service to provide low-cost rides for seniors in North Jersey and other suburbs? 

Instead of identifying programs that can help seniors meet the challenges of driving as they age, Cichowski sells out to the insurers, just as the commuting columnist has sold out to car dealers by virtually ignoring mass transit.

Chick, as he is known in Woodland Park, actually left the office to attend a dog-and-pony news conference in Manhattan and donned bulky clothing that made him "feel as old as Methuselah," who was blind. I guess that's how he regards elderly drivers.

Of course, there is no refer in his story to today's L-1 story on an accident caused by an unidentified "grandmother" who crashed into the front of a day-car center in Pal Park when she mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal. In the past decade, the former Hackensack daily has covered hundreds of similar accidents with a photo and caption or a few paragraphs.

What will that limited ride program publicized on Page 1 do for thousands of seniors who need their cars every day to shop for food, take care of their spouses and grandchildren, and preserve their dignity?

Also on L-1 today, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado has her ninth story since Oct. 1 on the Police Department, elevating a disciplinary hearing into major news.


Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano also has an L-1 story today -- her first since Oct. 26 -- on a new schools superintendent who comes from a district that is "81 percent minority." But there is absolutely nothing similar in the story about Englewood, which has segregated elementary and middle schools, not even how many students live in the district.


Cichowski, Alvarado and Fabiano are inspired to do such a great job day after day by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her lazy minions, including Dan Sforza, Richard Whitby and Christina Joseph.

In Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung has a lukewarm, two-star appraisal of Chef Ji's Moonjar in Fort Lee. She tells readers the restaurant is not appropriate for a "formal meal." I see that term a lot in her reviews, but can't imagine what a "formal meal" is.

Unfortunately, she long ago cheapened the two-star rating (good) by giving it to Bahama Breeze, a faux-Caribbean chain restaurant in Wayne.

There are no local restaurant health ratings in the paper today, but there is plenty of wire service copy on the right wine to drink with spicy meals and bar food.

Today's front page from the Newseum 

He's no Jeff Page

Image by Zohar Manor-Abel via Flickr

The Record's lack of concern for rail riders is well-known, thanks to car-centric Road Worrier John Cichowski. The rail station in Secaucus, named after a U.S. senator, is shown on a quiet day.

You can tell instantly from his first paragraph on Page 1 today how skewed John Cichowski's focus has been in the seven years he's been writing the Road Warrior column for The Record. He thinks his audience are readers who drive to shopping malls and into the city, so he's turned his back on mass transit users in what was conceived as a column on commuting woes.


He succeeded Jeffrey Page, who started the column in 1990. Page was a reporter who, despite his massive girth, knew what it meant to hustle and do legwork in pursuit of a story. The tall, thin Cichowski, on the other hand, has undoubtedly grown warts on his ass from all the hours he spends in front of the computer, reading complaining e-mails from spoiled drivers.

Chick, as he's known around the Woodland Park office, has become the Desk Warrior and the Road Worrier. He doesn't seem to think taking a train or a bus is commuting. And he's no Jeff Page.


Chick's mind is literally in the gutter as he muses endlessly about potholes and arcane state driving regulations. 

He's completely untroubled that mass transit into Manhattan -- buses and trains -- has been at capacity for years, resulting in the huge success of the so-called Spanish bus system, the building of a rail-transfer station in the Meadowlands and construction on a new Hudson River rail tunnel. 

People who can't afford cars and have to ride the decrepit local buses are just poor black and Hispanic trash to this white journalist.

His Q&A with the head of the Motor Vehicle Commission should be with the head of NJ Transit, in recognition that mass transit -- not roads -- are the future of North Jersey. But the irresponsible Cichowski and The Record appear to be in the pockets of car dealers, who spend a huge amount of money on ads.

In fact, only a few words are devoted to buses and trains in his main story today and four -- count them, four -- sidebars. This windbag boasts of the 900 columns he has written so far, showing that his real value to the editor who promoted him in 2003, Deirdre Sykes, is as a space filler -- as the rest of the local news staff produces less and less. 

Cichowski is skilled at overwriting in the journalistic sense as well as writing too long, as he did when he was a reporter in the Passaic County bureau. 

Cichowski's massive presence on the front page today minimizes the importance of a second, A-1 story, this one on Governor Christie's deep social conservatism, as seen in cuts to programs for working poor, legal aliens and women. No mention of his pandering to the rich appears in the story. We can all take comfort in the prospect he may seek higher office after his first term. 


The Local news section has stories from many towns, but none from Hackensack or Englewood, two core Bergen communities.


What's wrong with the economy

How can anybody fix the economy with company presidents like Michael Fleischer, who says hiring workers is too expensive in terms of health care costs and taxes. Amazingly, a Q&A with Fleischer, who runs a company in Ramsey, doesn't disclose what his salary and perks are. But there is room for a large photo of the smug executive.

Limp cake slices or limp coverage?

In Better Living today, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung frets over the sad state of dessert trays, while Food Editor Susan Sherrill's first byline is over a story on judging a pie contest.

The fiction corner

The highly promotional Real Estate section sinks to a new low today with a story on Paterson that is partly fictional. This from The Record, which has for years under Editor Francis Scandale portrayed the city as a center of drug dealing and prostitution, and which chronicles every drive-by shooting fatality.

The "Moving Up" story by a free-lancer makes no mention of the murder rate this year, the vibrant South Paterson neighborhood of Middle Eastern restaurants, bakeries and markets; or the enclaves of deteriorated and slum housing, whose landlords The Record has never sought to identify. One homeowner is quoted as saying, "It's nice place."

Animals rule

I guess human behavior has deteriorated so far, the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation is celebrating animals and people who write about them, giving Travel Editor Jill Schensul a Gold Metal for her 2009 trip to Namibia to help rescue big cats and restore their habitat. 

I guess she couldn't find a volunteer position helping people in that African country.

She might want to begin wondering why there is so little diversity in the readers who send in photos of their vacations. The standing feature on F-3 appears to be all-white again today, with the exception of native dancers in Belize. Is that an Asian woman in one photo? Wow.

 

Discriminatory journalism

Image by live w mcs via Flickr

A pothole that appeared in March 2009 in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Potholes. Overgrown weeds. Damaged guardrails. Trash. These complaints from drivers -- and in the case of trash, about other drivers -- don't make for riveting news, and certainly don't belong on Page 1, except for the daily garbage can of a front page in The Record of Woodland Park.


Not only is the main headline on today's story a stupid play on words ("no brake" for "no break"), a photographer apparently couldn't find a DOT crew repairing a pothole or a guardrail, cutting down weeds or clearing trash. The headline should have read:

No break for readers

Transportation reporter Karen Rouse, who wrote the story, is stealing Desk Warrior John Cichowski's thunder in writing about potholes. He does it annually and at great length -- until readers' eyes glaze over.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes apparently won't allow Rouse to leave the office, or so it seems from all the telephone and Internet stories on surveys and reports she does. A while back, one of her Page 1 stories listed complaints about toll takers.

More troubling, Sykes, Rouse, Cichowski, Editor Francis Scandale, Assignment Editor Dan Sforza and former transportation reporter Tom Davis have for years turned their backs on minorities who can't afford cars and who have to make do with NJ Transit's fleet of decrepit, decades-old local buses -- white elephants that are literally falling apart. 

You'd think Rouse, who is African-American, would be outraged at this clear case of discrimination against local bus riders, while the transit agency routinely replaces buses on routes to Manhattan every decade or so. But no transportation reporter in memory has ever taken mass transit -- buses or trains -- and given voice to the complaints of riders.


If I didn't know better, I'd think Rouse and the others are merely doing the bidding of the advertising department, which rakes in a huge amount of revenue from ads sold to car dealers, and hardly any from NJ Transit.

Local education coverage

First, readers lost local news. Then, they lost food coverage. Now, they've apparently lost "daily" education coverage, which appeared on Page L-2 of Local during the school year, under the 2006 or 2007 edict of marketing wizard and Publisher Stephen. A. "Greedy Stevie" Borg.


Sykes has had trouble supplying enough education news to fill L-2, and has resorted to Dean's List filler, but now apparently, any old story can go on L-2, as today's page demonstrates. The layout editor even had to resort to three house ads to fill space. The "Education" bug is missing, as well.


The dominant photo on L-1 today is the aftermath of a police chase and a collision.

This one is for wrapping fish

Image by Nationaal Archief via Flickr

The Sunday paper leads with a crime story -- a Seton Hall student from Virginia is slain at a party in East Orange. Gripping news for Bergen County readers of The Record of Woodland Park.

The dominant A-1 story is about North Jersey's ridiculous home prices, still artificially high despite the recession, and for that we can thank the greedy real estate industry, whose advertising  helps keep the paper afloat. 

The third front-page story is about a Navy veteran whose slaying hasn't been solved. Why is this cold case on Page 1?


The Local section is another Deirdre Sykes' joke on readers. The big L-1 story has the headline, "Towns weigh change" -- a guaranteed room-clearer -- and the subhead uses the word "service" twice -- a major no-no.

Desk Warrior John "Limp Chick" Cichowski continues to roam far from his mission of writing about commuters, with a story on the driving record of a moron from a reality TV show. You won't find any Hackensack or Englewood news in the section.


Could there be anything more promotional than Elisa Ung's F-6 column on a single pizzeria in Allendale? Does she really expect us to believe the owner is "America's Best Pizza Maker," as an industry magazine proclaims? What a sell-out.

Three letters to the editor in Opinion today objected to the A-1 story Sept. 18 about an obscure Jewish practice of killing chickens for Yom Kippur. Let's hope the editors kill any more story ideas from Staff Writer Deena Yellin, if they involve Orthodox Jews.

Who isn't bored with the full page of photos in Travel showing readers holding up the section while on vacation? This is one page less in a thin, six-page section that the self-styled klutz of a travel editor has to fill with useful information for travelers. 

Take a good look at those photos. All of the people appear to be white or Asian, which largely reflects the racial make-up of The Record newsroom, although Publisher Greedy Stevie Borg long ago gave the heave-ho to most of the older workers.

(Top photo: The Record's local news assignment desk.)

Note to readers

Don't miss the previous post: "Tales from the old Hackensack newsroom," and don't forget to click on "comments" for Jerry DeMarco's recollections of working side-by-side with head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes (aka Mama Crass).