Accuracy isn't a priority at (201)

Image via Wikipedia
Actor John Travolta misses Baumgart's.

The glossy (201) magazine -- Publisher Stephen A. Borg's pet publication -- appears to be as poorly edited as The Record of Woodland Park.


Three embarrassing corrections appear on Page 20 of the February 2012 issue.


But the whopper appears on Page 66 of the current "BEST OF ISSUE."


This is the magazine feature where readers are polled on the best restaurant food in Bergen County. For the first time, celebrities are asked for their picks.


On Page 66, a photo of Englewood native John Travolta appears next to a quote from him:


"When I shoot Gotti, I'm going to go back to Englewood and stay there. I'll go to Baumgart's. I'll visit Palisades Avenue and the malls in Bergenfield. Home will always be home."


When is the last time Travolta or the editors of (201) have been to Bergenfield? And that should be "Palisade Avenue," not "Palisades."


Allowing readers to vote on the best restaurants is unreliable.


That's how, in polling for the Best Mexican Restaurant, the Americanized food at Blue Moon Cafe gets picked over the authentic, made-from-scratch fare at Rosa Mexicano in Hackensack (Page 62).


And that's how, in polling for the Best Barbecue, the crappy meat at Cubby's BBQ Restaurant triumphs (Page 63).


The magazine is filled with upbeat stories about wealthy Bergen County residents, and the women who appear in ads and articles often have artificially enlarged lips or breasts.

From a local garbage dump to your plate

Image by samenstelling via Flickr

Hunts Point in the Bronx is no garden spot, but does a wholesale food market belong anywhere near old garbage dumps in the New Jersey Meadowlands, above?

Laughing out loud.

The front page of The Record of Woodland Park today is filled with a couple of lousy Jersey Jokes from Brooklyn-born Editor Francis Scandale.

Eating garbage

The first whopper leads A-1, reporting that one of the world's biggest wholesale food markets might relocate to a contaminated former garbage dump in the Meadowlands from the Bronx. How appetizing is that notion?

Garbage dumps are where food goes to rot, not where North Jersey foodies who want to eat local go for their next meal. I suppose a big selling point is that methane gas vented from the old dumps would ripen the wholesalers' fruit and vegetables.

This sounds like another one of the bargaining chips the co-op has used over the years to get a better deal from New York City. There's zero chance Mayor Michael Bloomberg will allow the Hunts Point Market to pull up stakes.

And what about that clunky headline? "Market looks at EnCap." Is that the stock market? Housing market? 

Mob scenes

The second Jersey Joke is the A-1 refer and F-1 story about Englewood native John Travolta, who will play a dead crime boss, John Gotti Sr., in a feature film claiming the Gottis are "victims."  The producers aren't saying how many murders Travolta as Gotti will have to commit or order. 

Obituaries of judges, Hollywood stars, musicians and most murder victims hardly ever run on Page 1, so what is the photo of a funeral mass for a Bloomingdale barber doing here? Couldn't Scandale come up with anything better from his award-winning photo staff?

This is a strong North Jersey and New Jersey front page -- but the editor allows the paper to be used by Hollywood and Hunts Point.

How much is a consultant to Governor Christie's education czar being paid -- the $60,000 in the lead paragraph on A-1 or the "20 grand a month" in the quote from Assemblyman Louis Greenwald?

Hole in none

An A-12 editorial on a female sports writer for The Record being barred from a golf club locker room talks about the importance of "reporters trying to get to the truth." About golf? Does the writer expect readers to believe that's a reference to reporters at The Record? 

Dirt buster

In his third column in a row on highway litter, Road Warrior John Cichowski is taking credit for getting the mess cleaned up (L-1) -- just as he crowed about passage of the anti-roof snow law after he wrote dozens of columns about that.

Imagine what he could accomplish if he wrote about decrepit local buses or the need to hike the low gasoline tax a few cents to repair the state's bombed-out roads.

You won't find any municipal news today from Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood, Ridgewood or many other towns. 

I heard the assignment editors who work under the micro-managing Deirdre Sykes took the day off to shop North Jersey's malls.