Wacko racist and demagogue set to accept GOP nomination

Republican Ted Cruz refused to endorse wacko racist Donald J. Trump, because the nominee trashed the Texas senator's family during their nasty primary battle, according to the New York Post. You may recall Trump also said Governor Christie is guilty in the George Washington Bridge lane closures, but now the GOP bully is hoping to become the next U.S. attorney general. (Photo credit: New York Post)

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

One of the few human interest stories in The Record today is the Page 1 interview with Adele Dunlap, a Jersey girl who at 113 holds the title of Oldest American, but remains coy about her age.

Besides that, all Editor Deirdre Sykes can offer is to continue to polish Governor Christie's image as Donald J. Trump's attack dog, and seemingly related coverage of the Just Pups pet store chain (A-1, L-1).

Tonight, the wacko racist New York businessman, who has been compared to Hitler, is set to formally accept the Republican Party's presidential nomination. 

Trump is a true demagogue: a political leader who gains power by appealing to passions, prejudices and ignorance rather than by using rational argument.

Local news?

You won't find much human interest news in Local, where profiles of prominent residents don't appear until after they die.

The only humanizing touch on L-1 is a large photo of Kayden Kinckle of Englewood at Joseph M. Sanzari Children's Hospital in Hackensack. 

Otherwise, L-1 today is filled with court, council and water commission news, plus the gripping account of an environmental cleanup in Ridgefield.

If you miss the Law & Order news you usually find on the Local front, don't worry.

There is plenty of it on L-2, L-3, L-5 and L-6.

Will ex-Times editor's retirement revive local coverage?

Pedestrians on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack faced a number of obstacles on Thursday afternoon, including uncleared snow in front of the house at 90 Euclid Ave., above and below, and uncleared corners at Euclid and Grand avenues.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

One look at what may be Editor Marty Gottlieb's final front page today tells you the former Times veteran is no fan of the local-news coverage for which The Record once was praised.

In the four years he's been running the Woodland Park newsroom, the number of sports and sensational crime stories on the front-page has soared, such as the amputee and alleged murderer on A-1 today.

And Gottlieb has allowed local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza to pad their thin local-news section with endless Law & Order coverage, numerous stories about Paterson's dysfunctional government (L-1), and minor accident and fire photos (L-3).

On Thursday afternoon, crossing Grand and Euclid avenues in Hackensack required detours, above and below. Snow from the blizzard of 2016 stopped falling last Saturday night.

The 'context' editor

In a column on A-19 today, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin appears to be damning Gottlieb with faint praise.

"This is Marty's last week at The Record. He is retiring. He will be missed," Doblin writes, adding that four words sum up what he has learned from working with Gottlieb: "Look at the drapes."

Doblin claims Gottlieb is one of those editors who "leave indelible marks on how to practice journalism," a reference to the editor's insistence that no news story is complete without "context."

Of course, that was what Gottlieb learned in his many years of reporting and editing at The New York Times, where he ended his career as the high-flying editor of global editions in Paris and Hong Kong.

But providing "context" at The Record meant Gottlieb would edit and rewrite every Page 1 story filed by local reporters and approved by local editors.

Then, those reporters and editors would have to rework the stories from his hand-written notes, sucking out what little energy was left in a newsroom that had grown lazy under Sykes, Sforza and Francis "Frank" Scandale, the editor who was fired in late 2011.

Front-page stories became wordier, more complex and far less reader friendly.

And Gottlieb was a big fan of publishing the endless ruminations of Charles Stile, Mike Kelly, John Cichowski and the paper's other burned-out columnists on Page 1.

In the process of focusing on the big picture, coverage of Hackensack and many other towns waned dramatically.

Editor Martin Gottlieb is in his last week at The Record, but it remains to be seen if the Woodland Park daily will boost local-news coverage after he retires.

HUMC

Today's story on a new president for Hackensack University Medical Center is missing salaries for Ihor S. Sawczuk and Robert C. Garrett, president and CEO of Hackensack University Health Network (L-1).

Their bloated salaries are important, because the Hackensack complex has fought for years to preserve its tax-exempt status, shifting the property tax burden onto city residents and businesses.

Garret was paid nearly $3 million in 2012, according to NJBIZ.com's "Medical Millionaires."

Today's HUMC story carries the byline of Mary Jo Layton, but it appears to have been taken straight from hospital press releases, and doesn't mention the medical complex's controversial non-profit status.

And there is no pronunciation guide so are readers to assume the new president's last name sounds like "Sawchuck"?

No shortage of B.S.

Staff Writer Elisa Ung, the paper's chief food critic, is so busy stuffing her face with low-quality burgers she doesn't have to time to investigate how the cows were raised (Better Living).

So readers have to assume the beef used at Black Rebel Burger in Wood-Ridge and Mooyah in far-off Old Tappan is pumped full of harmful antibiotics and growth hormones, and may actually contain manure and superbugs (BL-12).

If you go, stick with the vegetarian options.

See:  How dangerous bacteria travel to your table

Should Bergenfield police chief make more than Christie?

It's been rough going for local-news readers of The Record since the Borg family abandoned Hackensack in 2009. But local drivers were pleasantly surprised to find a new surface on what was a crudely patched stretch of River Street in front of North Jersey Media Group's old headquarters, above.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today's upbeat front-page story on Bergen County's first female municipal police chief raises obvious questions the lazy editors of The Record don't bother addressing.

Staff Writer Nicholas Pugliese waits until deep into the continuation page to mention what is foremost on the minds of Bergenfield taxpayers:

How much will the town pay Capt. Cathy Madalone, who is the Borough Council's choice to succeed former Police Chief Michael Carr (A-6)?

Pugliese not only doesn't tell you how much she will be making, but also omits whether that is more or less than Carr's salary.

Well, it turns out Capt. Madalone is being paid $173,228, including longevity pay -- significantly less than the total of $190,536 Carr received as chief.

If Madalone gets a raise when she becomes chief, is it appropriate that she make more than Governor Christie's $175,000 (and the same question applied to Carr)?

Pugliese also doesn't address whether Bergenfield, which has a large Filipino-American community, has any Filipino officers.

Another question

Given all the problems in North Jersey and the state, is Editor Martin Gottlieb, a New Yorker, just being contemptuous of local concerns by running another silly sports column on what is supposed to be the paper's premier page (A-1)?

In Local today, there is extensive coverage of a hit-and-run that took the life of a Paterson teen on a bicycle (L-1), and a house fire in Passaic city that displaced six families (L-3).

Other Law & Order and court stories appear on L-1, L-3 and L-6.

What is long overdue is for Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza to work with their layout editors and designate a page or a page and a half  in the back of their section for crime, court, and accident news and photos.

Welcome change

In Better Living, for a welcome change, recipes for radicchio salad and shrimp salsa appear on BL-2.

Should Hackensack official return $93,000 to city?

Rush-hour traffic on the upper deck of the George Washington Bridge this morning. The Record continues to report on unannounced "temporary lane closures" in September that affected drivers entering tollbooths from Fort Lee (A-1), but its transportation reporters ignore the daily nightmare of commuting by car or overburdened mass transit.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

I'm sure I'm not the only Hackensack resident who hadn't heard of Agatha Toomey until last week, when the director of the city's Human Services Department made headlines for denying benefits to a formerly homeless man who was awarded $850 he found on the street.

On Wednesday, Record Staff Writer Hannan Adely reported Toomey is being paid $133,000 a year and has use of a city car  -- the kind of largesse residents have come to associate with Zisa family rule.

In a front-page story today, Adely reports Toomey received "a windfall of $93,000 in a payout for unused benefit time" in February 2011.

And, Adely reports, convicted former Police Chief Ken Zisa, who also served in the state Assembly, received a similar payout of $94,513 "just days before his arrest on fraud charges."

City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono said he didn't know why Zisa's name was on the list of employees who retired or were about to retire.

And Mayor John Labrosse claims Zisa's name was not on the list of retirees he was given (A-6). At the time, Labrosse was a member of a City Council dominated by Zisa allies, who were thrown out of office on July 1.

There has been no explanation for why Toomey makes so much money or why she still drives a city car weeks after officials pledged to review such use.

Should she return the $93,000? That question hasn't been addressed by city officials.

More sloppy work

As if The Record hasn't repeatedly smeared Richard Shoop's name, an A-6 caption on Tuesday "misidentified" his mother, Barbara, according to one of the two corrections on A-2 today.

Shoop is the troubled 20-year-old Teaneck pizzeria employee who went to the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus on Nov. 4 to commit suicide, firing random shots into the ceiling before killing himself in the basement.

Three columns by burned-out Staff Writer Mike Kelly associated Shoop with mass murderers. 

Furious back pedaling

What are readers to make of an editorial urging an end to all  "the talk" about the 2016 presidential election and whether Governor Christie will be the Republican nominee (A-20)?

It's Editor Marty Gottlieb and his gang of political columnists and reporters who have been feeding that media frenzy for more than a year.

Sensational stories

Also on A-1 today, Debra J. Feldman, 48, a Hackensack woman who disappeared in 2009, may have been the victim of a serial killer, the FBI said.

This sensational story is one of the many Law & Order stories in the paper today, especially in Local, which still had to use three filler photos of minor fires to fill its pages (L-2, L-3 and L-6).

Gee-whiz. A truck caught fire in Secaucus, and a car caught fire in Fair Lawn. And in other fire news, a short-circuit "destroyed" the facade of a Ridgewood building.

You can always count on Deputy Assignment Flunky Dan Sforza to be first with such major breaking news.

Pedal error?

More troubling is The Record's inability to report whether the driver of a car that hit a Trader Joe's employee in Westwood was elderly and mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal, a common problem for older drivers (L-1).

The story says the driver was "a woman who appeared to be elderly," and describes her Toyota Camry, one of the most recognizable cars on the road, as "a beige-colored sedan." 

Second look

The Road Warrior column on Monday was filled with errors, according to the concerned reader who maintains the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

All of the Motor Vehicle Commission issues Staff Writer John Cichowski mishandles "are clearly explained on various MVC website links or can be correctly answered by calling MVC customer service."

Cichowski also reported incorrectly the initial "inspection" of a new car is good for 5 years in New Jersey when no such inspection is required.

See the full e-mail to management and the editors:

Road Warrior skips correct MVC answers

Frank R. Lautenberg puts Christie, the Borgs to shame

U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg was a vocal advocate of building new Hudson River tunnels to expand NJ Transit rail service. Contrast that with Governor Christie, an enemy of mass transit who killed the project, citing his overweight wife's complaint she would have to walk too far to connect to Manhattan subways.

One thing the editors of The Record carefully avoid in today's comprehensive coverage of U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg is any comparison to Chris Christie, the worst New Jersey governor ever.

Nor do you see any mention of how Lautenberg, who died on Monday, used his wealth to serve the public, as opposed to the Borgs, who have put personal gain ahead of their flagship newspaper's service to local readers.

More politics

Of course, Editor Marty Gottlieb devotes most of Page 1 today to politics -- a sure turnoff for readers -- and took a couple of coded potshots at Lautenberg.

In Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson's appraisal, the senator's career "epitomized liberal politics" (A-1).

"Lautenberg was a reliable -- some might say predictable -- Democrat," Jackson reports, casting a partisan shadow over the senator's work to better the lives of the middle class (A-7).

The real Christie

Christie's many failures are exposed in a letter to the editor from Paul White, a Ridgewood resident who takes issue with a column praising the GOP governor from Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin, the mouse that roars (A-8).

White says Christie "has made his image by insulting and bullying," and has accomplished little that is positive while waging war against women, the working poor and the middle class.

Lautenberg's death also is the occasion for a cartoon  from Jimmy Margulies, whose work has been appearing only on Sundays since Publisher Stephen A. Borg let him go to cut costs (A-8).

This is certainly not among Margulies' best work.

More appropriate would have been a Jersey Mount Rushmore with Christie cast in the role of dynamiting Lautenberg's image.

More gimmicks

Meanwhile, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, produce a low-quality Local section that relies on the same gimmicks they've been using for years to mask their laziness.

Five of the six elements on the Local front are Law & Order coverage, and the central photo is an overly dramatized auto collision (L-1).

L-3 also is mostly Law & Order stories, and a second accident photo -- a pedestrian hit by a car -- is used as filler at the bottom of that page.

The caption describes a late-model Subaru as "a station wagon," a term that hasn't been used by the automotive industry in decades.

Sykes and Sforza also reprint a story about Hackensack bonding to pave streets and improve pedestrian safety from the weekly Hackensack Chronicle (L-2).

Christie is losing weight along with credibility

Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to hang up on commuters, with another column on today's Local front that shows he can't get his mind out of the gutter and off of potholes. He gives a big plug to Jack Tewani, owner of a sportswear business, who blames "craters" for ruining his tires.

Many readers didn't think there was another politician who could make Chris Christie look good, but a  photo in The Record today proves them wrong.

Paterson City Council President Anthony Davis appears to the African-American version of what Christie looked like before he had lap-band surgery and lost weight (A-3).

But under all that body fat, Davis is really an Uncle Tom, a black Democrat endorsing Christie's bid for a second term, despite all of the GOP bully's anti-minority policies.

Who could forget Christie's recent veto of a hike in the minimum wage? 

Or, how about cutting state aide to Paterson, forcing the layoff of 125 cops in one of New Jersey's most crime-ridden communities?

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes, from the State House Bureau, does a masterful job of avoiding those issues, lest it darken her upbeat, Christie-is-great story.

And like the editors she works for, Hayes writes off the challenge from state Sen. Barbara Buono, the likely Democratic nominee, denying her campaign equal time and a separate story.

Page 1 news

After watching extended coverage of the devastation in Oklahoma on Tuesday night's local and national TV news shows, readers pick up the paper today, only to find the front page dominated by the same image (A-1).

The lead Page 1 story is about the Rev. Michael Fugee, who is getting more coverage than the new pope (A-1).

Editorial page

For the third day in a row, the editorial cartoon is about the Bengazi, IRS or AP "scandals" (A-8).

Where is Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin, and what happened to the cartoons'  New Jersey focus?

Get out of jail

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Syke's Local section, the lead story is about the manager of the Tick Tock Diner finally making bail, six weeks after he was charged with plotting to kill his wife's uncle (L-1).

There is more Law & Order coverage on L-3 and L-6, but no municipal news from Hackensack or many other communities.

Burying the lede

Image via Wikipedia

Readers thought Wednesday's Page 1 takeout told them everything about so-called reforms at Hackensack University Medical Center after a federal trial exposed payments to a corrupt politician. 

So what's the explanation for today's A-1 story disclosing a $7.7 million salary and severance package for John P. Ferguson -- who was forced out as president of HUMC -- and millions more for other executives and employees?  

Why was this held until today?

Ferguson is the same man who, on July 25, enlisted The Record of Woodland Park to publicize his new venture with a Page 1 story that had negligible impact on North Jersey residents.

The July story reported -- apropos of nothing -- that Ferguson was president and CEO of a company that plans to open up to 20 upscale hospitals outside the U.S. to cater to affluent travelers and residents, the first in wealthy Dubai.

Why are federal tax filings containing Ferguson's 2009 pay package coming out just now? Did Jennifer A. Borg, a former HUMC board member, have anything to do with the splashy July story or with delaying today's story about the hospital, one of the paper's big advertisers?  

Borg is vice president and general counsel of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, and big sister of Publisher Stephen A. Borg.

Praying for a good headline

The main element on A-1 has an overline and a headline that seemed designed to turn readers off, not engage them. You'd think the news copy editor would have been inspired by a terrific photo showing a woman in court praying for a favorable ruling, and then written a photo overline and headline that drew readers in.

Instead, the photo overline uses the phrase "conflict resolution," which is about as dull as you can get:

Conflict resolution is their specialty

Who is "their"? The main headline below the photo says, "Court handles cases towns can't." Exciting, isn't it?

There are more problems with this A-1 package. The photo caption shows Mark Oprihory and Mary Foley, her hands clasped in prayer, on a court bench and, nearby, George Lahood, and says the first two await a ruling "in a case against" Lahood.

But the story doesn't even mention Mark Oprihory and Mary Foley.  

Police and court news

In head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, all the stories on the front are court and police news, and there is a lot more Law & Order coverage inside.

The entire section contains municipal or education stories from four towns, but no Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck news, or anything else from other major towns in North Jersey.