Editors turn every Christie move into a political stunt

Leonia is one of those Bergen County towns that doesn't get much coverage in The Record of Woodland Park. Dressing up the small business district along Broad Avenue is a sculpture garden, above and below.

Most of the businesses along Broad Avenue are owned and operated by Korean-Americans. Leonia borders Palisades Park and Fort Lee, both of which have even stronger Korean presences.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I've learned to ignore the lame political column Charles Stile has been writing since Governor Christie took office way back in January 2010.

But his Page 1 column in The Record today is hard to miss, especially because Editor Marty Gottlieb is using it in place of a news story on the special session of the state Legislature the governor called to fix the bail system (A-1).

This boring Stile column reads like all the rest:

The special session, Stile claims, could "polish up his resume for a likely run for president in 2016" (A-1).

"Some say the timing is good for Christie, who is trying to rebuild his image in the wake of the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal" (A-7).

Voter apathy

But on A-7, readers also find a news story on the special session that repeats much of Stile's column -- a real waste of space.

Stile and The Record avoid discussing how politics divide the nation and New Jersey, and how reporting like this simply turns off voters.

Christie was reelected last November in the lowest turnout of any previous gubernatorial election, but The Record always refers to it as a "landslide" and doesn't even mention the legions of disaffected voters.

Worst governor ever

Below the fold today, Staff Writer Scott Fallon reports that funding of open-space preservation is endangered by the poor state economy under the GOP bully.

But you have to read the entire story to get that message.

Today's editorial on anti-violence efforts by three North Jersey cities also is edited in a way to avoid placing blame on Christie for cutting state aid to poor cities like Paterson, resulting in the layoff of 125 police officers in 2011.

"Indeed," the editorial writer declares, "during the recent tenure of Mayor Jeffrey Jones in Paterson there was the feeling that, for whatever reason, the city's needs were not being heard by the powers that be in Trenton."

"For whatever reason"? What crap.

The quaint Borough Hall in Leonia.

New suicides? 

Another Page 1 story may cause more suicides on the George Washington Bridge among readers who learn a plan to build a 9-foot fence might take eight years -- twice as long as did construction of the span (A-1).

Imagine how many lives could have been saved if this fence was built during the years the Port Authority was diverting toll money to construction of One World Trade Center, with all of its delays and cost overruns.

It's hard to believe the fence won't be finished until 2022.

The story is by Staff Writer Christopher Maag, who has been neglecting his Hackensack beat.

Maag is thorough, but the story goes on and on like something you'd see in The New York Times, Gottlieb's old paper.

Hackensack news

With Maag writing about bridge suicides, the only Hackensack news today is another reporter's story on a lawsuit filed against the city by Patrolman Moise Flanagan (L-1).

Hackensack Scoop, a local blog, reported the lawsuit five days ago.

Lying to readers

If a recipe isn't healthy, The Record's editors don't see anything wrong with lying to their readers.

Clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson's recipe for Chilled Fennel Soup calls for 4 tablespoons of butter filled with artery clogging saturated fat (BL-2).

Yet, Jackson writes of the soup, "with no cream whatsoever, it's as healthy as healthy can be."

OK. With no brains whatsoever, Jackson is as stupid as stupid can be.

On Broad Avenue in Leonia, retail space is being renovated behind a colorful barrier, above and below.

'Coattails'? What about Christie's fat ass?

The New Jersey entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel on Monday, a light-traffic day.

You'd think The Record's editors would be exhausted from covering the presidential campaign, but you'd be wrong judging from the Page 1 column that kicks off hyping the 2013 gubernatorial election in New Jersey.

Just three weeks after President Obama's decisive victory over the greedy Republicans, "new polls showed that Governor Christie could be poised for a landslide re-election victory," Columnist Charles Stile reports.

But that's "if the race were held this week." What nonsense. Why put that kind of poll on Page 1, Editor Marty Gottlieb? 

This is another piece that makes Stile sound as if he gave up journalism in favor of going on the governor's payroll.

The headline is equally ridiculous:

Christie's

coattails

a concern

 for Dems   

It should probably read:

Christie's

fat ass

a concern

for GOP

Because when the Democrats get through exposing the GOP bully's cuts in aid for women's health programs, school meals for low-income children, poor cities and unionized workers, his fat ass will come to symbolize his more-for-me, less-for-you policies.

Let's not forget all of Christie's cronies on the payroll at the Port Authority, which slammed commuters with a 50% toll hike last year.

Guess how much Christie weighs 

Mass hysteria

Page 1 today continues The Record's unprecedented attention to mass transit after a decade or more of car-concentric coverage by the Road Warrior and other transportation reporters (PATH repairs, A-1).

But the post-Superstorm Sandy coverage is in keeping with the editors' policy of highlighting mass transit only when something goes wrong, while ignoring paralyzing rush-hour traffic congestion.

Yup, it's still segregated

At the bottom of Page 1 today, a news story makes rare mention of Englewood's "still-segregated" school district -- an imbalance head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor and former Englewood reporter Dan Sforza have been hiding for years.

On the Local front, the Road Warrior sleepwalks through another column based entirely on e-mails from readers (L-1).

Protecting cops

Prosecutor John L. Molinelli and officials from Leonia and Palisades Park are walking in lockstep by refusing to identify the three white police officers who on Sunday shot dead Rickey McFadden, 47, a black robbery suspect (L-1).

What do they have to hide?  

Has The Record learned anything from covering the fatal police shooting of Malik Williams, 19, of Garfield in December 2011 -- another case where Molinelli kept a tight lid on information, including the cops' identity? 

Maybe, Sykes and Sforza should send reporters out to talk to residents, other cops, town officials -- anyone who might know the names of the cops who killed McFadden in Leonia, and print the names. 

That's what newspapers usually do when officials are trying to hide something. Of course, that's not what The Record does, but maybe it's time for Sykes and Sforza to stop waiting for the official news release. 

The only Hackensack news recently has been about residents flooded out of their apartments by Sandy, and today, no city news appears in the paper. 

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It's a bird, a plane, a shovel -- uh, shuttle

The Record's news copy desk apparently is unaware that Dwight Morrow High School, above, was named after a famous person whose first name was Dwight and whose last name was Morrow. A bad photo caption hyphenates the name.

Older readers scrambled to find their magnifying glasses in order to see the small objects in the sky in today's Page 1 photo.

The Record's editors and the editors at The New York Times ran a nearly identical front-page photo today of the space shuttle Enterprise soaring over the Manhattan skyline on the back of a 747.

Wowee! Gee-whiz. Would you get a load of ... what?

A second photo on A-10 appears to show the Statue of Liberty giving the finger to the 747 pilot.

As the A-1 photo demonstrates, Editor Marty Gottlieb, who spent many years at The Times, didn't fall far from the tree.

Chris who?

Then, Gottlieb squandered the A-1 lead position on Chris Olsen, the moron who refused to suspend Wayne high school players arrested on aggravated assault charges.

Does anybody care what happens to Olsen?

Unbearable


Another gee-whiz photo on A-1 -- of a lighter-than-air bear -- comes all the way from Boulder, Colo., making readers think Denver Post alum Francis "Frank" Scandale didn't get shit-canned as editor last year.


Bridge to big profits

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, a story and photo updates the rebuilding of the Court Street Bridge between Hackensack and Bogota.

The story makes no mention that completion of the project in May is the final piece needed to make North Jersey Media Group's 20 acres on River Street attractive to such big-box retailers as Wal-Mart.

The bridge would provide a second access route to and from major highways. 

More bad errors

Production Editor Liz Houlton's error-prone news copy desk has been having a field day (see correction on A-2).

On L-2, a photo caption incorrectly hyphenates Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood.

And a much bigger photo on L-3 -- apparently needed to fill space that would normally be taken up by local news -- also carries an incorrect caption.

There is no "Main Street" in Leonia, but the main street is Broad Avenue. 

Hackensack news is missing in inaction again today.

Newsroom nightmares

Image via Wikipedia

Four reporters worked on today's front-page lead on the possible suicide of a well-known North Jersey chef, but it seems that none of them went inside his Fair Lawn restaurant on Sunday to interview the manager or staff. 

So readers are left in the dark. Is Joseph Cerniglia's death linked to his Campania restaurant again falling on hard times, as it did before it was turned around by Chef Gordon Ramsay on TV's "Kitchen Nightmares"?

Susan Sherrill, the new food editor at The Record of Woodland Park, contributed to this inadequate story, which is being reported three days after the Wayne man's death. We don't know the identity of the brain-dead weekend assignment editor, but demotion would be an appropriate penalty.

Precious A-1 space  is wasted again today on the slaying of a Seton Hall student from Virginia at a party in East Orange, the second day in a row this story was played out front by balls-less Editor Francis Scandale, who apparently believes crime news -- even from outside the circulation area -- is the new local news. 


The Local section is another disaster -- another slap in the face to readers -- from the desk of head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Loafs A Lot" Sykes.

A leering Mike Kelly weighs in with another smear column against the imam behind the proposed mosque near Ground Zero. A disaster drill is the major story on the front of the section. A drill. Not even a disaster. Where is the Hackensack news?

Without the backup of the assignment editor and the news copy desk, even the most talented reporter can turn in an incomplete story that leaves readers shaking their heads over the paper's knowledge of North Jersey. Sadly, most of the assignment and copy editors at The Record are brain-dead, as are their supervisors.

So it is with Staff Writer Ashley Kindergan's L-2 story on the closing of the Sol & Sol deli in Englewood after more than 60 years. Yes, the deli's whitefish was immortalized on "M*A*S*H" by Hawkeye, who was the main character on the TV series, not "one of the main" characters.


But Ashley, sweetheart, did you ask yourself, why Sol & Sol out of all those thousands of Jewish delis out there? It's because Alan Alda, the actor who played Hawkeye, lived for many years in Leonia, and undoubtedly ate regularly at the deli in neighboring Englewood. 
                                             

Masturbatory journalism

Image via Wikipedia

Don't read  Ian O'Connor's "fond farewell" on Page S-5 today right after you've eaten. Sure, it's only five paragraphs by the sports columnist who is leaving The Record of Woodland Park for ESPN-New York.com. But can't you just hear the violins in the background as he lavishes praise on Editor Frank Scandale and the Borgs.

Listen to this: The Borgs, Mac and Stephen, "represent one of the truly great newspaper families in America," O'Connor writes. I'm running for the bathroom.You can just imagine the inflated salary the Borgs paid this brown-nosed turkey, who I read maybe once in the 39 months he worked at the former Hackensack daily.

Underneath O'Connor's masturbatory prose, the paper ran an ad congratulating him on his new job and wishing him good luck. Many of us are saying, Good riddance. O'Connor also tells us he was a delivery boy for The Record. 

That reminds me that Glenn Ritt, a former editor, also delivered The Record as a boy. As an editor, he slaughtered the English language in memos posted on the bulletin board or in messages he sent out to the staff. Delivering the paper doesn't guarantee you'll become a great -- or even a good -- journalist.

The rest of today's paper is as dull as dishwater. The main element on Page 1 is about towns that are hoping to get colleges and universities to pay for municipal services, but  there is no mention that part of the Fairleigh Dickinson University campus is in Hackensack.

On Wednesday, Local carried a story about a Leonia teen who cooked up the idea of documenting a day in the life of her community with photos. Today, the front of Local carries a second story telling us she and others did just that. Wow. I thought it was a goof, a bluff -- that no way would she actually follow through. Thanks goes out to Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano for her dogged pursuit of this important milestone.

Uh, Fabiano, when is the last time you had an Englewood story in the paper (besides the bomb scare that wasn't)? It's almost a month, isn't it? There are six court or crime stories in Local, but the blackout on Hackensack news continues.