Editors are learning to walk before they can run

Hackensack residents are awaiting a story reporting the cost of fixing the roof of the Engine 5 firehouse on Main Street. That's Hackensack, not New Mexico.

With overall pedestrian injuries down in Bergen and Passaic counties, as well as in the state, it's hard to understand why the editors and their so-called commuting columnist are devoting so much space to the issue, including today's Page 1 takeout.

They continue to ignore much bigger issues -- from all of the maniacs on the road to paralyzing rush-hour traffic jams to challenges facing older drivers to Governor Christie's lack of commitment to mass transit.

Many of those pedestrians can't afford to own cars, but has Road Warrior John Cichowski or any other transportation reporter ever assessed the quality of local bus service?

It's a puzzle why Cichowski and his boss, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, identify so strongly with pedestrians, the subject of numerous Road Warrior columns in recent years.

The former abhors the legwork any good reporter must do and the latter can barely move under her own power.

Did they or didn't they?

Another front-page story today -- this one on whether two Catholic high school employees can be charged in Bergen County for allegedly having sex with students on a trip to Germany -- appears to convict them in the sub-headline:

Can pair be tried for

sex with girls overseas?

A letter to the editor on A-14 today reports one commuter's experience with aggressive drivers that seems to escape the notice of the Road Warrior and everyone else at the paper, including Editor Marty Gottlieb, until someone is killed.

Holes in their heads

There is so little local news today, Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza had to plug a hole with two long wire-service obituaries, and an 8-paragraph story on a firehouse-roof repair contract in Moonachie (L-6).

Readers can only be thankful they haven't been burdened by stories on firehouse-roof repairs from the 90 or so towns in the circulation area. 

Hackensack alone has at least three firehouses with roofs that may have needed repair.

Ignoring Main Street

Also on L-6 today, a 7-paragraph story reports Hackensack has launched a Web site so residents can monitor the progress of Main Street rehabilitation.

The Record pretty much ignored Main Street before it moved out of Hackensack in 2009, and continued to ignore it from the Woodland Park newsroom.

Printing of The Record and Herald News was moved out of the city a few years before that.

North Jersey Media Group and its flagship paper pulled out hundreds of employees, but the editors  have never reported the fallout.

Nor has Publisher Stephen A. Borg kept city residents informed about what will happen to The Record's landmark building and 20 acres along River Street.

A photo caption on the Better Living front today says singer Katy Perry is shown "in action onstage," but it certainly doesn't look anything like that (BL-1).

This is transportation coverage?

Image via Wikipedia

Let's all thank Staff Writer Tom Davis and clueless head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes for more cutting-edge transportation coverage. The editors at The Record of Woodland Park gave him a big part of Page 1 today for his non-story on training simulators used by drivers for the small PATH system.


Davis and the other transportation writers, including Road Warrior John Cichowski, have been simulating journalism for years. They've long ignored the shabby local bus service and the huge quality-of-life impact in Hackensack, Maywood and other towns from the business jets that bring fat cats to Teterboro Airport.

Davis, Cichowski and Staff Writer Karen Rouse have consistently refused to report how inferior local buses are when compared to the newer NJ Transit fleet that carries mostly white commuters to Manhattan. Of course, the local buses are patronized heavily by minorities, many of whom can't afford cars, so they may not be the paper's "demographic."


This is undoubtedly in keeping with the "responsible journalism" practiced by the Borgs' North Jersey Media Group from Woodland Park.


At least the editors found room on A-1 for another pissing match between Governor Christie and teachers, and the launching of a criminal probe against BP and the company that operated the oil platform that blew up and sank in the Gulf on April 20. But the paper and Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin have virtually ignored the slow death of an ecosystem.


Local has a detailed story on cuts to the Teaneck school budget, but readers in Hackensack are still waiting for a story on the proposed city budget and tax hike from Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado. But like a pit bull that won't let go of its prey, she has another story on a hearing in the Ken Zisa saga, and that's all she wrote about Hackensack for the umpteenth day. 

The only Englewood story -- a homicide -- leaves readers in the dark on a motive three days after the crime.


Marketplace returns to Better Living today, but only one new food outlet is featured, in contrast to the two a week that ran in the past. Is this column going to run only once a month now? That saves freelance fees, but cheats readers. Maybe a better solution would be to cut Food Editor Bill Pitcher's inflated salary.

Not much to read today

Image via Wikipedia

There's certainly nothing special about The Record of Woodland Park on this Sunday, especially how North Jersey gets short shrift in coverage of the snowstorm provided by the Star-Ledger. This saves the paper money, but cheats readers.

The "highlight" of the Local section is a pissing match between outgoing Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes and the city attorney on the legality of a Wildes-appointed commission. The real story is that many city residents regret voting for this relentless self-promoter -- whose middle name is "Pay to Play" -- and can't wait for him to leave office at the end of the year. Is reporter Giovanna Fabiano working on that?

Road Warrior John Cichowski has yet another column on the condition of North Jersey roads, while stubbornly refusing to get off his duff and ride one of the contraptions that NJ Transit is passing off as a local bus. His many columns about drivers and his repeated refusal in the last six years to give a voice to bus riders -- largely blacks and Hispanics who can't afford cars -- is tantamount to racism.

You won't find any Hackensack news in the former Hackensack daily today.

But you shouldn't miss the column on this year's hits and misses by Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung. In the second paragraph, this naive reporter repeats El Sol de Cuba's ridiculous assertion that its founding owner conceived many of the original recipes "in a Cuban prison and labor camp" during the Revolution. How likely is it that anything resembling food was served to prisoners, many of whom were excecuted?