With Christie, cops and more, editors won't place blame

On Tom Hunter Road in Fort Lee on Friday afternoon, the danger from sloppy municipal snow clearing was clearly evident on what is normally a two-way street, leaving no room for vehicles to pass each other, above and below. Behind the car were several more vehicles that had to squeeze past the school bus. This scene was repeated on many of North Jersey's narrow and not-so-narrow streets.

A story on The Record's Local front today -- "Wacky weather hangs on" -- makes no reference to how drivers and pedestrians have been put in harm's way by incompetent plowing and clearing in North Jersey weeks after the first big snowstorm.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's editors seem to tremble before authority, whether it's Governor Christie or the Police Department in Paterson.

An editorial today is only mildly critical of Christie's extensive out-of-state travel in pursuit of the White House, but praises the GOP bully for "a series of first-term accomplishments, including bipartisan deals with the Democratic-controlled Legislature" (A-13).

Christie's many policy failures, including Sandy recovery and the state economy; his record number of vetoes and his use of traffic to retaliate against Democrats are nowhere to be found.

Crime City

Then, in the second part of a series -- "IN HEROIN'S GRIP" -- Staff Writer Rebecca D. O'Brien only hints at Paterson's lack of resources and police manpower (A-1, A-6 and A-7).

For some reason, O'Brien doesn't mention the layoff of 125 officers in 2011, blamed on Christie's state aid cuts to poor cities and Paterson's own budget constraints.

Typical of how The Record criticizes authority, O'Brien quotes Charles Florio, a Ridgefield Park developer who owns 130 properties in the city.

"He blames the poverty, the addicts and the lack of police," the reporter says of Florio (A-7).

Later, Florio says, "at the end of the day, you have no police presence" and "police often take hours to respond to complaints about trespassing."

"They don't have the manpower or money to do real police work," Florio says.

This is a variation of how Trenton reporters politicize any criticism of Christie by quoting Democrats, and rarely ask readers for their opinion.

To better demonize Silk City, O'Brien reports:

"The Paterson of vibrant neighborhoods ... often exists in memory."

That amounts to a big lie, given Paterson's mansion-filled Eastside and South Paterson, a Middle Eastern bazaar of bakeries, food stores and restaurants.

Selling papers

Editor Marty Gottlieb's only interest is to sell newspapers, judging from more front-page play for an ISIS video showing beheadings, this time of Coptic Christians in Libya (A-1).

A full page in Local today is devoted to a house ad claiming The Record is North Jersey's "trusted sources for news, sports and entertainment" (L-7).

A photo shows part of a woman's face, but she looks too young to be a reader.

Sheepish

Hackensack readers are accustomed to sporadic news, but why does Staff Writer Sachi Fujimori freeze out Lotus Cafe in her story on Chinese New Year (BL-1)?

The Hackensack Avenue BYO is offering a four-course Year of the Sheep menu for $29.95 per person, including an appetizer, soup, main course and dessert.

Entrees include filet mignon, flounder, a half duck, jumbo shrimp or shredded roast duck served with buns.

Chief restaurant reviewer forgets she is a reporter first

Parking in front of Joyce Chinese Cuisine and other tenants at Kress Plaza, a strip mall in River Edge, requires the skills of a constitutional scholar to interpret all of the signs warning customers about time limits, towing and other bad news.

The Record's rave review of Joyce Chinese Cuisine in Friday's edition makes no mention of the parking restrictions or that customers who use the bigger lot in back of the strip mall won't find a rear entrance to the restaurant. This photo was taken today before the restaurant opened at 11 a.m.

The restaurant, at 478 Kinderkamack Road, also has a sign on parking regulations, above, in addition to two others on nearby stores, below.

This sign means that if you park in front of the restaurant, you have to finish your meal in 30 minutes.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Some River Edge residents were incredulous when they learned town fathers had approved a large Chinese restaurant for a Kinderkamack Road strip mall where parking is notoriously difficult.

Then, two friends joined a second couple for dinner at the new restaurant, Joyce Chinese Cuisine, and were incredulous they were charged an introductory price of $6 for a pot of tea that is free just about everywhere else.

Now that the restaurant has had its grand opening that pot of tea is listed on the menu at $8.

Starry eyed

You won't learn any of this by reading Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung's rave, 3-star review of Joyce Chinese Cuisine in The Record on Friday (BL-16).

But there is lots of gee-whiz reporting on the "more than $1 million" the owners spent to turn a vacant space "into an elegant restaurant" -- when every restaurant reviewer knows or should know readers can't eat the wallpaper.

Difficult parking at a suburban restaurant and an $8 charge for a pot of Chinese tea are two turnoffs that will keep me away no matter how good the Sichuan food might be at Joyce Chinese Cuisine. 

Lan Garden on Route 46 west in Ridgefield also serves Sichuan cuisine, and that restaurant, which is now having a soft opening, and Lotus Cafe in Hackensack have plenty of convenient parking out front.

Today's paper

Don't expect The Record to do any serious reporting on some lawyers' outrageous hourly rates or the roughly one-third they collect after huge monetary settlements of civil lawsuits.

In fact, Staff Writer Kibret Markos has filed numerous stories on settlements of many hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars without ever mentioning how much of that goes to the lawyers.

The rare byline of Jean Rimbach apears today over a front-page story on the $615,000 in legal fees Bergen County will be paying for two county police officers who were found not guilty in a police shooting (A-1).

On Aug. 16, The Record also reported in a Page 1 story the law firm that whitewashed Governor Christie's role in the George Washington Bridge scandal has billed "taxpayers" $6.5 million.

Hourly rates

Doesn't the county or state have the right to ask a judge if the fees are reasonable? Is that being done in these cases?

What about an investigative story on lawyers' hourly rates and whether they effectively deny due process to plaintiffs who cannot afford to pay for representation?

And are any lawyers in North Jersey actually doing significant pro bono work? 

Local news?

There is so little local news in today's paper a reporter was asked to write a story even after finding out no North Jersey activists are demonstrating over the shooting of an unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Mo. (L-1).

On L-6 in Local, the local-assignment editors scrambled to fill huge holes with wire-service obituaries of two people no one has ever heard of.

Friday's paper

Page 1 of The Record on Friday read like a regional edition of The New York Times with stories on Ferguson, Mo.; the beheading of an American journalist in Syria, new DEA limits on a painkiller, Ebola and the national 'knockout' game (A-1).

In Local, the only real news was the death of Violet Cherry, former director of Englewood's Health Department (L-1).

Her obituary shared L-1 with a story on "a study" of a DPW access road in Paramus.

And why didn't head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, do more with a Teaneck Police Department tradition of bidding goodbye to retirees with a parade and party (L-2 photo)? 

Ignoring local news

Image via Wikipedia

The Record of Woodland Park continues today to give front-page play to the Monmouth County father whose 9-year-old son has been returned to him from Brazil, while ignoring the Hasbrouck Heights dad whose holidays were ruined, because his 9-year-old daughter remains in Spain.

The Monmouth County story is being covered by The Star-Ledger, and that may be why The Record continues running it as part of a cooperative news-gathering agreement with the Newark paper. This means less work for Record reporters and their lazy, incompetent editors, and less local news for Record readers, who have been deluged with Star-Ledger stories of questionable relevance to their lives -- many of them mere low-quality filler.

Staff Writer Elizabeth Llorente has an interesting story on Page 1 about immigrant students and what schools in Paterson and Hackensack are doing to help them.

But if you are looking for more news about Hackensack, where the paper was founded in 1895, the only coverage you'll find is another piece on the turmoil in the Hackensack Police Department over disciplinary charges against officers who have sued the chief. I believe this is the first byline for Monsy Alvarado since Dec. 16.

Alvarado, who is assigned to cover Hackensack, has written many stories about the police department since June, but has ignored most other news in River City. She is competing with Giovanna Fabiano and Joe Ax, the reporters assigned to two other core Bergen towns, Englewood and Teaneck, to see who can do the least work and get away with it. The last Teaneck story appeared on Dec. 17, the last Englewood piece on Dec. 20 (not counting police or fire news written by other staffers). Unfortunately, their assignment editors, including Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes, expect no more of Alvarado, Fabiano, Ax and many other municipal reporters.

Frugal Staff Writer Kevin DeMarrais has a rundown on the Business front of New Year's packages in North Jersey starting at about $50 per person, but you can't rely on him to find a real bargain, such as the multi-course dinners for four, six or eight people at Lotus Cafe, a popular BYO Chinese restaurant in Hackensack, that cost about $20 per person or less, including tax and tip. Six of us (plus an infant) were served eight delicious courses there last night, including prawns, filet of sole, duck, a chicken casserole and dessert.