Gannett front pages are cheapening our local daily paper

On Nov. 6, 2013, The Record published this photo of two Paramus police officers who were hired to patrol Westfield Garden State Plaza, but only after a disturbed man with a rifle invaded the state's biggest mall two days earlier, fired shots that panicked hundreds of shoppers and employees, and then committed suicide. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If I didn't know better, I'd think veteran retailing reporter Joan Verdon has been assigned to write promotional Page 1 pieces about one of The Record's biggest advertisers.

On Saturday, below the fold, she reported "a video-gaming theater" with room for 30 people to compete simultaneously had replaced "a Venetian-style double-decker carousel" at Garden State Plaza in Paramus.

On Thursday, her front-page story on how shoppers could reserve $10 parking spaces appeared above the fold.

Neither story could be considered "news." 

But they expose how profit-hungry publishers like the Borg family and Gannett, which bought The Record in July, don't hesitate to cheapen the front page of what once was a respected local daily newspaper. 

Since last month's redesign of the print edition, readers don't know what to expect from day to day. 

Gannett editors seem to have lost sight of their mission as journalists to report on issues that affect state residents.

Instead, they continue to sensationalize the politics that divide the state and nation.  

Sunday edition

Today's front page has only three main elements -- stories about President-elect Donald J. Trump's arrogant son-in-law; Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno's belated bid to come out from behind Governor Christie; and Karen Koehler of Park Ridge, who is in complete remission after trying an experimental cancer treatment (1A).

The last is the kind of gee-whiz medical story The Record seems to specialize in -- instead of tackling the obesity epidemic or heart disease, the No. 1 killer in the United States.

A story on the alarming condition of the state's drinking water system is buried on 11A.

Saturday's paper

Saturday's front page also was narrowly focused: Stories about New Jersey Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen being picked to head the House Appropriations Committee, and a Passaic County imam again facing deportation charges.

Friday's edition, on the other hand, reported on issues that affect almost everyone:

How Christie has diverted hundreds of millions of dollars from environmental settlements to balance the state budget; a state appeals court ruling that stopped the governor from scrapping civil service exam requirements; and the uncertainty since the presidential election about bringing Syrian refugees to New Jersey.

Also, starting on Jan. 1, the right of adopted children to obtain their birth certificates and if not redacted, the names of their birth parents.

Local news?

Today's Local section carries a story on the Hackensack Board of Education's search for a new superintendent, but doesn't explain why Karen Lewis was fired unexpectedly in June (3L).

On the Local front, a column reports on a student movement to improve pedestrian safety on River Road in Teaneck, where a Chinese woman who held a master's degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University was struck in a crosswalk and killed on Nov. 21.

Staff Writer John Cichowski reports "the petition doesn't cover driving laws or conduct." 

But the so-called Road Warrior again treats graduate Weiqi Wang as so much road kill when he fails to advocate stronger laws to punish drivers with long jail sentences after they strike and fatally injure pedestrians in a crosswalk.

After Castro

The Record's coverage of the death of Fidel Castro has been lopsided, and today's Opinion front piece by U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez is no exception (1O).

"We can only hope the death of Fidel Castro will be the first crack in the Cuban regime's stranglehold on power and that the people of Cuba will finally move one step closer to freedom," says Menendez, whose parents were born on the Caribbean's biggest island.

The senator downplays all of Cuba's achievements, and doesn't even mention how the 1959 revolution brought racial equality to an island that had long been strictly segregated.

Travel section

Today, Travel Editor Jill Schensul reports on how terrorism is influencing where we vacation (1T).

But why hasn't she ever discussed crime in Jamaica, Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands?

Next to her column today is a rave from the Detroit Free Press about "the first overwater bungalows in the Caribbean" in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

In one of many editing lapses in today's paper, the first paragraph says the bungalows "open Dec. 2" -- that was Friday.

In Better Living, a photo caption on 3BL starts out this way: 

"Christopher Bates of FLX Table in Geneva ...," so you might wonder why The Record is devoting nearly a whole page to a chef in Switzerland.

When you read the first two paragraphs of the story, you learn the restaurant is in Geneva, N.Y., in the Finger Lakes region.

Still, why is a New Jersey paper devoting almost an entire page to Chef Bates and the food he serves? 

A half-assed assessment of Christie's first term

Route 17 in Paramus, above, and the view through a streaked windshield, below, after about four hours of snowfall today. Municipal crews from Hackensack to Ho-Ho-Kus and Englewood to Elmwood Park will do their usual sloppy job of making streets safe for drivers and pedestrians, but The Record's lazy assignment editors, including Dan Sforza, will merely shrug their shoulders, as their predecessors have for decades.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Slapping an "ANALYSIS" bug on today's lead story allows The Record to present a slanted picture of what Governor Christie accomplished in his first term.

The account by Staff Writer John Reitmeyer of the paper's State House Bureau emphasizes "compromise with the Democrats who control the Legislature," and ignores the GOP bully's war on the middle and working classes (A-1).

Rediscovers vetoes

Christie's pledge to "make full use of my veto pen ... to shape legislative and budget policy" is mentioned on A-4 for perhaps the first time since he made it in 2010.

But last year's veto of a hike in the minimum wage, three vetoes of a tax surcharge on millionaires, cuts in funds for women's health care and other mean-spirited budgeting have been redacted by Wrongmeyer.

There also appears to be a major editing error in this long, tortured and poorly written paragraph on A-1 today:

"And amid legislative inquiries into lane closures at the George Washington Bridge -- the biggest crisis of his political career -- and as mayors, including those running Hoboken and Jersey City, accuse Christie of using hardball tactics, his talk of bipartisanship has been replaced by accusations that Democrats have a political ax to grind."

Of course, it's Christie and other Republicans who are grinding political axes to use on Democrats, including Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee.

Four months late

Why is this story appearing on the day Christie is inaugurated for a second term? Wouldn't even this slanted account have been more useful in the weeks or months before the Nov. 5 election?

Two stories related to the Bridgegate scandal also appear on Page 1 today, including Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno's adamant denial that she used federal Sandy aid as a political weapon in Hoboken.

What else could she possibly say in response to charges by Democratic Mayor Dawn Zimmer that Guadano pushed a redevelopment project represented by Christie crony David Samson, chairman of the Port Authority?

The Record has called on Samson and the other unsalaried commissioners to resign in the wake of the Bridgegate scandal. 

Brain-dead editors

On the Local front today, The Record reports a young Hispanic couple whose bodies were found inside a garaged car had sought "privacy," but closed the overhead door and left the car's engine running until the fuel tank was "bone dry." (L-1).

That scenario was obvious to thousands of readers who saw Monday's A-1 account, which called the deaths of Melissa A. Pereira and Jorge E. Rodriguez a complete mystery.

One has to wonder whether the Sunday assignment editor and copy desk supervisor who helped prepare Monday's story are brain dead.

More errors

On L-3 today, Kwasi Mendoza, 28, who died in the crash of his car in Englewood, is described as a "legal clerk." The proper phrase is "law clerk."

More than two days after the crash, The Record still hasn't asked police whether speed or alcohol was a factor in the crash of Mendoza's Lexus at 3 in the morning on Saturday, near a cemetery.

On Sunday, Staff Writer John Cichowski wrote another error-filled column on Bridgegate, according to a concerned reader who maintains the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers.

"In his Jan. 19 column, the Road Warrior continues with his congestion of mistakes about the Fort Lee toll-lane closure scandal, while mistakenly reporting about traffic and pedestrian safety in Fort Lee.

"All six of the Road Warrior columns that have addressed the toll-lane closure have contained extensive mistakes, which contradict many other news reports, including The Record's."

See the reader's full e-mail to managers and editors, and keep in mind none of his previous e-mails led to corrections by the most-error prone reporter at the Woodland Park daily:

Road Warrior closes access lanes to accuracy

Friendly to business, hostile to the rest of us

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Governor Christie and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno assure seniors they have no plans for a camp to process them for rail transportation to Florida.

Twelve days into the state's new fiscal year, The Record continues to force readers to hunt through the paper and read letters to the editor to learn about the full impact of Governor Christie's mean-spirited budget cuts. 


Is that deliberate, Editor Francis Scandale? Were you concerned that putting all the aid cuts in one place would looked bad for your pal Chris Christie, friend of the rich?


Today, Page 1 carries a glowing report on the concentration of power in the hands of Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno as Christie creates a business-friendly climate in the state.


Suits him well


Unmentioned is the Republican governor's victory in getting his pro-business nominee, Anne M. Patterson, confirmed to fill a vacancy he created on the state Supreme Court by refusing to reappoint its only black justice 


Over her career, Patterson defended such corporations as RJ Reynolds Tobacco and Abbott Laboratories against lawsuits alleging faulty or inferior products, according to The Star-Ledger.


How long after Patterson takes her seat on the high court in September will Christie propose so-called tort reform to cap the damages injured plaintiffs can collect in such suits?


Give us a break


Christie has granted hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to businesses, while cutting programs and "taking from the poor and giving to the rich," Joe Garibaldi of Hackensack says in a letter to the editor today (A-10).

• $537,000 was cut from the Wynona Lipman Child Advocacy Center for Abused Children.
• Supplemental living support payments for people receiving general assistance were cut -- $150 a month less for Garibaldi.
• A cut of $7.5 million in aid to family planning clinics.
• Thirteen other cuts not specified in the A-3 story on Democrats failing to override the governor's budget vetoes. 

What's my line?


Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski has bitched and moaned about long lines at the MVC for many years, and nothing has changed (A-1). 


Readers may recall he takes credit for passage of a law on clearing vehicle roofs of ice and snow, so what happened here?


On A-2, the editors ran a correction to  tell the family of Christopher Stavrou that even in the last story that will ever appear about him (his obituary), the headline didn't get his occupation right.


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section hits the trifecta today -- no Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood news.


Are The Klappies from sports Columnist Bob Klapisch anything like the clap (S-1)?