Editors yawn when Bergen man's long life takes tragic turn

Ioannis E. "Yani" Kapantais, 69, of Park Ridge was head baker at the Pompton Queen Diner in Pompton Plains before he was fatally injured by an out-of-control car last Sunday. These photos were taken from the diner's website.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When a husband, father of two and grandfather of four is struck down and fatally injured by an out-of-control car in Park Ridge, you'd think The Record's editors would work hard to bring readers the story.

In fact, Editor Deirdre Sykes has assigned her reporters to write hundreds of thousands of words about pedestrian deaths in recent years, including a column that appears on the Local front today (L-1).

But as in so many traffic fatalities that are dispensed with in a few paragraphs, the lazy, insensitive Sykes only treats Ioannis E. "Yani" Kapantais with contempt.

The 69-year-old Park Ridge man -- head baker at the Pompton Queen Diner on Route 23 in Pompton Plains -- was fatally injured last Sunday night when an out-of-control car mounted the Park Avenue sidewalk where he was walking with another man.

He died at Hackensack University Medical Center, where the other man, Moachia Hu, 64, of Montvale, remained in critical condition. 

Sykes didn't identify the men until Wednesday's edition, and then provided only the baker's name, age and the town where he lived.

19-year-old victims

Meanwhile, her reporters were churning out tens of thousands of words about two former athletes at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey who were killed when their luxury SUV hurtled off Route 287 and crashed into the woods last Sunday or early Monday.

Leo Vagias and Sam Cali, both 19, grew up together in Morris County. 

Vagias, who was driving, was using his seat belt. But Cali, the son of a police officer, wasn't and he was ejected from the vehicle.

Both attended college, where they were involved in athletics, so the extensive coverage included numerous interviews with grief-stricken friends and teammates, and culminated in Saturday's Page 1 story and photos on their separate funerals in Montville and Clifton.

Ioannis E. "Yani" Kapantais in a photo from the
website of Becker Funeral Home in Westwood.

Nothing on Yani

Sykes didn't bother covering the services for Kapantais on Friday at St. Athanasios Greek Orthodox Church in Paramus or mention his burial in George Washington Memorial Park.

His widow, Angeliki Kapantais, wasn't interviewed, and no reporter called the Pompton Queen Diner to ask about the victim.

A woman named Hanna wrote in the funeral home's guest book:

"I DO believe I had the pleasure of working with Ioannis at the Pompton Queen Diner about ten years ago. He was a jolly, sweet, and very kind man who showed me a thing or two of baking and always ALWAYS turned a frown into a smile.

"I enjoyed his spirit and this will live on."

Today's paper

Another pedestrian, this one killed by a tractor-trailer in downtown Teaneck on Saturday, gets the same short shrift as Kapantais (L-1).

Staff Writer Dave Sheingold identifies the victim as Felicia Sasso, who was 93 years old, but tells readers absolutely nothing else.

Sheingold mentions that on Christmas Day last year, a 59-year-old man was struck and killed on Cedar Lane, only a couple of blocks from where Sasso was struck.

And yet another pedestrian, a 21-year-old Ramsey man, was killed by a hit-and-run driver in a black Cadillac Escalade with New York plates early Saturday in Hoboken. 

Today's L-3 story contains no information on the victim, Zackhary Simmons.

Front page

The Record today continues a decade-long effort to pin wrongdoing on Michael Mordaga, former police director in Hackensack and former chief of detectives at the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office (A-1).

The allegations are based on a lawsuit filed by the family of a reputed mobster.

A second Page 1 story details how the Port Authority has botched the renovation of the George Washington Bridge Bus Station in upper Manhattan (A-1).

Staff Writer Paul Berger and his predecessors on the Port Authority beat don't realize the massive bi-state agency has always treated bus and rail commuters with contempt.

Agency officials, including all of the cronies appointed by the governors of New York and New Jersey, deliberately neglect money-losing mass transit operations in favor of maximizing revenue from bridges, tunnels, ports and airports.

When is Berger going to come to his senses?

Local news?

Road Warrior John Cichowski is off in La-La Land today with a column on an "eggshell-like layer on the surface of [a] car which would then glue [a pedestrian] to the front of the vehicle, thereby preventing further injury" (L-1).

Only later do readers learn "this human flypaper system won't be ready for some time -- if ever" (L-6).

Wouldn't it be nice if Sykes, with the backing of North Jersey Media Group, developed a similar system for Cichowski, a reporter whose hundreds of errors in the past dozen years have rarely been corrected?

That way, facts might stick to him, and readers would be spared his flights of fantasy.

In fact, Cichowski has seemed to side with drivers, despite all the pedestrian fatalities in New Jersey.

He's even quoted some of them saying they'd like to run down jaywalkers to teach them a lesson.

When is he going to urge police to suspend the licenses of drivers who don't yield to pedestrians in crosswalks and then confiscate their cars on a second offense?

Opinion

Check out the cartoon by Margulies, who has Governor Christie in a Robin Hood outfit threatening to take school funds from the poor and give them to the rich (O-2).

Indeed, he's been favoring the rich and warring against the middle and working classes since he took office in early 2010.

Yet, Sykes continues to publish flattering columns about Christie, like the one on Page 1 today.

Charles Stile claims Christie is serving as "a behind-the-scenes strategic guru" for wacko racist Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Friday night on HBO, satirist Bill Maher, noting the Trump campaign is having trouble raising money, said that to make matters worse, Christie has eaten all of the remaining Trump Steaks.

Eye on The Record

will return in two weeks

Politics are killing Hackensack, our state and our nation

Anthony Rottino, seated left front, is Hackensack's director of economic development and acting city manager, jobs awarded to him after he helped raise funds for the successful campaign of a reform slate of City Council candidates in last year's non- partisan municipal election.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Politics are an obsession at The Record of Woodland Park.

The editors, columnists and reporters seem incapable of discussing any serious issue without applying the filter of politics, as today's lead Page 1 headline on a lawsuit in Hackensack demonstrates.

Does the banner headline even make sense?

"Lawsuit roils Hackensack politics"

The suit, filed by acting City Manager Anthony Rottino of Franklin Lakes, names other city officials, including Mayor John Labrosse and Police Director Michael Mordaga.

Is that "politics"? 

The current members of the City Council are described as "a political coalition" in the first paragraph of the story, which is written by Abbott Koloff and former Hackensack reporter Hannan Adely.

To get the story on Page 1, the reporters also claim Rottino's suit is a sign the City Council has failed to "put an end to costly legal disputes," without explaining all of those suits were filed against the corrupt former police chief, Ken Zisa, whose family ran Hackensack for decades before his allies were thrown out of office last year.

Calls to resign

At council meetings, gadflies and other critics have repeatedly called for Rottino to resign, claiming the Citizens for Change fund-raiser isn't qualified for the city manager's job.

In his suit, filed Monday in Superior Court in Hackensack, Rottino accuses "top officials of violating state law, condoning 'mob-like and thuggish behavior' by the police union and conducting a smear campaign to 'destroy his reputation'" (A-1).

Rottino also claims some city officials are trying to fire him, in part, "because he opposed raising police salaries and sought to protect the job of a public relations consultant who is being paid $78,000 by the city while working two other public jobs, " referring to Thom Ammirato.

Rottino, 48, is being paid $176,000 a year as economic development director and acting city manager.

Staff Writer Jim Norman of The Record, left, covered tonight's Hackensack City Council meeting, along with Marko Georgiev, a staff photographer.

Blood in water

Rottino's lawsuit has North Jersey Media Group smelling blood in the water.

The official didn't attend tonight's council meeting -- the second meeting in a row he missed -- but four NJMG reporters and a photographer did.

Staff Writers Jim Norman, Mike Kelly and Adely of The Record were there, along with Jennifer Vasquez of the weekly Hackensack Chronicle. 

Staff Writer Christopher Maag, who took over the Hackensack beat from Adely, is on vacation.

During the meeting, council members went into executive session, then emerged and voted to fire Ammirato, their former campaign manager, whom they hired last July as city spokesman.

They also voted to adopt a $94.46 million budget.

Columnist Mike Kelly of The Record, left, at the back of the City Council Chambers with attorney Richard E. Salkin, a longtime ally of the discredited Zisa family. Compare Kelly's mantle of gray hair with his shit-eating-grin column photo.

Corrosive politics

Look at how "politics" have killed any progress on climate change, immigration, a higher minimum wage and other issues in Washington.

What we have been seeing on the national and state levels is a sustained effort by a moneyed elite to strip the middle and working classes of all they have gained in recent decades.

Christie lovers

Since Governor Christie took office in 2010, Columnist Charles Stile, Staff Writer Melissa Hayes and Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Dobin have time and again written about important state issues in purely political terms.

They have massaged Christie's image as a conservative Republican who works hard at achieving compromise with his Democratic opponents -- carefully editing stories, columns and editorials to omit mention of the GOP bully's many vetoes, such as a Stile column on A-1 today.

Us v. them

They portray controversies, such as the Superstorm Sandy Bill of Rights proposal, strictly in terms of a partisan battle, not even bothering to explain why, as Christie insists, the bill violates the law (A-4).

The millionaires tax also is portrayed as a partisan battle, despite lagging tax revenue, high unemployment and Christie's grab for mass-transit funds to fix roads.

The Record's story quotes Republicans as claiming "increasing taxes would cripple the state's economy," but Staff Writer John Reitmeyer betrays readers by failing to note it is already crippled (A-6).

This is a common practice in electronic and newspaper journalism, going for "sound bites," no matter how ridiculous or nonsensical they are, as long as they stir controversy. 

Fat guy strikes out

In contrast to the editorial idolatry of Christie, today's unflattering front-page photo clearly shows a man of his size shouldn't wear shorts and a T-shirt, and shouldn't show himself to be such a klutz with a baseball bat (A-1).

In Better Living, the owner of The Plum and the Pear, a new restaurant in Wyckoff, justifies charging $31 for several ounces of Copper River sockeye salmon from Alaska by noting it is "usually available five or six weeks a year" (BL-1).

The clueless editors publish the quote, even though fresh wild sockeye salmon from other Alaskan rivers, as well as other states, are just as delicious and will be available until early October.

That's titillating, but how does it affect me?

This sign, seen across the roof of a van, is a touch of civility at a Manhattan entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. Fortunately or unfortunately, congestion usually slows drivers to a crawl, giving them time to read the sign and yield to other drivers -- in marked contrast to what happens on New Jersey highways.

By Victor E. Sasson

Editor

An extra-marital affair, an angry husband, pay-to-play and a prominent Republican who has grown fat on his New Jersey connections.

You'd think today's Page 1 expose in The Record has everything a reader could want. But you'd be wrong.

The avalanche of words and titillating e-mails never explain why any of this is relevant to my life or the lives of thousands of other readers.

'Me news'?

Will the split between Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan and public relations guru Alan C. Marcus slow or end the reforms Donovan is known for?

Are my property taxes going up? Will this brouhaha lessen or increase the crushing burden of the county's tax-exempt property on Hackensack residents?

As far as I know, county sherriff's officers will continue to help Hackensack police officers fight crime under an initiative started by Police Director Michael Mordaga.

I have a lot of respect for the reporters who worked on the expose, but this is the kind of  story Editors Marty Gottlieb and Deirdre Sykes love to waste time and money chasing to bring a little excitement into their dull, newsroom-centered lives.

Stephen Borg speaks

Turn to A-7 for comment from Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who claims staffers "teach" at Bergen Community College.

Borg is referring to "In The Record," a class given by the college's Institute for Learning in Retirement for seniors citizens.

Road Warrior John Cichowski, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn and other staffers speak to the class about their jobs and their beats, and answer questions.

Calling it teaching, as Borg does, is a stretch. 

The front-page has another political "thriller" from Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson, who again fails to explain why readers should care about anything he reports in his column (A-1).

Downplaying protests

The outrage over the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case is demoted to A-3 to make room for all the tripe about politics.

I have yet to see an explanation from any media why the corrupt state of Florida allows 6-member juries to hear criminal cases.

In most states, including New Jersey, 12 people hear criminal cases and 6-member juries are reserved for civil lawsuits.

Local yokels

Today's Local section has Sykes' stamp on it: 

Two more filler accident photos without a word in the captions about what might have caused them (L-1 and L-3).

Was the SUV driver who ran off a curve of the Garden State Parkway speeding or texting? 

Did the 77-year-old man killed in a one-car crash on Route 46 in Lodi have a heart attack or some other health-related problem?

Readers don't have a clue.

More road noise

The Road Warrior column makes more noise about gaps in noise walls, but as in a previous highly exaggerated column, never explains why anyone would buy a house next to a highway and why readers should care when they do (L-1).

In his column on Friday, Cichowski answered readers' questions with a mixture of "clueless, unsafe, and false information" that conflicts with state statutes, according to a concerned reader.

See the full e-mail to management on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers: 

90th column with reporting problems 

The obituary of athlete, accountant and actor Dick Wieczezak of Wallington is good reading, but I'd like to see more of these local deaths on Page 1 in place of endlessly boring politics (L-1).

Not much else

The Sunday paper has 4 more sections, but I couldn't find much in them.

Today's consumer column from Staff Writer Kevin DeMarrais is a silly comparison of flying and driving to Disney World in Orlando, Fla. (B-1).

I really was on the edge of my seat reading about Jackie Zeman, a soap actress I've never heard of, and her problems sleeping anywhere but in her sister's house in Upper Saddle River (BL-1).

I kept wondering if she is related to John Zeaman, a former Record staffer and author of "Dog Walks Man."

Is Christie heading for the grave?

Friday's nor'easter didn't live up to the media hype, allowing Hackensack residents to notice how poorly some streets were plowed and to contemplate a post light, above.

A morbidly obese Governor Christie appears to be following in the footsteps of Robert "Bear" Bottigliero, a 61-year-old, 600-pound Lodi man who died of a heart attack on Feb. 2 (The Record's Local front today).

As usual, the obituary ignores the medical story, so readers don't know if a dangerous buildup in his coronary arteries or valve disease or something else killed him.

Chrsitie, 50, responding to a renewed debate over his weight, claims he is "the healthiest fat guy" in the world, and that his cholesterol and blood sugar are fine (A-4).

The GOP bully thinks he is going to live forever, judging from his personal attack on a former White House doctor who expressed concern Christie might die in office.

Christie lashed out, saying his 12-year-old son asked, "Dad, are you going to die?"

Gee. Doesn't his family know he is mortal or do they believe all the walk-on-water hype about the governor that appears in The Record and other media?

Yes. Christie is going to die, and depending on what he does about his weight and what he eats, that might be sooner rather than later.

More than three years after he took office, The Record and other New Jersey media continue to give Christie a pass on his obesity and what his administration has or hasn't done about the obesity epidemic.

They react to outlets like "60 Minutes," among the first to raise the issue of Christie's weight in 2010. 

David Letterman guesses Christie weighs 400 pounds, but the governor refuses to say whether that is accurate or to release his medical records.

Saturday's paper

Two more corrections appeared on A-2 of Saturday's paper, which whipped up hysteria among readers that Friday's storm could be another Sandy, even though it was clear that wasn't the case.

"We love you, Sandy" are the words most frequently spoken by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions, who have scrambled for years to gather enough local news.

Now, all they do is fill news columns with endless stories on Sandy cleanup and relief aid, compare any other storm to the devastating superstorm and promote Christie as a Sandy saviour who is worthy of a second term.  

Today's paper

Today's A-1 and L-1 reports on the nor'easter don't contain a word about how well North Jersey towns did in plowing streets and clearing bus stops and crosswalks, except for tiny Moonachie.

At 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, an entire block of Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, between the railroad tracks and Main Street, hadn't been plowed, and the intersection of Main and Euclid was full of snow.

I'm sure other neighborhoods showed similar neglect.

This is what Hackensack residents have come to expect as property taxes rise and the quality of municipal services declines, but it's a story you'll never see in The Record, which fled the city in 2009.

No budget stories

In 2011 and 2012, Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, couldn't even find time to report on the city's budget and tax rate.

Councilman John Labrosse is the only incumbent running for a new term on May 14, claiming credit for ousting former Assemblyman Ken Zisa as police chief and installing Michael Mordaga as police director.

Those claims are laughable, seeing how, despite higher property taxes, Labrosse and his fellow council members can't even get the streets plowed properly. 

Poor and rich

Another A-1 story today suggests Christie is hoarding roughly $115 million "in appropriated spending" that may eventually lead to cuts in programs for poor and low-income residents.

That's no surprise from a governor who has protected the wealthy from a tax surcharge at the expense of the middle and working classes.

Annoying columns

Did anybody read more than a few words from Road Warrior John Cichowski, who today rehashes past roof-snow columns and events dating to the 1990s and the 1980s (L-1)?

Or get past the first few lines of Columnist Mike Kelly's rewrite of recent news stories he calls "warning signs about children" (O-1)?

Millionaire's diet

Guy Fieri, a restaurant owner and celebrity chef, probably eats more unhealthy, low-quality food than any other multimillionaire in the country, judging from "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" on the Food Network or Fools Network, as I like to call it.

So why does Staff Writer Elisa Ung waste her Sunday column, The Corner Table, promoting Fieri's crappy food at Montclair State University (BL-1)?   

Screw-up of the day

The clueless copy desk came up with a doozie today, and six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton failed miserably in catching it.

On the Real Estate cover story (R-1), a subheadline claims: 

"Strident rules

restrict loan

modifications"

"Strident" means "loud and harsh, grating," so I'm sure the proper word the headline writer was looking for is "stringent."

LOL.