Are the reporters or editors the real problem?

NJ Transit's No. 165 Turnpike Express, which I boarded in Hackensack, approaching the ramp to the problem-plagued Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan on a wet Thursday morning. Why is The Record's chief transportation reporter writing about the rebuilding of a church today? 

One of the few improvements in recent months are touch-screen terminals to help commuters find the platform where they can catch the bus back to New Jersey. I have yet to see any mention of them in The Record.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In today's disappointing Sunday edition, don't look for stories and columns that are relevant to your life in North Jersey.

The only local dateline on the front page is Fairview, where Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado explores the problems of a family headed by an illegal immigrant who was arrested and thrown into a cell (A-1).

Columnist Mike Kelly is so burned out he's back on the Sayreville beat, which is way out of the circulation area, rehashing old cases of football hazing (A-1).

Kelly tackles another "local story" -- Ebola -- on the Opinion front (O-1).

Dog chases bus

Like an adoring lap dog, Staff Writer Melissa Hayes again follows Governor Christie around on his travels raising money for the mean-spirited Republican Party -- totally ignoring the mess he's left behind in New Jersey (A-1).

Christie has really screwed up the region's mass-transit network, but Staff Writer Christopher Maag, the chief transportation writer, was sent to the city to write about a church destroyed on 9/11 (A-3).

You will find a column about the problem-plagued Port Authority Bus Terminal in the Opinion section, but that was written by a daily bus commuter from Rockland County, N.Y. (O-2).

An escalator takes commuters from the upper-level bus platforms to a lower floor at the Manhattan bus terminal.

More road kill

On the Local front, addled Road Warrior John Cichowski is writing about yet another delayed road-construction project, this one in Passaic County, that affects only a small fraction of the readership.

This isn't news, and doesn't help commuters one bit.

Hackenack news

The most readable story in the paper today is also on L-1, where Kazmier Wysocki, 95, a three-time Hackensack mayor, is shown with his wife, son and grandson at his city manufacturing company.

It's refreshing to read about Hackensack history that doesn't involve the Zisa family, which ran the city for decades and stuck the county seat with the derogatory name of "Zisaville."

Staff vacation?

None of the stories in today's 8-page Business section appears to have been written by a staffer in the Woodland Park newsroom (B-1).

The cover story on "crowdfunding," which discusses North Jersey business people, carries the byline of Virginia M. Citrano, a freelancer.

The rest of the section was supplied by news services or The Wall Street Journal.

Ignoring local stores

The Better Living cover today is about the cheese department at Zabar's on the Upper West Side of Manhattan -- not about any of the great cheese departments in North Jersey (BL-1).

Ditzy Food Editor Esther Davidowitz profiles the Leonia woman who runs the department, and in the process, ignores tens of thousands of readers who are watching their weight and cholesterol.

How predictable. The head of Zabar's cheese department, Olga Dominguez, is called "a big cheese."

She is quoted as saying there are three basic types of cheeses -- hard, soft and semi-soft -- but to people watching their weight and cholesterol there are only two -- full fat and reduced fat.

Unfortunately, the sloppy six-figure production editor, Liz Houlton, missed a typo in Dominguez' name in the photo caption. 

Doesn't compute

There is an easy way to avoid the table-top computers Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung seems so fascinated with in her silly column today:

Don't go to Chili's and other chain restaurants to eat the crap they serve (BL-1).

More on Germany

For the third week in a row, a major wire-service story is needed to fill the thin Travel section.

This despite Travel Editor Jill Schensul telling a respected media blog, JimRomenesko.com, that the paper negotiates favorable "press rates" for trips to minimize the use of canned wire copy.

As for Schensul's column today, a large part of it is based on one of those trips, her visit to Papenburg, Germany, where she went on a Royal Caribbean tour of a shipyard building two mega cruise ships.

The gushing story about the new ships appeared as her section's cover story on Sept. 14, though its relevance to most North Jersey residents eluded me.

Today, she describes the graveyard she found in Papenburg as "a veritable botanical garden."

The respect for the dead shown by these Germans only serves to remind me of the lack of respect they showed to millions of living and dead during of the Holocaust, and wonder why Schensul even bothered to write about the cemetery.

She also omitted any mention of the Day of the Dead, which is widely observed in the North Jersey's Mexican-American communities. 

The real questions

So, we know Editor Marty Gottlieb controls every word that appears on Page 1 -- including endless speculation about Christie's White House bid -- but why are the clueless local editors assigning the transportation reporter to non-transportation stories?

Why are Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza allowing Cichowski to write the majority of his Road Warrior columns off of complaining e-mails from readers whose only interest is seeing their names in print?

And when will Kelly stop making every new column seem old?

Will a Christie White House bid be good for N.J.?

Hackensack officials have made no improvements to pedestrian safety on Prospect Avenue, which is lined with high-rises, since Jerome S. Some, 87, was struck and killed by a car as he crossed the street on Oct. 8 to attend a meeting at Bel Posto Restaurant, above. They haven't painted missing or faded crosswalk lines or added signs advising drivers of a state law requiring them to yield to pedestrians. 

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Readers were spared for only one day from the primping and preening of Governor Christie for a White House run in 2016 that dominates the front page of The Record today.

In the hundreds of thousands of flattering words that have been written in the past year, The Record's editors haven't tackled the angle that means the most to readers:

Will Christie's frequent absences from the state as he courts out-of-state conservatives, right wingers and Tea Party crackpots and their deep pockets be good or bad for the Garden State?

As we already know from a Page 1 story a few days ago, a Christie presidency -- as far-fetched as that sounds -- would elevate Lt. Gov. Kim Guadano, a non-entity who is the GOP bully's lap dog, to the Governor's Office.

Caused landslide

Today's front page also perpetuates the myth that Christie won a second term last week by a "landslide," even though he was chosen by a small minority of registered voters (A-1).

The Record reports last Tuesday's turnout was only 37.2 percent, a historic low (A-6). Two days ago, the Woodland Park daily said the turnout was 38 percent.

That means more than six out of every 10 voters were so apathetic -- so turned off by Christie's lies and The Record's obsession with politics over policy -- they didn't even bother to vote.

Satirist Bill Mahrer noted on his Friday night TV show Christie has caused "landslides."

Glaring typos

Notable typos in today's paper include an A-6 chart labeled "New York," not "New York City," for the mayoral contest won by Bill de Blasio.

Voter turnout in the city (24 percent) was even lower than in New Jersey, but don't expect The Record to explore the reasons for the apathy here or there.

Houlton error

Another bad typo appears on the Local front as Production Editor Liz Houlton, supervisor of the legally blind copy editors, laughs all the way to the bank with her six-figure salary.

Road Warrior John Cichowski assaults readers with a landslide of data today, but forgot to include the number of cellphone violations issued by police in Teaneck, second only to Paterson's 1,020 (L-1).

Road litter

If past columns are any guide, Cichowski is unable to accurately transcribe figures to his column from New Jersey's Administrative Office of the Courts, and many of his conclusions are flawed.

An even bigger problem is that cellphone, speeding and other violations for a 12-month period ended in May 2013 aren't compared to previous years.

So readers who believe enforcement has declined dramatically remain in the dark. 

And where are the numbers for the state police, who patrol such raceways as the New Jersey Turnpike and Route 80, which passes just below the nondescript office building where The Record's editors hide out every day.

Ignoring the homeless

The outpouring of support and offers of money to the formerly homeless James Brady leaves hundreds of homeless people in Hackensack out in the cold (L-1).

Brady, as a Page 1 story stated on Saturday, has been denied government assistance because he was awarded an unclaimed $850 he found on the street and didn't report it, according to a city bureaucrat.

Half the story

On today's Business front, Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais reports a reader who charges gasoline purchases and receives a 3 percent cash rebate or "what he pays extra for charging his purchase."

But there are still many gasoline stations that charge the same price for cash and credit purchases, including the new Wawa on Essex Street in Lodi and every station on the turnpike and Garden State Parkway.

Silence is golden

On the Opinion front today, former Record reporter Carl Golden claims Democratic challenger Barbara Buono "became bogged down in extraneous issues while largely ignoring Christie's vulnerabilities -- property tax control, job creation, economic growth."

But Buono's TV ads and other campaigning did emphasize the 400,000 out of work in the Garden State and the sad state of the economy under the no-tax Christie, among other economic issues, only to be ignored or see her message buried by The Record.

The Record has been running Golden column's for years, but as a press flunky for two former Republican governors, can anything he says be believed?

More Shoop smears

Also on O-1, Columnist Mike Kelly continues to smear the name of Richard Shoop, 20, the Teaneck man who committed suicide inside the Garden State Plaza in Paramus last Monday night or early Tuesday.

In Kelly's second column on Shoop -- who hurt no one but himself -- the burned-out reporter claims the Teaneck man's name "will unfortunately join a long list of young men" who killed many others at Columbine High School; a Newton, Conn., elementary school and other places I won't list.

Kelly could have been effective merely recounting his impressions of Shoop, who worked at Victor's Pizzeria, the Teaneck shop the reporter patronized.

Instead, he irresponsibly sensationalizes and exaggerates what happened at the Paramus mall and compares Shoop to mass killers.

Fat and food

There's no explanation why the proposed federal ban on trans fats hasn't been packaged with all of the Christie coverage (Editorial, O-2).

Readers familiar with Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung's obsessions with artery clogging meat and desserts will get a kick out of her reporting today on "a large selection of fresh fruit, vegetables and dairy products" at the Wawa in Lodi (BL-1 and BL-4).

In Travel today, a cover story about the island of Nevis from The Washington Post is accompanied by a list of hotels and restaurants with prices (T-4).

So, are readers to assume that when travel pieces by Editor Jill Schensul and other staffers are silent on prices that means they were comped by cruise lines, airlines and hotels in return for the publicity?