Publisher backs use of accident photos to fill gaps in news

Pat Kinney, a freelancer who wrote the Neighbors from Japan column that appeared in The Record, is offering her services as an English teacher. This notice is on a bulletin board at Mitsuwa Marketplace, the Japanese supermarket and food court in Edgewater.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's lazy local-news editors continue to fill gaps in coverage with non-fatal accidents and other minor incidents on North Jersey's highways and byways.

Today, none other than Publisher Stephen A. Borg contributed a photo of a humdrum van fire on Route 80 east on Friday afternoon, and earned a credit line: "STEPHEN A. BORG/STAFF" (L-3).

Of course, the big news on Routes 80 east, 46 east and 4 east on Friday afternoon was massive traffic congestion approaching the George Washington Bridge, partly due to the lack of mass-transit alternatives.

In fact, the lead story in today's Local section reports Democratic lawmakers are urging the $1 billion extension of NJ Transit's electrified light-rail system to downtown Englewood and Englewood Hospital and Medical Center (L-1).

Federal officials quoted in the story estimate that every $1 billion spent on infrastructure creates 35,000 jobs.

But non-polluting light rail also takes cars off the road, a benefit lost on Tenafly officials who opposed extending the service to their town.

The Record ran stories quoting borough officials who demonized light rail, and never published an editorial criticizing those officials for their opposition.

At least when it comes to mass transit, Borg, who lives in a Tenafly McMansion, is following in the footsteps of his father, Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg of Englewood, in not bothering to be a force for positive change in his community. 

Living v. dead

We get it. It's a miracle that two young women survived on Feb. 13, when their Toyota RAV4 left a Route 80 bridge over the Hackensack River and fell 60 feet, landing on a tree (A-1).

But why is their reunion with the firefighters who rescued them on the front page today? 

On Wednesday, a story reported that on Monday, a 64-year-old pedestrian was fatally injured by a car turning onto Kennedy Street in Hackensack, near Route 80, and except for her name and age, The Record didn't bother finding out anything about her.

Did Hue Dang live in the neighborhood? Was she a mother and grandmother? Was she treated like chopped liver because she was a senior?

Is her family planning to sue the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office and John Straniero of Wayne, the detective sergeant behind the wheel of the unmarked Ford Crown Victoria that struck her?

Sewage v. taxes

Whose decision was it to run a story on higher sewer-connection fees for Hackensack developers on Thursday?

That was a day before belatedly informing residents a budget the City Council introduced on Tuesday night would hike property taxes by $115 for the average homeowner (Friday's L-2).

Editors fiddle while New Jersey burns

Image by beedubz via Flickr

Owners of Xanadu hope there is a huge pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Editor Francis Scandale leads The Record today with a front-page story on political bickering between Governor Christie and the most powerful Democrat in the Legislature -- while New Jersey burns (A-1).

Instead of reporting when Xanadu construction will resume or whether a makeover is in the cards, Scandale runs another story on its weird exterior (A-1). Is this the 19th or 20th piece by Staff Writer John Brennan on the same subject?

Rich man's toy

Did anyone bother reading more than the first few paragraphs of Mike Kelly's boring, long-winded column on a wealthy man who wants to blow $10 million on a skating rink for his kids that would be disguised as a house  (A-1)? Now, Kelly has become a rich man's toy.

An OpEd piece by PSE&G defends the safety of solar panels mounted on telephone polls (A-11). It's too bad they weren't designed to fall and knock some sense into drivers of gas-guzzling SUVs.

Image via Wikipedia

Japan v. Korea

On the Better Living front, Bill Ervolino's Jersey Scene column classifies a big, expensive Japanese supermarket in Edgewater as among "the little known, unusual and sometimes weird things in New Jersey."

A Japanese supermarket has operated there for more than two decades -- what's so weird about that?

Unfortunately, his guides at Mitsuwa Marketplace are two men -- one Japanese, one American -- who preside over the store's annual "cutting" of the giant bluefin tuna, a performance many shoppers boycott because the Japanese are driving those huge fish toward extinction.

Ervolino also treats the Japanese with deference, something he didn't do for the Koreans he wrote about when he visited a big Korean supermarket in Ridgefield, as Eye on The Record reported Nov. 1:

"What happens when you turn a clown loose in H Mart in Ridgefield, a large Korean supermarket that has one of the best selections of fresh fish, Asian greens and other produce in North Jersey? 

"See the Better Living front, where Staff Writer Bill Ervolino chooses to buy and eat mystery pork and beef, and in the process makes fun of one of his Korean guides' English and parodies her diet, focusing on live octopus while ignoring all the healthy tofu and vegetables Koreans eat in main and side dishes."

Editors have contempt for older readers

Image via Wikipedia

A 2001 Toyota Camry, like the one above, barreled into a Paramus house.

The 77-year-old man who launched his Toyota Camry into the side of a house in Paramus told police the "brakes failed," according to a caption with the handiwork of Staff Photographer Tariq "Crash" Zehawi. But the real failure is head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who refuses to launch a project on the challenges facing older drivers and the help available to them.

You've seen variations of this photo in The Record of Woodland Park scores of times in the past 20 years: an elderly driver loses control of a car, climbing stairs or hitting a store, a house, a tree, another vehicle or a pedestrian -- sometimes with fatal consequences. The paper covers most of the accidents with a single photo and caption or just a few paragraphs, rarely following up. The man in the latest accident isn't even identified.

Sykes and Editor Francis Scandale have contempt for older drivers, just as they do for Alzheimer's victims and older newsroom workers. They've discriminated against the elderly by running more than one series about autism, but none about Alzheimer's. Scandale even thought he could stop declining readership by aiming coverage at 20-year-olds. What a farce.


Today's Local section has a dozen election stories, but residents of Hackensack, which has municipal elections in May, are out of luck, and there isn't any Englewood news, either.

Bomb scares for Halloween

A-1 today is dominated by the worldwide for search for explosive cargo at airports. Six Record reporters worked on the story.


An A-2 correction notes the A La Carte column in Better Living was mistaken on Friday when it reported Avenue Bistro in Clifton had closed, when it had just moved to a new location.

The erroneous closing notice still appeared this afternoon on the Second Helpings blog at northjersey.com. It was posted by Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung -- only one of the major errors she has made since joining the paper about three years ago.

A second erroneous notice in A La Carte on Friday wasn't corrected. 

Omusubi Gombei, a Japanese chain known for its handmade rice balls, opened a kiosk at Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater on Friday and will sell rice balls there through Nov. 7. The notice in The Record says it will open "by Nov. 7." 


See: Warm, delicious Japanese rice balls

This must be some sort of record

Image by BlueJeff via Flickr

A fifth straight day with Hackensack news in The Record of Woodland Park. What gives? Especially after the move to Woodland Park, the editors appeared to have declared dead the city where the newspaper was founded in 1895 and where it prospered for more than 110 years -- while making Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg one of world's richest men.


Thanks to Hackensack's suspended police chief, the city is in the news again today. But is that all there is? How many stories about Ken Zisa are we going to see from Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado? Who, but Alvarado and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, is interested in so much detail from yet another lawsuit filed against the chief by a police officer?


Isn't there anything else going on in the city worthy of news coverage? When was the last time Alvarado covered a City Council or Board of Education meeting? Has the Record published a photo essay on the city's architectural gems? What about Hackensack as the epicenter of pizza in Bergen County? A taste-off would attract thousands of readers.


The front page is a puzzle. Republican Governor Christie vetoes the Democrats' tax on millionaires -- in a salute to Borg and other wealthy residents -- but most of the page is devoted to the value of homes where murders occurred.


Only three homes are featured. I've always wondered about the resale value of the home on the East Hill of Englewood where a man killed his mother and father with an ax. I guess I'll have to wait for the next time The Record does the story.


The Local section leads with a sensational Passaic County story -- a teenage boy claiming he had sex with his nanny when he was 12. But there is no municipal, education or development news from Teaneck, Englewood or Hackensack.


Maybe if Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano spent more time in Englewood, where she is assigned, she might wonder why businesses like Panera Bread closed and why there are vacant Palisade Avenue storefronts. Could one landlord be demanding rents many merchants consider just too high to pay?


Today's Better Living contains the bulk of the week's food coverage, including a flawed review of a French restaurant in Edgewater. Food Editor Bill Pitcher says the view from Le Jardin "is the envy of every other restaurant in Bergen County." 


That will come as news to the owners of the stand-alone Japanese restaurant that is part of the Mitsuwa Marketplace complex just down River Road. Even the cheap seats in the food court of the Japanese supermarket have a better view of the Hudson than Le Jardin.


I applaud freelancer Amy Kuperinsky for noting the origin of the beef served at Segovia Steakhouse in Little Ferry (Starters on Page 19 in Better Living). Unfortunately, she isn't aware Certified Angus Beef is raised conventionally and pretty much amounts to a marketing campaign.