Today's focus on local news is welcome, but may not last

Atlantic and Main streets in Hackensack once was the site of the Washington Institute, founded in 1769 and considered to be "one of the finest educational institutions in the state, according to this marker, and "it brought recognition to the Village of Hackensack."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Three of the four major elements on Page 1 of The Record today focus on local issues, and the local-news section actually has reports from towns on almost every page.

Although local news bores most of the editors and reporters, this is the stuff homeowners and others need to know to judge how well their tax dollars are being spent.

On Page 1 today, Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi turned in a great enterprise shot from Hackensack's Junior Police Academy, showing he has a lot more talent than readers see in his ambulance-chasing accident photos, which are often used as filler in Local.

But Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado did a poor job of researching her story on Palisades Park's Korean residents asking for an interpreter at Borough Council meetings (A-1).

Her first paragraph mentions interpreters in municipal courts and hospitals, but that ignores the interpreting staff attached to every state Superior Court.

Trump, Clinton

The Record and other media largely continue to ignore the issues in the presidential campaign, but at least the stories about GOP nominee Donald J. Trump's racism and Democrat Hillary Clinton's emails are played on A-7 today.

The lead story -- "Chilling posts by Trump staffers" -- is from The Associated Press:

"Donald Trump's paid campaign staffers have declared on their social media accounts that Muslims are unfit to be American citizens, ridiculed Mexican accents, called for Secretary of State John Kerry's death by hanging and stated their readiness for a possible civil war" (A-7).

Catholic sex abuse

In contrast to all of the Page 1 stories about the pope and the Newark archbishop, settlement of a child sex-abuse lawsuit against Bergen Catholic High School was pushed back to the Local front today.

Still, there is no explanation why the $1.9 million settlement from last November is just being reported, nor any mention that lawyers for the victims will likely take about a third of the money (L-1).

Traffic tickets

Monday's Page 1 story on the drop in the number of tickets issued to drivers on Bergen County roads and highways is missing so much information you have to wonder why The Record published it.

Staff Writer Jean Rimbach begins by reporting that "most drivers" will welcome the decline in enforcement by the Bergen County Bureau of Police Services, but that would mean the majority break traffic laws.

That's preposterous.

In fact, a minority of drivers speed and drive recklessly, and endanger others who have enough to worry about on Bergen County's antiquated road network.

There is one reference to "a reduction in moving and non-moving violations," but nowhere does Rimbach discuss such specifics as speeding tickets.

Least productive

Typically, Rimbach spends weeks or months on such projects, under the protection of Editor Deirdre Sykes, the newsroom's mother hen, and Sykes publishes the results no matter how flawed.

The Record already missed a bigger story -- a dramatic drop in the number of speeding summonses issued by state police on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway in the past five years. 

See: 

Speeders are having a field day

Readers are hoping they'll survive Thanksgiving editions

On Thursday, The Record's useless Sports section joined numerous Black Friday sales fliers in going straight to recycling. The Thanksgiving edition's predictable front page focused on why a handful of people are giving thanks, ignoring the millions of middle-class residents targeted by Governor Christie.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Six years after Chris Christie broke his campaign promise to lower property taxes -- the one that likely got him elected governor -- The Record continues to ignore the millions who can't wait for his reign to end.

Today, Editor Martin Gottlieb devotes precious front-page space to a Wayne man who has overcome a childhood illness to help hold the Ronald McDonald balloon aloft during Thursday's parade (A-1).

Gee whiz. Isn't that heart warming? All our troubles are over.

Covering the few

On Thursday's front page Columnist Mike Kelly apparently could find only two people "who turned a personal tragedy into a rallying call for change."

Meanwhile, Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado interviews a handful of "refugees and asylum seekers" who are marking their first Thanksgiving in the United States.

Couldn't the local assignment editors and reporters find the energy to interview 20, 30 or 40 state residents on what, if anything, they are thankful for in the fifth year of Christie's mean-spirited rule?

2017 election

The Woodland Park daily already has started covering the 2017 election to pick the GOP bully's successor, but today's A-1 story is predictable.

Staff Writer Dustin Racioppi focuses on politics -- Democrats v. Republicans -- instead of issues or what would be good for New Jersey.

He also doesn't mention some of Christie's many failures, including vetoing a hike in the minimum wage (A-1).

For more wasted space, see Staff Writer Jim Beckerman's piece on "Betamax devotees" devastated by Sony's decision to end production of the videotapes in March (A-1).

Tens of thousands of older readers have been shut out by advances in technology -- from smart phones to computers to navigation systems -- yet I have yet to see that story reported in The Record by Beckerman or anyone else.

Traffic on Route 4 east in Paramus just before 8 this morning was much lighter than during the usual weekday rush hour.

One driver received a gift in the parking lot of 24 Hour Fitness in Paramus.

Christie and Syrians

An editorial on the contributions of Syrians to New Jersey is muted in its criticism of Chritie's hate-filled speech in the wake of Paris attacks on Nov. 13 (A-20).

"Christie, who refuses to call out [Donald] Trump for his anti-Muslim rhetoric, seems totally unaware of the Syrian community's long-standing contributions to this state," according to the editorial.

As was local Editor Deirdre Sykes, who waited eight or nine days after Christie sad he would bar Syrian orphans from New Jersey to assign a reporter to interview law-abiding Syrian merchants in South Paterson. 

Homeless

Today, a story on the Local front is The Record's annual recognition of the homeless problem in Paterson and Hackensack (L-1).

But more important than the homeless are Thanksgiving Day shoppers, because that gives the editors another excuse to write about the retailers whose ad revenue is keeping North Jersey Media Group afloat (L-1).

Poor editing

Staff Writer Christopher Maag covered Zach Blaifeder of Wayne, who held a line to the Ronald McDonald balloon in Thursday's parade (A-1).

His story begins:

"Walking 45 blocks down the spine of Manhattan, tethered to a giant balloon and surrounded by 3 million people, is an exercise in endurance."

Pretty good. But the editors missed a glaring error.

If any street could be considered "the spine of Manhattan," it's Fifth Avenue, which divides the East Side from the West Side.

Yet, Blaifeder and the rest of the parade never got near Fifth Avenue.

Zinburger

Restaurant critic Elisa Ung deserves some credit for praising "the most flavorful veggie burger I have ever tried" at Zinburger in Westfield Garden State Plaza (BL-14).

But, as usual, her review avoids discussing how the cows who gave their lives for the regular burgers were raised.

When you pay $10 to $15 for a Zinburger, do you get grass-fed ground beef or meat from cows who were fed chicken-coop waste and the slaughterhouse remains of chickens and pigs?

Ung doesn't dare say.

Christie's pension-system deal raised questions years ago

Bergen Town Center in Paramus is a full-service shopping center only a couple of miles from Hackensack: Whole Foods Market, ShopRite, 24 Hour Fitness and Lowe's are among mall tenants.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's tabloid-like front page today has many readers wondering about the priorities of Editor Martin Gottlieb.

Gottlieb, a former New York Times editor who favors unusually long and complicated stories and analyses, could have devoted most or all of Page 1 to Governor Christie's 2016 budget and a second round of so-called pension-system reforms (A-1).

Instead, most of A-1 today is devoted to two sensational stories: 

"Bergen's most wanted," and three men who allegedly plotted to join ISIS. Big deal.

At the top of the page, a headline acknowledges for the first that Christie's budget speech and the pension plan he unveiled on Tuesday were far from the done deal portrayed by The Record and other media:

"Questions swirl on pensions"

Of course, every Christie policy since he took office in 2010 raised questions The Record papered over.

Instead, editors, columnists and reporters swallowed the GOP bully's "Reform Agenda," "Jersey Comeback," "Strong than the Storm" and other public relations campaigns hook, line and sinker.

That includes what is referred to as the 2011 "pension overhaul" Christie was hoping to take national in a campaign for the White House (A-3).

Imagine what he'd do to Medicare and Social Security in the unlikely event he gets the GOP nomination and wins the 2016 election. 

And why aren't the editors making a stink over Christie's silence on funding road and bridge repairs, and mass transit?

The conservative's refusal to raise the second-lowest gasoline tax in the nation to rehabilitate the state Transportation Trust Fund seems to have been endorsed by The Record, as were his many vetoes of a tax surcharge on millionaires.

'Shivering waifs'

Readers could be forgiven if they think today's Road Warrior column on Good Samaritans was written by a Dickens imitator (L-1).

Staff Writer John Cichowski's lead paragraph refers to unlucky drivers as "shivering waifs" and to roads as "always cold and luckless."

In summer, I suppose, drivers whose cars break down would be called "sweltering waifs."

How many thousands of readers just rolled their eyes when they saw this claptrap -- one of the worst pieces of journalism in many years.

The entire column is hung on the experience of one Michael Casapulla, who got a flat tire on the New Jersey Turnpike, pulled over and was surprised and delighted another man helped put the spare on his car.

Then, to pad this pathetic excuse for a commuting column, the demented Cichowski must have Googled "Good Samaritan," and decide to regurgitate every Good Samaritan he wrote about in old columns.

Cichowski didn't do what a real journalist would have done: 

Report on the long waits for AAA and other emergency road service, and tell readers if there are better programs out there.

Highway robbery

A story on a plan to install high-tech parking meters in Palisades Park doesn't mention they are in effect until 9 p.m., compared to the 6 p.m. expiration of most other towns.

Why didn't Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado ask Mayor James Rotundo why town officials are so greedy or speak to merchants and restaurant owners for their thoughts on whether the meters discourage visitors from patronizing their businesses?

End of BYO?

Staff Writer Joan Verdon needs to get out more.

How else to explain why her story on a bill to issue a new kind of restaurant liquor licenses completely ignores what impact that would have on the BYO tradition, which can make eating out in New Jersey such a good value (L-8).

Editors finally discover 'Little Mexico' under their noses

Hackensack's Salem Street, between River and Moore streets, was closed Friday, disrupting traffic. How many of the people in this photo are actually working? Three blocks of Salem, from River to State streets, have been torn up for weeks to perform underground work.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In a single front-page story today, The Record's editors try to play catch-up on nearly three decades of Mexican migration to a city not far from their ivory tower newsroom.

Spurred by Governor Christie's visit to Mexico,  the reporter who covers immigrants for the Woodland Park daily traces the growth of Passaic city's Poblanos or people who hail from the state and city of Puebla (A-1).

The Record's local-news editors have largely ignored Passaic's Mexican-Americans until now, even though the onetime Food section wrote extensively about North Jersey's Little Mexico in 2003.

On Friday, Christie visited Puebla, citing the big percentage of Mexican immigrants in New Jersey who come from there (38.75%). 

Previously, the GOP bully slashed tax credits for Mexican-Americans and other working poor, and cut aid to Passaic and five other impoverished cities.

In her story about Passaic's Poblanos, Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado undercounts "taquerias, Mexican bakeries, restaurants and stores," and makes no mention of the wholesale Mexican food warehouses that are open to the public (A-4). 


Christie's revenge

Another rating agency has condemned Christie's fiscal policies in New Jersey, citing, among other things, a state economy that "continues to lag that of the nation" (A-1).

The A-4 story by Melissa Hayes on Christie's visit to Puebla says the governor "came to the state nearly 90 miles from Mexico City," but didn't he meet Puebla Gov. Rafael Moreno Valle in the capital city, also called Puebla?

Tips immigration hand

At one point, Christie seems to be saying the unaccompanied children crossing the Mexican border illegally should respect and recognize the laws of the United States.

Then, he is quoted gushing about "an endless line of one child more adorable than the next" -- presumably, as long as they stay in Mexico.

Friday was the last day of what Christie called a trade mission, but The Record hasn't reported whether any new deals or contracts were signed between New Jersey and Mexican businesses.

Indeed, the gushing coverage seems designed only to boost Christie's prospects as a Republican presidential contender in 2016.

Police blotter

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, did a great job filling today's Local section with police and court news (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

Second look

In last Sunday's Road Warrior column, confused Staff Writer John Cichowski again provided "wrong, unsafe and illegal advice" to teenagers and their parents, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers.

"The Road Warrior [Cichowski] reported that an official stated that about 800 teens were killed in car crashes in New Jersey over the last 10 years.

"Actually, there were only about 400 teenage deaths for drivers and passengers in the last 10 years, according to New Jersey State Police road fatality annual statistics, which the Road Warrior frequently references, but misstates."

See: Take away John Cichowski's license to write 

We get it: Jersey is corrupt

Englewood's City Hall on Memorial Day. Today, The Record's local editors show they learned nothing from their time covering the city as reporters.

New York. Paris. Hey, you've got to be impressed with Editor Marty Gottlieb's journalism credentials.

But as today's front page clearly shows, readers wish he had spent a lot more time in New Milford, Paramus and all the other small and big home-rule towns that make up The Record's North Jersey beat.

Just because the paper's political columnist has had his head buried in his ass since Governor Christie took office doesn't mean Gottlieb now has to run a Page 1 story throwing cold water on the GOP bully's reformer image.

Cronies and worse

Readers long have known that image is just so much bullshit. 

And for years, the editors have ignored all the evidence that Christie is just another Jersey politician who has rewarded his cronies with high-paying jobs.

When Christie was the corruption-busting U.S. attorney and lionized by a bored media, he steered hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees to a former U.S. attorney general who was his boss and to a former federal judge.

Once in office, he killed the biggest mass transit project in a region hopelessly choked with traffic, packed the Port Authority with his cronies and rubber-stamped exorbitant toll hikes on Hudson River crossings and the turnpike.

Has The Record ever bothered to list all the jobs he has given in an out of his administration to former members of his staff at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark? 


More from Zisaville

So, today's Page 1 stories on Christie and Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa, the convicted former Hackensack police chief, tell readers nothing they don't already know about Jersey-style corruption.

And they serve to remind Hackensack residents of how head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her lazy deputy assignment editor, Dan Sforza, have subverted the local-news operation.

Like Monsy Alvarado, the previous Hackensack reporter, Staff Writer Stephanie Akin has written more about Zisa than any other issue affecting residents.

If past practice is any guide, Akin will cover every burp, cough and fart of the 20-plus civil suits filed against the former police chief by his subordinates -- and completely neglect just about everything else that happens in Hackensack.

Errors 'R' Us

Residents remain in the dark about the city's budget and tax rate, and other important news.

On Page 1 today, Akin reports a June 6 deposition given by Zisa is the first time he has spoken on "the public record" since he was convicted in May of official misconduct and insurance fraud.

But a deposition isn't public, and doesn't become part of the public record until it is filed with the court as part of a motion. Or, it may be used at a trial. 

The only people who find New Jersey's red-light program "controversial" are lead-footed drivers who blow through them, causing accidents and killing themselves and others (A-3).

Road worrier

On Sykes' Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski has mastered writing an entire column -- supposedly about commuting -- from the air-conditioned comfort of his home or office (L-1).

Today's inconsequential piece answers e-mails from drivers -- at least one of whom is blind.

Peter DeMaio of Totowa claims the Garden State Parkway "no longer offers cash receipts." DeMaio somehow has missed all the toll lanes marked "Cash" and "Receipts."

Fire sale

In an L-1 story about plans for a new firehouse in Englewood, the editors err in discussing a development parcel made up of the firehouse and "the shuttered Liberty School."

It's the 100-year-old plus Lincoln School -- next to the firehouse -- that is closed. Liberty, which is blocks away, is used by school administrators.

Both Sykes and Sforza covered Englewood as reporters. How did they let that major error get through?

Editors mock black teen's death

The overpaid Garfield police chief, at left on phone, gets word that a suspect ran out of an unlocked police station door and three officers could not catch him.

On The Record's front-page today, four big photos showing a black suspect fleeing the Garfield police station focus on a comedic Keystone Kops chase -- not the confrontation with officers who shot him dead.

The story and photos take up most of Page 1, but the text is so poorly edited, there are several major flaws -- typical of the assignment desk under Editor Deirdre Sykes and the news copy desk under Editor Liz Houlton.

Sykes and Houlton continue to make Editor Marty Gottlieb look bad as the ex-Timesman completes his second month at the Woodland Park daily.

The use of "TALE OF THE TAPE" -- a sports term -- in a kicker over the main headline seems inappropriate over a story about the controversial shooting of Malik Williams, 19. The phrase mocks the victim.

Why not just use the phrase "COPS' VIDEO TAPE" or something similar?

'Unspecified tools'

Three months and 10 days after the fatal police shooting, The Record continues to report Williams "allegedly had armed himself with unspecified tools" on Dec. 10, 2011 (A-1). 

But on the continuation page (A-6), the paper quotes the two "use of force" reports it obtained from police recently, alleging Williams attacked an officer with a "blunt object" and a "knife/cutting object."

That conflicts badly with "unspecified tools" on the front page. Where are Houlton and her copy editors? Are they so in awe of Sykes, they ignore such glaring conflicts in a story?

Who owns garage?

Also on A-6, a large photo of the detached garage behind a Dahnert Park Lane home is shown. The caption says Williams was shot "near" the garage. The graphic just under the photo says he was shot "in" the garage.

The laziness and incompetency of Sykes and her minions have been exposed by coverage of the Williams shooting.

In the past 100 days -- instead of looking for witnesses to the shooting or interviewing the owner of the garage on what he or she might have seen -- the paper merely regurgitated bare-bones press releases from Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli as he tried mightily to cover the asses of all of the police officers involved.

Breaking weather news

On the front of Local today, Sykes delivers the breathless news that we've had our "warmest winter ever" -- which anyone who watches TV news already knows.

Former Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado is back with a ridiculous story on "two tragedies" in Palisades Park -- the unintended suicide of a priest who fell asleep while smoking and the "beheading" of a statue at another church in the borough.

Death and vandalism

How can the desperate Sykes have the nerve to compare the untimely demise of the Rev. James F. Reilly to vandalism, especially when the paper appears to have no intention of using his meaningless death to illustrate the dangers of smoking. 

Sykes continues to nibble around the edges of Hackensack for local news, but there is nothing from the county seat itself.

Developer had sole

On L-6, a local obituary on land developer and footwear inventor Eli Cohen, formerly of Paramus, fails to note that his shock-absorbing running shoes had only limited commercial success.

In a bid to capitalize on the Nike name, Cohen named them "Nebbishy."

Highway businesses

On L-7, the first Business page, a story on businesses filling "retail space" in Parmaus, doesn't explain the 24 Hour Fitness health club opened in a building that once housed a multiplex movie theater, not a big-box store.

The story does tell readers a second New York-based Fairway Market is expected to open in June on Route 46 in Woodland Park -- in a former Pathmark.

The paper's commercial real estate coverage continues to virtually ignore struggling downtowns in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood.

Today's front page really sucks

Lincoln Tunnel, New Jersey side approach and "helix," circa 1955. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Long-suffering readers of The Record know Editor Liz Houlton's news copy desk can't edit or always deliver accurate headlines. 

But the lead Page 1 story today demonstrates the copy editors can't add, either.

If the Lincoln Tunnel helix was opened in October 1938, it became an engineering marvel more than 73 years ago, not "70 years ago," as the lead paragraph reports.

And nowhere in the text on A-1 and A-8 or in the elaborate graphic can readers find the helix's well-known numerical designation, Route 495, though other route numbers are provided.

That's just sloppy

You don't expect that kind of sloppiness on a front page from Editor Marty Gottlieb, who spent many years at The New York Times.

Even on a Monday after a slow news weekend, the Page 1 column by sports writer Tara Sullivan seems made up, fabricated, fraudulent -- supply your own word. 

Who the hell remembers what happened five years ago? So members of the Rutgers women's basketball team were called "nappy headed hos" by that racist pig Imus. 

Is there any doubt -- except in the mind of Gottlieb and his desperate sports editor -- the women shook it off years ago? 


Elephantine news

Instead of getting better, the front page gets worse with yet another column by Charles Stile on Governor Christie's "Jersey style."

Christie is the worst governor the state has ever had, and that can be documented in numerous ways. On top of that, the GOP bully is a slave to food who has ignored the childhood obesity epidemic in New Jersey.

When are the editors of The Record going to stop trying to polish a turd and level with readers?

Local readers suffer

Although story length has grown and sidebars have proliferated under Gottlieb, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes still turns out the same tripe she has been peddling for decades.

Former Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado was sent to the Rutgers campus for reaction to the Dharun Ravi verdict -- the 10th story about the trial in the past three days -- and readers are still wondering how the university pairs roommates and how easy it is for students to change rooms (L-1).

The only Hackensack news in Local today is a brief on a kitchen fire (L-2).

Mindless repetition is killing us

It's not known whether Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado will accompany the parents of murder victim Aena Hong when they bring her ashes back to their native South Korea.

When a big news story appears in the paper almost every day, readers get tired of seeing it and wonder what they are missing to make room for it. Even the enormity of 9/11 and the media's seemingly endless coverage caused reader fatigue.

Today, the sixth story about murder victim Aena Hong in eight days is all over Page 1 of The Record -- one day after a court hearing for suspect Charles J. Ann was reported on the Local front.

All six stories go over the same ground. Today's piece amounts to a profile of the victim, including her life in South Korea and North Jersey, and her relationship with Ann.

Editor Marty Gottlieb is milking this one for all the pathos he can find, running a big A-1 photo of Hong's grief-stricken parents, who traveled here from South Korea to claim their daughter's body after she was run over repeatedly by a car on Feb. 20 in Fort Lee.

 

Shattered dream

 

"She was a girl with a big dream who came to the United States, but she's going back to her home country as ashes," her father told reporter Monsy Alvarado.

Just below the Hong story, a second story about Pascack Valley Hospital's reopening appears -- one day after state approval led the paper. The hospital isn't going to be ready for 14 months. Why the rush in running a follow-up?

What's leading the paper today? That moron Mitt Romney. I'd be happy if I never read another story about the GOP presidential hopeful until the convention in August.

Snow job

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, Road Warrior John Cichowski has yet another column about roof snow or what he refers to as "dangerous white glop."

Readers have lost count of how many columns on the subject they've been hit with by the lazy Cichowski, who can't seem to get himself out of the office to cover commuting issues.

If Cichowski's repetitious column was dropped, Sykes might find room for some Hackesack news or news about a lot of other towns she doesn't cover too well.

Idiot news

Sykes did deliver breaking news today: a homeless man's 1987 gas guzzler was destroyed by explosions in Hackensack after the emphysema victim lit a cigarette, igniting three oxygen tanks in the car (L-1). 

Despite the photo and a long story that continues on L-2, Sykes' incompetent minions couldn't learn the man's identity.

To make room for repetitious stories about Aena Hong and Pascack Valley Hospital on Page 1, the editors had to demote to L-1 coverage of dramatic testimony in the trial of Dharun Ravi, who has been charged in the suicide of Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood.

Related articles

• Editors love Asian murder case (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Editors try to sell Christie tax cut (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• The big-butt newsroom sisterhood (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Dear Marty: Seven ways to save The Record (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

Christie kowtows to his new bosses

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

"You talking to me?"

You can almost hear the belly laughs from 500 "business leaders" after Governor Christie promised he would never "disrespect" them.


Was this a gathering of the Corleone clan in Woodcliff Lake on Friday or merely the governor's new bosses, all members of the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey? 


In the lead story on The Record's Business page today, Christie tells members of his well-off audience they don't have to worry about environmental regulation.


The story doesn't say how many of the companies at the annual meeting have contributed to Christie's war chest.


Rich wage battle


When is Christie going to promise public employees, cops, teachers, seniors, women and low-income families that he won't disrespect them, either? 


Never.  The GOP bully, in league with Republicans in state houses and Congress, is waging open warfare for wealthy business owners like Publisher Stephen A. Borg against the middle and working classes -- a story The Record ignores.


Look at today's front page. Editor Francis Scandale lobs soft news to help readers ease into the weekend. 


A story about new citizens sounds like every other naturalization story the paper has carried in the past two decades. The focus should have been on the soldiers and sailors who put their lives on the line before they became citizens.


In the off-lead position, an update on a $140 million Ponzi scheme is so poorly edited by an assignment editor and the news copy desk it reports three times on the front page alone that James Nicholson was sentenced to prison:

1. "A federal judge sent James Nicholson away to prison for 40 years."
2. "A call to U.S. District Court Judge Richard Sullivan, who sentenced Nicholson...."
3. "Sullivan's court, where Nicholson was prosecuted, pleaded guilty and was sentenced."

More stale news

In head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, the byline of Hackensack reporter Stephanie Akin hasn't appeared for about two weeks.


An update on dismissal of ethics charges against a school board member carries the byline of the old Hackensack reporter, Monsy Alvarado (L-1).


The biggest element on the Local front -- about an eagle's nest in Ridgefield Park -- carries the byline of the Teaneck reporter. 


But the focus -- the return of eagles as a sign of a cleaner environment -- is really old news. Ignoring that, Sykes' assignment desk blew up a minor story into a cover story out of its usual sheer desperation.


The lead story on L-1 is another in a series on "the ongoing exploration into dispatch services" in Washington Township -- in other words, no news here.


The fourth story on L-1 is more coverage of an election nobody cares about. 


Another great job by Sykes and her lazy minions.

Protecting Christie's police chiefs

Image via Wikipedia

The Road Warrior tells reader Elyse Cohen of Fair Lawn
 to drop dead. Above, NJ Transit headquarters in Newark.

In her front-page story in The Record today, Staff Writer Deena Yellin does a masterful job of dancing around the enduring controversy over inflated salaries and benefits for the more than 100 police chiefs in North Jersey.


"All over North Jersey," she writes, "police brass are figuring out news ways to cover their communities as budgets get slashed."


What about the creative ways chiefs have covered their asses since Governor Christie came down like a ton of bricks on any school superintendent who makes more than his $175,000 annual salary?


Or how reporters like Yellin conspire with their clueless assignment editors to protect the fiefdoms of the 70 police chiefs in Bergen County?


Who missed this grammatical error in her story? "Hackensack's police department is among the few who claim not to have suffered any major cutbacks [my italics]."


Time to cap chiefs?


Why not a similar cap on police chiefs? Why has The Record ignored those inflated salaries and Christie's inaction for so long?


Editor Francis Scandale changes pace today with an A-1 photo from Fort Lee -- a non-fatal traffic accident from ambulance chasing Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi -- rather than go with an image from Greece, Pakistan or some other far-off place.


Read the plea for better NJ Transit bus service in Paramus in a letter to the editor from Elyse Cohen of Fair Lawn (A-12), then turn to another in an unending series of L-1 columns about drivers from the Road Warrior, as Staff Writer John Cichowski refuses to leave the office and cover commuting problems.


Please get off your ass, John, and ride a rush-hour bus or train into the city to see what commuters are going through every day, report it and then ask why it has to be that way.


Or try to take a bus in mid-afternoon and ask why the waits are so long for seniors and people who can't afford cars?


Local yokels


On the front of Local, Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado writes about her fellow Hispanics being exposed to air pollution. 


But on L-3 today, the byline of Stephanie Akin appears over stories from Hackensack and Maywood, two of the towns assigned to Alvarado. 


Has head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes assigned Akin to Hackensack?


Also on L-3, Staff Writer Richard De Santa reports Social Security is closing its Glen Rock office and transferring employees to Sussex Street in Hackensack.


Unfortunately, the Sussex Street office closed months ago. Now, the office is at 401 Hackensack Ave.


On L-6, a brief reports Christie has nominated Jack Zisa, Hackensack's mayor from 1989 to 2005, to the Bergen County Board of Taxation.


Kosher trap


In Better Living, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill helps to perpetuate the myth there are "health benefits" in keeping kosher (F-1).


Although kosher poultry and meat usually costs more, much of it is raised with antibiotics or growth hormones and animal byproducts, and it's no healthier than non-kosher.  

Editors no speaky Spanish

Image via Wikipedia

Many families in Guatemala are supported by illegal immigrants in North Jersey.

What do you do when a Guatemalan immigrant is killed in Passaic and apparently the only reporter you have who speaks Spanish covers the city of Hackensack?

"Screw Hackensack," Editors Francis Scandale and Deirdre Sykes of The Record said in unison at the Tuesday morning news conference in Woodland Park, dispatching Monsy Alvarado to report and write today's heart-rending story at the bottom of Page 1.


Alvarado, however, seemed intent on not telling readers right away that victim Antonio Chiroy entered the country illegally, and the story never actually uses the phrase "illegal immigrant." 


Was that an oversight by Alvarado's clueless assignment editor or Liz Houlton's news copy desk? The copy desk also uses "SLAYING" as a jump word on A-1, but the jump head on A-6 says "BEATING."


Stories about illegal immigrants who support families in Mexico, Guatemala and other countries are few and far between in The Record, and it's clear that to get in the paper today, Chiroy had to be murdered.


In white news ...


Of course, the big front-page news today is aimed at the paper's favorite demographic -- the overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly wealthy residents of Ridgewood.


Judging by the coverage of protesters, you'd think expansion of The Valley Hospital is a project akin to the Hoover Dam. The editors are clearly on the side of opponents.


Just look at the drop headline on A-1:

Hospital expansion could change face of village

That's  so exaggerated, it's laughable. 


The hospital's "expansion" plan is confined to its current campus, and doesn't require the taking of more land -- though you won't find that in today's story by Staff Writer Mary Jo Layton. 


That's rich


In the third A-1 story today, Rep. Leonard Lance, R-Clinton, calls for rejection of tax-deduction caps in President Obama's jobs bill -- tax increases that would affect individuals making more than $200,000 a year or couples making more than $250,000.


Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson actually quotes Lance as saying the tax hikes "will hurt, not help, the Garden State's struggling economy." 


But are wealthy residents the ones who are struggling?


Local yokels


Sykes' Local sections today and Tuesday contain little local news.


The lead story on L-1 Tuesday was a preview of today's A-1 report on the Ridgewood hospital-plan hearing.


A huge chunk of Tuesday's Local front is taken up by another No-One-Was-Injured photo, this one showing a truck fire on Route 17 in Paramus.


On Tuesday's front page, Scandale continued to turn his back on his staff by running a photo from Kenya -- rather than an image of life in North Jersey.


Fortress mentality


The big error in big type at the top of Monday's front page -- the headline over the unveiling of the 9/11 memorial on Sunday -- was never corrected, just as the editors ignored their confusion in two Page 1 stories recently between the borough of Point Pleasant and Point Pleasant Beach.

Sorrow etched in stone

Of course, the only problem is the names of 9/11 victims are etched in bronze. Who screwed that up?


Name game


Monday's paper also raised a question that was never answered -- what do we call the World Trade Center site destroyed a decade ago?


In Monday's paper, there are references in headlines, captions and text to "trade center memorial," "Ground Zero," "reborn World Trade Center site," "9/11 Memorial Plaza," and "new 9/11 Memorial Plaza" -- and that's just on the front page.


An A-6 photo caption on Monday called the reflecting pools the "National September 11 Memorial." Monday's New York Times continued to refer to a lower-case "ground zero."