Editors give finger to commuters

New Jersey commuters lining up for rush-hour buses in Manhattan.

The Record's car-centric editors and transportation reporters have never done a good job covering mass transit, and they're not going to start now.

The Woodland Park daily has published more stories about NJ Transit since Superstorm Sandy than in the previous decade, but all of them have been focused on who screwed up to expose the system to more than $400 million in damage (A-1 today).

Where are the stories on why Governor Christie and the Port Authority have refused to expand a bus and rail network that reached capacity years ago?

F.U. to commuters

On today's Local front, the great road sage John Cichowski has parlayed his laziness into another column based entirely on e-mailed complaints from drivers, many of whom have gotten their names in print before (L-1).

Here is another silly Road Warrior Top 10 list from a weary columnist who loves to give the finger to commuters who use mass transit.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, are taking a holiday from local municipal news.

Boring readers 

On Page 1 today, Editor Liz Houlton's copy editors couldn't come up with anything more imaginative than "RETRACING KEY STEP TO THE REVOLUTION" for the annual photo showing the reenactment of Washington and his troops crossing the Delaware.

When readers turn to the story on A-3, they learn weather and high water prevented the river crossing.

How about this for an A-1 photo overline?

"GLOBAL WARMING STOPS WASHINGTON" 

Or:

"WEATHER STOPS WASHINGTON"      

More, not fewer guns


The National Rifle Association will probably recommend we arm firefighters after a madman set fire to his house, then murdered two of the volunteers who responded with the same kind of military-style rifle used in Newtown, Conn., to kill 20 first graders and six adults (A-1).

The NRA will do anything to stimulate gun sales.

Where are the photos of the dead kids?

NRA Headquarters, Fairfax, Va. What would happen if children of NRA members were among the dead in Connecticut? ( Wikipedia)

Don't you want to see photos of those dead kids, all 7 years old or younger, shot multiple times and covered in blood?

For the second straight day, The Record's front page  is dominated by coverage of the "grisly massacre" at a Connecticut elementary school, but where are the photos of the victims?

Instead, readers get an overlong, eye-glazing he said/she said story on whether the killings will change the debate over gun control.

Thanks to Editor Marty Gottlieb, a Times veteran, this A-1 piece goes on and on, spilling over to half of Page A-8. 

Is anyone going to read more than a few paragraphs of the same rehash we see after every school shooting?

And this story may be confusing a shooter capable of forming the criminal intent to kill with a mentally ill 20-year-old incapable of doing so.

Media and NRA 

Self-censorship by the media makes them complicit in allowing the National Rifle Association to dismiss shootings like the one at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

The NRA is confident that politicians who accept its blood money won't do anything to tighten control over rapid-fire weapons.

The real horror of the Connecticut shootings would be evident in photos of blood-covered kids in classrooms with multiple bullet holes in them. 

The last thing we need after a horrific shooting is the media hosting another debate over the constitutional right to own guns. 

'Mentally disturbed'

A photo of Adam Lanza, the shooter, appears on Page 1 today, and he is described as "mentally disturbed."

A story by three Record reporters refers to his "troubled life" and describe his as a "mentally disturbed loner."

Was he treated for mental illness? The story is silent on that.

Was he insane?

If he was mentally ill and survived, Lanza might have been found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Yet, the first paragraph of the Record's story says, "Advocates for gun ownership rights denounce the 'politicizing' of the tragedy, and say criminals will still find ways to kill."  

In the eyes of the law, Lanza may not be a criminal, and the debate over gun control needs to recognize that crucial difference.

More road kill

On the Local front today, Road Warrior John Cichowski refers to himself as a "know-it-all."

That's directly contradicted by all those error-filled columns in the past 9 years that have exposed just how little he knows.

Today, he corrects  a major error in Friday's column, which reported incorrectly that the increase in road deaths in New Jersey in 2011 was more than in any other state except California.

Now, he says, Alaska's increase was greater than New Jersey's. 

Biggest mistake

Cichowski's biggest mistake was transforming the Road Warrior column into a forum for drivers, and virtually ignoring mass transit and other commuting issues.  

He is so burned out that most of his columns are based on ideas from reader e-mails, such as today's "annual Christmas wish list."

Missing is what anyone who commutes by car desperately wishes for:  

The addition of tens of thousands of road reflectors to help them guide their cars, especially on rainy nights, when all but the brightest, painted lines disappear.  

The Local front also carries a story on new, expanded flood zones after Superstorm Sandy, but what good is the accompanying map, which identifies only a few streets by name (L-1)?

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, needed three gee-whiz photos of non-fatal accidents to fill today's local-news section (L-3 and L-7).

Fattening up readers 

Another columnist who ran out of ideas long ago is dessert-obsessed Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung, who writes a misnamed Sunday column, The Corner Table (BL-1).

Today, she says, all readers want for Christmas is more artery clogging butter and cream, and a lot more sugar in their diet, so she consulted "three local experts who provided tips for baking your way through the holidays."

What this has to do with readers' restaurant-going issues is unclear.

Readers who are diabetic, who have heart problems or are watching their weight can just turn the page. 

Let them eat cake, Ung says.

 

From politics to stupid human tricks

An assault-rifle ban will never happen until the children of National Rifle Association leaders die in random shootings  (Wikipedia)

After more than a week straight of covering divisive Republican politics at the GOP's quadrennial laughfest, the editors of The Record focus today on stupid human tricks.

Only two Page 1 items stir much interest:

The ex-Marine who killed two co-workers at an Old Bridge supermarket and the unintentional suicide of a teenager, who left his brains smeared on a Fort Lee overpass.

The supermarket carnage only remind readers they'll never see any meaningful gun control until members of the National Rifle Association or the politicians who take its blood money lose children in a random shooting.

Stupid humans

The front of Local is dominated by a report on a 16-year-old boy who stuck his head out of the roof hatch on a double-decker party bus and was fatally injured when he hit an overpass on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge (L-1).

The story notes the bus has "a hatch in its roof in case it tips over," but fails to say it is an escape hatch for passengers when other exits are blocked after an accident.

Lawyers reading the story are no doubt salivating over the millions they hope to recover from a wrongful death suit. 

Plantation news

The front of Local today continues to report on more layoffs in the largely minority Englewood school system -- an ongoing story since at least July -- at the hands of largely white overseers (L-1).

Another stupid human fell off a ladder at Ridgewood High School (L-2).

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes ordered the use of two photos of the overweight maintenance worker, and directed they be blown up as much as possible, because she had no other legitimate news for the section -- from Hackensack or anywhere else. 

A collision of two cars in Paramus -- with one of the drivers possibly breaking a leg -- also merited a story and photo on L-3 today.

Cracked sidewalks

On the same page, don't miss the scintillating account of sidewalk repairs and "dismantled trees" in Hasbrouck Heights (L-3).

Did anyone read Friday's front or did they obey the command of the lead headline from the Republican National Convention: 'Time to turn the page'?

Saturday's lead editorial on A-11 takes a hard look at Mitt Romney's job-growth promises and notes a continued lack of details -- the kind of honest assessment the Woodland Park daily rarely does for Governor Christie's partisan B.S. 

On the front of Friday's Local section, Road Warrior John Cichowski -- the so-called commuting columnist -- continues to cover obscure and irrelevant issues (L-1).

Don't eat here

In Friday's Better Living tab, you know the food at Mykonos Restaurant can't be very good when Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung wastes the first third of her appraisal discussing the owner's background. 

Her lukewarm 2-star rating instantly tells readers the North Arlington restaurant isn't worth the detour (BL-16 and 17).