Is it a bird, a plane, a new bridge to Manhattan?

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Rapper Jay-Z is said to be a partial owner of the Nets.

Check out the riveting photo of steel girders above the fold on the front page of The Record today.

Could this be a story about the new tunnel to the city eagerly awaited by thousands of NJ Transit rail commuters who have to stand during the morning rush?

No. It's a puff piece masquerading as a construction update for a small minority of the paper's readership who may actually go to see the Nets play in a new arena in Brooklyn, where Editor Francis Scandale was born. 

The piece ends this way: "The days of the New Jersey Nets are numbered."  Too bad the same can't be said for Scandale and Staff Writer John Brennan, who act as if they've been bribed with season tickets.

Crisis of confidence

The most important story on A-1 today is squeezed under a one-column headline: The Christie administration is talking out of both sides of its mouth on the health of state finances, hoping to avert a court ruling that would force it to spend millions more on public schools.

With all of our current problems, is anyone really worried about Sen . Bob Menendez's chances in the 2012 election -- except Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson, who can't hide his desperation for a story (A-1)?

Get off your tushes

On the front of Local, Columnist Michael Kelly complains about the trash piling up at the Great Falls in Paterson almost two years after it was designated as a National Historic Park.

If Kelly is so concerned, why doesn't he and some of the out-of-shape editors in the Woodland Park newsroom volunteer to clean the place up?

Image by Laughing Squid via Flickr

Thirty years after the founding of Whole Foods Market and a surging organic movement, readers are at the mercy of the 20- and 30-year-old bottom feeders who handle most of the paper's food coverage.

How else to explain the celebration of crappy burgers and white bread all over the Better Living front today?

Boxing in reporter John Brennan

Image by jimmywayne via Flickr

The long-delayed sentencing of former Nets star Jayson Williams is all over the front page of The Record of Woodland Park today: Eight years of "partying all the time" and being "treated like a king" since the 2002 killing of his limo driver. Persistent problems with alcohol and guns. Up to five years in prison for the shooting and attempted cover-up.

All this under the byline of Staff Writer John Brennan, who had to give up his public relations effort for Williams and could no longer peddle half-truths for the ex-athlete he once covered as as sports reporter. He could no longer omit a crucial fact as he had in several past stories: The shooting occurred after a night of drinking.

This time, Brennan was boxed in -- forced to report what was said in court by the prosecutor and the dead limo driver's distraught sister. But the reporter didn't give up until today, deliberately or inadvertently reporting incorrectly just yesterday that the potential sentence was 18 months, not up to five years. (Photo: Somerset County Courthouse.)



In the big Page 1 photo, Williams towers over his attorneys and sheriff's officers, but the look of consternation on his face as he was bring handcuffed is priceless. He seems to get it -- finally. I wonder if Brennan will ever get it.