North Jerseyans are beached by all that shore news

A homeless woman stopping to do a little housekeeping on West 34th Street, near Sixth Avenue, in Manhattan on Friday night.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Page 1 of The Record's Sunday edition delivers a shore outlook story like every one I've read or edited in the past 30 years.

Even Staff Writer Christopher Maag was pulled off his Hackensack beat to write a sidebar on how beach communities hit hard by Superstorm Sandy in late 2012 seem different now.

"Drive nearly any street from Sea Bright to Beach Haven," Maag reports, "and you're likely to see streets still ripped apart, houses jacked into the sky, and contractors' dented and oversized pickups that seem to occupy every bare piece of ground." 

Those sound like some jacks. And hundreds of pickups.

More on the shore

There is more shore news in Travel today (T-1).

Feature writer John Petrick recently returned from several years of exile covering trials and suits at the Passaic County Courthouse in Paterson -- and he's rusty, as you can see by the wordy, poorly edited lead paragraph of his piece on working at the shore as a teen.

That one paragraph has a "speeding car," "Garden State Parkway," "steamy Friday afternoon," "every Memorial Day weekend" and "another subsequent summer in my now grown-up life."

I stuck with it, and enjoyed his insider's look at "the endless bore" of a low-paying job running a wheel of chance during the day, which he refers to as "dayside," a newspaper term.

Payback for advertisers

Today's Local news section is from hunger.

In return for hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising revenue, The Record continues its intense coverage of malls and its neglect of Main Street (B-1).

At Westfield Garden State Plaza, Staff Writer Joan Verdon reports, a new wing has "double-height store facades" to resemble "a downtown street."

Isn't that rich?

And God forbid the editors suggest owners of the Paramus mall spend more money on security after crowds were panicked by gunshots and the fear of gunshots in the past six months.

Boring Kelly is back

A desperate Mike Kelly tries to wring meaning from the dinky Anderson Street Bridge, which was reduced to one lane in each direction from two a couple of years ago because of structural problems (O-1).

The biggest disruption has been experienced by low-wage workers and others who use hundreds of buses that were rerouted, but The Record has never interviewed any of those riders.

I drive over the bridge linking Hackensack and Teaneck a few times a week, and one lane in each direction is enough -- I've never seen a traffic jam there. 

But the stupid headline tries to give readers the impression this is big local news: "Hackensack's bridge going nowhere."

Is it really "Hackensack's bridge"? And it wasn't "going" anywhere before the lane closures.

Look at the shit-eating grin in Kelly's photo. He's pulled another fast one on his editors and readers.

Calling all fat readers

The Better Living cover promises "foodie news" on BL-2.

OK. But with three of the five items devoted to artery clogging ice cream, gelato, chocolate-covered frozen bananas and frozen shakes, this feature should be labeled "fattie news."

What does any of this have to do with us?

The Record's abandoned headquarters at 150 River St. in Hackensack, above, and the adjacent U.S.S. Ling and naval museum, below, seemed to be in a state of suspended animation on Saturday afternoon.

 

If you've looked at today's edition of The Record and wondered what most of the stories and columns have to do with you, you're in good company.

On Page 1, only a stand-alone photo about an Easter Vigil in Teaneck is related to life in North Jersey.

Most of the front page is covered by more on sand dunes at the shore -- the third day in a row the controversy has appeared in the Woodland Park daily. 

And then there is a story about some moron with a Yankees shrine.

Driving school

On the front of Local, in his first Road Warrior column in a week, Staff Writer John Cichowski reminds readers of driving fundamentals they learned decades ago.

Cichowski's first suggestion is to keep both hands on the steering wheel, thwarting the impulse to masturbate as a way of killing time when caught in North Jersey's massive traffic jams.

Thin Local section

The entire Local-news section today offers only nine -- count them -- nine stories, columns or stand-alone photos to readers in the 90 or so towns in the circulation area.

Business of food

The Business section's coverage of food and restaurants has trumped Better Living for years.

Today, Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais reports on misleading food-package labels (B-1).

However, DeMarrais still hasn't acknowledged the popularity of organic food and naturally raised meat and poultry in his monthly Market Basket survey of supermarket prices.

And many readers may just shrug at today's column, which is filled with products they never buy.

Readers squawk

Readers also are yawning at the latest Mike Kelly column on the front of Opinion (O-1).

Who cares about a woman who spends $350 a week on the Powerball lottery -- especially after all of the coverage of the Powerball and the Passaic city winner last week?

Enough, already.

Put readers first

Instead of reporting on restaurant goers and their unending quest for good food at reasonable prices, Better Living continues to bow down to restaurant owners and their business problems (BL-1).

Even Real Estate has a shore story today, about North Jersey couples hoping to have repairs on their vacation homes finished by summer.

Sadly, most people in North Jersey can't afford to own vacation homes at the shore.

Now, I'd love to read a story that tried to explain why that is.

The Record debuts slow-news edition

Image via Wikipedia

Will another shark-sighting story get bored readers to bite?

Governor Christie slashed the Democrats' budget by nearly $1 billion, put the kibosh on the millionaires tax for the second year in a row, and signed his own budget on Thursday afternoon.


So why did it take Editor Francis Scandale more than two full days to get the winners-and-losers story onto the front page today?


News sharks


There are two major shore stories in The Record today, but the best one is relegated to sidebar status on A-6, while readers get yet another one of those nonsensical, is-it-safe-to-go-into-water pieces all over Page 1.


On A-6, Staff Writer Jim Beckerman does a great job contrasting neighboring Ocean Grove and Asbury Park -- a story of interest even to shore denizens -- and puts his musician's knowledge to good use. 


On A-3, readers learn the adventure is over for a baboon that escaped from an amusement park, but not that several others are on the loose in the Woodland Park newsroom.


Why two Georgia immigration law protest stories on A-3 and A-11, and why wasn't a refer used?


WWI, not DWI


On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, Road Warrior John Cichowski  must have used a mind-altering substance to turn out his umpteenth column on holiday drinking and driving.


This is writing while "intoxicated."


Hackensack news is still away on vacation.


Christie as savior


In Opinion, an editorial on budget pain and the death of NJN is conspicuous by its absence (O-2).


But Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin found room on the front of the section for a glowing story on Christie under the headline:

A signature accomplishment

The subhead spins all the cuts into "ground-breaking budget reform." What else can you expect from the author, Carl Golden, former press aide to two Republican governors?

Why didn't Doblin use his section front for a column on the budget process by Political Science Prof. Brigid Harrison, who calls all "New Jerseyans the losers" (O-2)?

Scandale on Spencer

You can't keep that Scandale down, despite more than a decade of failure as editor of The Record. 

Scandale once worked for newspaper editor Gil Spencer, and when Spencer died last month,  Scandale ordered the wire editor of The Record to insert his quotes into the obituary that ran in the Woodland Park daily.

Here is Scandale again today, reviving his Opinion front column and making Spencer seem like a journalism god (O-1). 

Anyone who has ever worked for a newspaper knows no editor could be that good. And anyone who has ever worked for Scandale knows none of his praise for Spencer could ever be applied to him.

Another freebie?

Did Travel Editor Jill Schensul take another free trip with other editors and travel professionals in return for today's lavish cover story on guided, private-jet tours (T-1)? 

Where are the prices in the other T-1 story, about Barcelona for foodies? Hey, Jill, readers don't get free trips and want to know what it will cost them before they go.

The Travel section today has two full photo pages of readers on the road, instead of just one, but I guess all of North Jersey's black families stayed home.

Dreary Sunday, dreary Sunday paper

Image via Wikipedia

The Record reports an MTV show "re-branded" the New Jersey shore.

Editor Francis Scandale did his best to match the Sunday paper to the dreary weather we've been having in North Jersey.

You know he's just collecting a paycheck when two of the three stories on Page 1 of The Record today are dry process stories -- on teacher tenure and the state's pension deficit.

The Woodland Park daily's consumer columnist doesn't help readers save money at the gas pump. And the restaurant columnist doesn't help readers navigate all the new restaurant discounts and promotions.

So, it was a pleasant surprise to see a story on the Local front today about raising cash with a garage sale by Staff Writer Jay Levin, the local obituary reporter.

Detour ahead

Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski has lost it. If you can figure out what he's saying on L-1 today -- especially the second paragraph with its double negative -- you should get a reward.

Town reporter Melissa Hayes has three stories in Local today, but I don't see anything by Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado or Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano.

Sleeper

In Business, a reporter seems to have fallen for a one-liner by a wealthy mattress executive, who claims his snoring keeps his wife up (B-6). Is it credible he hasn't found one of the over-the-counter snoring remedies?

In Better Living, it's bad enough the food editor promotes a new cookbook every week, but now The Corner Table Columnist Elisa Ung is shilling for a book on family recipes (F-1).

Exposing an 'expose'

In Opinion, a letter to the editor from Patrick Ragosta of Dumont dismisses two A-1 "exposes" last week on Bergen Community College President Jerry Ryan and, indirectly, today's silly column by Mike Kelly on O-1.

Ragosta points out Ryan raised $3.8 million in donations for the college in 2010 and put in for less than $30,000 in expenses.

In Travel, Staff Writer Mike Kerwick invokes that inane TV show, "Jersey Shore," in writing about his childhood summers in Manasquan (T-1). 

The shore, one of the state's great assets, doesn't need a TV show to give it legitimacy.