Bus commuters sure to love story from press releases

North Jersey-bound commuters at the Port Authority's midtown Manhattan terminal waiting for an NJ Transit bus during the afternoon rush hour in March.

Large, free-standing touch screens have been helping commuters find their bus platforms at the midtown Manhattan terminal for well over a year, but The Record's transportation reporter hasn't noticed.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record has a long tradition of lazy transportation reporters dating to Dan Sforza, who spent most of his time writing about "highways of the future."

Later, when he was promoted to the pivotal job of assistant assignment editor, Sforza directed one of his successors to write at least two major stories that seemed to argue against the extension of NJ Transit's light-rail line to Englewood and Tenafly.

Meanwhile, for nearly a dozen years, Road Warrior John Cichowski has written about every form of transportation -- bicycles, scooters and cars, to name a few -- except trains and buses.

And no reporter at The Record has ever been enterprising enough to actually ride the trains and buses, and report on the lack of seats and rush-hour crowding at Manhattan's Penn Station and midtown bus terminal.

Attend meetings

The paper's transportation reporters religiously attended meetings of NJ Transit's board, but weren't aware of the crisis at the Port Authority's midtown bus terminal until angry letters to the editor started pouring in last year.

Today, the lead story on the Local front warns riders on 55 bus routes, including 40 NJ Transit lines, their platforms and floors will change on Tuesday "as part of an effort to reduce delays" (L-1).

The story makes no mention of large, free-standing touch screens on the first and second levels of the bus terminal that have been helping commuters find their departure gates for well over a year.

Today's front page

The story on the lower left of Page 1 today -- on the transportation-funding and pension crises in New Jersey -- seems like an afterthought.

And the reporter wastes no time in casting the two issues as a partisan political battle between Democrats and Republicans.

This allow The Record to once again skip its responsibility to report what outcomes would be good for the people of New Jersey. 

Most of A-1 today is devoted to the obligatory end-of-season story about the Jersey shore.

When court news, Dean's List stand in for local reporting

Many Hackensack residents wrote large checks -- more than $4,500 for some homeowners -- to meet Monday's deadline for payment of quarterly property taxes. But the lack of coverage in The Record means they would have to attend Board of Education meetings and question officials themselves on why the school budget is so high and exceeds the city's own budget.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Page 1 of The Record today, the obituary of Ralph Corrado, owner of Rosie's Farmland Diner, is mildly interesting.

But the editors forgot to report that like the diner, the Little Ferry Circle is history. And readers might still be wondering if Ralph was related to the Corrados who own supermarkets in Passaic County.

As for the rest of the front page, Editor Martin Gottlieb's story selection could lull you to sleep like the steady beat of raindrops on my skylight, especially the column on Governor Christie's birth control practices (A-1).

Buried on A-3 today is a story on Christie vetoing 13 bills, including quarterly payments to the troubled state pension system.

And NJ.com reports that as of Monday, Christie had spent nearly 55 percent of the year outside of New Jersey in pursuit of his White House dreams (that's all or part of 121 days).

Local news?

Well, don't turn to the Local section for relief.

Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza are back to their old sleight-of-hand tricks of heavy coverage of criminal court hearings (L-1), and a Dean's List that fills half of a page (L-6).

Other pages carry a total of eight more Law & Order stories, and a photo of a non-fatal two-car collision in Glen Rock.

Although The Record does a fair to middling job of covering the Hackensack City Council, the Woodland Park daily completely ignores the city's school board and increasing education budget, leaving taxpayers twisting in the wind.

In a story on the Port Authority's shuffling of bus gates in midtown Manhattan, the editors forget to tell commuters about several freestanding touch terminals they can use to locate platforms for their New Jersey bound buses (L-1 and L-3).

Healthy recipes

In Monday's Better Living section, three recipes for Jersey Tomatoes were a rare nod to the many readers who are trying to follow a healthy lifestyle (BL-1).

The story carried the byline of Nina Rizzo, a food writer at the Asbury Park Press.

The Record's own writers -- restaurant critic Elisa Ung and Food Editor Esther Davidowitz -- usually sample or promote unhealthy food, including three major articles on the resurrection of Callahan's preservative-laden, deep-fried beef-and-pork hot dogs.