Editors come down hard on Christie, but six years too late

Solar panels form the roof of the Bergen County Administration Building's employee parking garage in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In 2010, Governor Christie delayed the first expansion of metropolitan area rail service in ages by at least a decade.

In torpedoing new Hudson River rail tunnels, he ensured that hundreds of thousands of commuters would face increasing traffic congestion, loss of productivity, worsening air pollution, and fewer seats on NJ Transit trains and buses.

But The Record of Woodland Park didn't see the monumental consequences of his actions, and pretty much swallowed whole his claim he killed the project to save taxpayers millions more in cost overruns.

Now, today's editorial is blaming "the Christie administration" for turning NJ Transit "from the jewel of regional commuter-rail systems to the joke of them; it has been a race to the bottom" (O-2).

But Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin has only himself to blame.

He ignored the ramifications of the tunnel decision, then refused to out the governor when Christie grabbed hundreds of millions of dollars in leftover funds to pave roads and fix bridges.

That allowed the GOP thug to impose his conservative fiscal policies on the state, and continue vetoing a hike in the gasoline tax to fund Transportation Trust Fund road and rail improvements.

Doblin didn't even protest Christie slashing state subsidies to NJ Transit by more than 90 percent, triggering fare hikes and service cuts, and delaying an automatic braking system that could have prevented last month's fatal train crash in Hoboken.

Trump, Garrett on A-1

Today's front page is dominated by a large photo of GOP presidential nominee and sexual predator Donald J. Trump bringing his campaign of lies, racism and hatred to Edison (A-1 and A-3).

Leading the paper is an investigative piece on accidental shootings of minors -- one every other day during the first six months of the year (A-1).

So you'd think a Page 1 story on Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, would mention one of the most conservative members of Congress gets an "A" from the National Rifle Association for opposing gun control.

But it doesn't. 

Garrett lies

In Opinion, Columnist Brigid Harrison asks, "Why would Garrett knowingly mislead voters" in ads about his opponent, Democrat Josh Gottheimer (O-4).

"Why would he blame his opponent for ridiculous positions, and mislead voters about his own record?"

She answers her own questions by revealing that in 13 years in office, the 5th District congressman "has successfully had [only] four pieces of legislation become law."

Unbearable

For the second day in a row, The Record is publicizing a protest over the death of a bear named "Pedals," which walked upright and had a Facebook page before he was killed by a bow hunter (L-1).

It isn't known whether the protesters have demonstrated against the mistreatment and death of humans, including the slaughter of innocent children and teens during gang shootouts in Paterson.

A story on a food fest in Clifton notes the city of 86,000 is "among the most diverse in the state and has large Latino, Middle Eastern and Polish communities (L-1).

But Staff Writer Pat Alex neglects to mention African-Americans made up less than 5% of the city's population in the 2010 census, even though Clifton surrounds Passaic city and shares a border with Paterson.

Second coming

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung devotes her entire Sunday column to cauliflower dishes at restaurants, "noting the white flowered vegetable has become one of the hottest trends in the food world" (BL-1).

Ung's column, The Corner Table, appears on the Better Living cover, which two years ago, nearly to the day, carried another story on cauliflower's resurgence under this headline:

"CAULIFLOWER'S COMEBACK"

We're stuck with cronies, corruption, patronage, home rule

This 2012 photo from NJ.com focuses on the natural beauty of the Meadowlands.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's front page today -- dominated by two articles on the 40th anniversary of the Meadowlands Sports Complex -- is about as exciting as watching paint dry.

A story on the pivotal role of young voters in the Nov. 8 presidential election completely ignores the real problem -- apathetic voters of all ages (A-1).

And Staff Writer Pat Alex repeats a common theme in media coverage of the presidential race -- that wacko racist Donald J. Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton "are among the most unpopular candidates in the history of modern polling."

The media adore polls -- unreliable indicators that allow Alex and other reporters to portray the contest between Trump and Clinton as a horse race.

And such coverage surely contributes to apathy among readers and voters, because The Record and other media refuse to focus on such issues as gender equality, a higher minimum wage and taxing the wealthy.

Local news?

Law & Order coverage is dominating local news again, as readers can see from today's lead story on Paterson's 11th homicide in 2016 (L-1).

And in recent days, the local editors have needed a long Dean's List to fill holes in news coverage (L-3).

L-3 also carries the Monthly News Quiz, which asks readers, "How well do you know what happened in N.J. and beyond?"

That's a question readers want to ask the editors and reporters who put out the pathetically thin Sunday edition and its Local section.

Margulies

Let's hope Margulies' cartoon on O-2 today doesn't become reality, though you never know with Governor Christie.

"Have you heard about Christie's Motor Vehicle Commission efficiency plan," a wife asks her husband.

"To automatically get a gun license when you renew a driver's license?"

Saturday's paper

Staff Writer Jeff Pillets could have gone deeper in his review of more than a decade of "missed deadlines and broken budgets" on publicly financed projects (A-1 on Saturday).

He shows how Trenton has left "the public on the hook for helping to fund failed or stalled projects," but doesn't explore a system of local and state government that thrives on cronyism, political patronage and corruption.

So, the story played next to it was no surprise:

To help his campaign, Trump tapped Bill Stepien, a former Christie crony "whose ascent in Republican politics was shot down by the politically motivated lane closures at the George Washington Bridge."

Rudy Van Gelder

Editor Deirdre Sykes probably has run more animal stories on Page 1 then the obituaries of prominent local residents.

But below the fold on Friday, she ran a story about a starving pit bull from Paterson next to the obituary for Hackensack native Rudy Van Gelder, who died on Thursday at 91.

Staff Writer Jay Levin and Carla Baranauckas, an assignment editor, called him "perhaps the most influential recording engineer in the jazz genre, who brought to life the sounds of such legendary artists as Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock and Freddie Hubbard."

The dog got better play, though.

And the Van Gelder obit erred on where he recorded Monk's "Hackensack" and other jazz classics.

The Van Gelder family home in Hackensack was on Prospect Avenue, not "Prospect Street." 

Schnitzel+

Kosher restaurants usually are more expensive, but do customers get food of higher quality than at non-kosher places?

In Friday's Informal Dining Review, Staff Writer Elisa Ung doesn't bother answering the question.

As is usually the case in her reviews, she doesn't say whether the kosher chicken and turkey served at Schnitzel+ in Teaneck are naturally raised.

And a photo of what she describes as a "huge platter" shows five falafel, a single pocket bread cut into four piece and some hummus. 

The price is an inflated $11.95.

The newsroom's big-butt sisterhood

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You don't have to be a woman or have a big butt to be part of the sisterhood nurtured by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, but it helps.

Staff Writer Jean Rimbach of The Record is an original member, getting away with as little work as possible year after year in a newsroom with many productive staffers. 

Today, her rare byline appears on Page 1 -- in a preview of an eBook on the murders of two women committed by Tenafly contractor Robert Reldan in 1975. Why is this on A-1?

Projects Editor Tim Nostrand is another charter member of the sisterhood. Having failed miserably in Sykes' job of bringing in local news, he somehow survived firing, and went on to smaller and worse things.

Four other members of the sisterhood, reporters Lindy Washburn, Pat Alex, Mary Jo Layton and Leslie Brody, are far more productive than Rimbach. 

Of course, a big butt doesn't guarantee admission into the society run by the fickle Sykes -- to the chagrin of many marginalized workers in the Woodland Park newsroom.

Hospital trauma

The big business of hospitals dominates the front-page today -- as interim Editor Doug Clancy continues a tradition of reporting every hiccup, burp and fart in the battles over the reopening of Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood and the expansion of The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood.

The hospitals fighting Hackensack University Medical Center claim that in the first year Pascack Valley is reopened, there will be layoffs and $15 million in losses at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and $24 million in losses at The Valley Hospital.

Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg was a member of the board at HUMC while The Record and NorthJersey.com reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising revenue from the growing hospital campus.

Coverage of The Valley Hospital controversy has far exceeded any of the stories about HUMC's expansion over the years, even though homes were demolished in Hackensack and no demolitions were proposed in Ridgewood.

In fact, Layton, one of the medical reporters, has been careful in several recent stories about The Valley Hospital proposal -- including today's piece -- to omit or obscure the nature of the expansion: It would stay within the borders of the existing hospital campus. 

Port Atrocity

Clancy gives Page 1 play to what amounts to the Port Authority's legal arguments in an AAA lawsuit against the outrageous toll and fare hikes. 

How can The Record pass this off as agency policy, when it's merely a legal gambit to deflect criticism over the improper use of toll money to pay for the new World Trade Center?

Then, Clancy relegates to A-3 a story on the agency hiring outside auditors for $2.2 million.

Doesn't New Jersey and New York have auditors who could perform the agency-wide review of spending ordered by Governors Christie and Cuomo? 

Sykes' assignment desk appears to have asked Staff Writer Shawn Boburg to rewrite the agency's press release, so there's nothing in the story on whether the two firms -- Navigant Consulting Inc. and Rothschild Inc. -- are politically connected.

Has the paper become a mouthpiece for the powerful bi-state agency?

Chewing the fat

With Christie seeming to gain weight every day -- and Sykes and other editors trying to keep up with him -- who knew the state has an "Eat Right, Move More" contest sponsored in part by the Department of Agriculture (L-1).

Winner of the sixth-annual contest and $5,000 is Bogota's Lillian M. Steen School. 

Sykes and Nostrand have conspired with other editors against launching a newsroom project on the obesity epidemic -- to the detriment of readers.

Drives, but can't write

And Road Warrior John Cichowski has conspired with his assignment editor to avoid writing any columns about commuting in a region that cries out for better mass transit to ease traffic congestion.

In his lead paragraph on the Local front today, he writes: "Parents will have to work a little harder" under a legislative proposal on teen drivers. But his third paragraph says, "Too bad committee members chickened out by failing to make parents work a bit harder."

A story at the bottom of L-1 alerts new arrivals to "immigration services fraud" against those who come to the U.S. legally. 

The story is a testament to how little the paper has written about the legal immigration system in the past 15 years -- preferring hot-button stories on illegal aliens.

Scales of journalism

Sykes leads her section today with a $10 million jury award that apparently was missed on Monday by Staff Writer Kibret Markos, who is assigned full time to the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack.

Markos was reporting and writing a story on $2.1 million in damages awarded in the shooting death of a Ramapough Mountain Indian for Tuesday's front page when the bigger verdict was returned.

Today's L-1 story says the $10 million verdict came in "Monday evening" and "late Monday." Without knowing the time, it's difficult to say with certainty that Markos' assignment editor should have gotten this jury award in Tuesday's paper, too.

But it's clear the assignment desk has no intention of asking Markos to tell readers that attorneys for the plaintiffs may receive up to one-third of the damages. 

Or, explain why the life of a visiting 13-year-old Korean boy is worth nearly five times more than a Ramapough Mountain Indian.  

With Hackensack reporter Stephanie Akin assigned to Tuesday's unexpected power outages in Bergen and Passaic counties (L-3), there is no municipal news from The Record's former home in Local today.

Related article

• Christie is the butt of jokes -- not N.J. (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

Witch hunt claims college president

Image via Wikipedia

You can have sleazy journalism delivered to your door.

President G. Jeremiah Ryan under-spent his annual expense account in raising $3.8 million last year for the Bergen Community College Foundation, but he was voted out Tuesday night -- thanks to a witch hunt by The Record (A-1).


So, you see, when critics attack the Woodland Park daily for its poor job of covering local news, Editor Francis Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Staff Writer Pat Alex can point to  how their public-service journalism brought down Ryan.


Baking news


The heat wave began Sunday. The weather picture on Page 1 today seems a little late.


When will The Record examine the questionable practices at tycoon Rupert Murdoch's properties in the United States, including  the New York Post and Fox Television (A-1)?


Murdoch has reaped untold riches from sleazy journalism. A sidebar on A-8 gushes over the actions of his gold-digging wife at a hearing Tuesday in London.


Readers weigh in


For every letter supporting President Obama, Editor Charles Saydah seems to print two from his critics (A-12). 


Does crackpot James Bell of Washington Township expect anyone to take him seriously when he calls the country "Obama's Marxist utopia"?


Letter writer Catherine Walsh of Englewood finds a huge hole in Sykes' coverage of the city, noting "half the shops are empty in town."


Imagine what Sykes could have printed on the front of Local today if she didn't run a story and photo on a non-injury fire at a used-car lot in Little Ferry.


Good appetite


Road Warrior John Cichowski gives readers his fifth column in a row on long lines at the Motor Vehicle Commission (L-1). 


Another filler photo appears on L-3, showing a car deliberately driven into a deli to protest its fatty pastrami.


After you spend $30 0r $40 and a couple of hours preparing lobster stew from the recipe on the Better Living front today, make an appointment with your doctor to have your cholesterol checked  (F-1).

Editors climb into bed with Christie

Image via Wikipedia

The Road Warrior tackles boating issues at the start of Fleet Week.

Why is Governor Christie's statement on the state Supreme Court education ruling printed in full on Page A-13 today?

This unprecedented sellout by Editor Francis Scandale, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin and OpEd Page Editor Peter Grad is the journalism equivalent of a blow job.

If Doblin again has climbed into bed to have sex with the Republican bully, Scandale or Grad better join them to prevent the governor from rolling over and snuffing out their diminutive colleague. 

More Christie coverage

Christie also is quoted in the Page 1 story by Staff Writer Leslie Brody and in Doblin's A-12 editorial, both of which continue to portray court-ordered education funding as a battle between rich and poor -- while ignoring the broken property-tax and home-rule systems.

More Christie jaw-boning appears in the column by Staff Writer Charles Stile on A-8. Enough already.

The Christie statement on unlucky A-13 also displaced Jim Ahearn's column -- on Bergen Community College President Jerry Ryan -- from its usual spot at the top of the page.

This is the first time I've seen an editor or former editor publicly criticize any story as ill-conceived, unfair and poorly reported.

Journalism whores

Of course, Ahearn is referring to last week's Page 1 hatchet jobs on Ryan's expense account from head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Staff Writer Pat Alex. What trash.

In a nod to the start of Fleet Week in New York, Road Warrior John Cichowski makes commuters sea sick with an L-1 column on boating (&*@????#!$%).

Staff Writer John Gavin's assignment editor deserves a journalism award for guiding his story on the purchase of breathing equipment for Wood-Ridge  firefighters (L-2).

Imagine the local news possibilities. A story could be written on every purchase by the hundreds of municipal agencies in North Jersey -- from ambulances to firetrucks and police cruisers to more breathing apparatus.

Missed story

The Woodland Park daily hasn't covered the liquidation in Hackensack of the Best Western Oritani Hotel and adjoining Ichiban Japanese steakhouse, which are closed and will be demolished to make way for apartments.

The liquidator, a tall, gray-haired man, said Wednesday this is the first time in his 20 years in business the media have ignored such a liquidation in a city the size of Hackensack. It began May 5.

Long-time staffers may remember the Oritani as one of the hotels where management put them up during blizzards and floods.

Another ho

Better Living's comprehensive food coverage continues today with a recipe and cookbook promotion by Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill (F-1). 

Sherrill appears beholden to promote every free cookbook that lands on her desk.

Readers hope to send editor to the moon

Image via Wikipedia

Some readers wish Editor Francis Scandale would take a trip to space and not come back.

The Record's readers are chipping in to send Editor Francis Scandale on a shuttle trip to the international space station (A-1 brief). 

For his next journalism job, the failed editor of the Woodland Park daily plans to publish a newsletter for attorneys defending men accused of sexually abusing underage girls (A-1 lead Wednesday and Thursday).

The Christie spin

Staff Writer Pat Alex cranks up the paper's public relations machinery for a so-called national speech on teacher accountability by Governor Christie (A-1), but she and other education reporters remain mum on the impact of parents and home life on student success.

Three embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today.

In an anti-lawyer scree on the Opinion Page (A-23), former journalist Jay Ambrose calls Wal-Mart "one of the best companies in America" -- without disclosing his stock holdings in the retailer.

Celebrating slobs

If you can see through the bureaucratic fog generated by Road Warrior John Cichowski (L-1), you'll realize the chief culprits for all that highway litter are the motorized slobs his column loves to celebrate three times a week. 

I'm glad to see that Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung got stung by a $13 valet parking charge -- punishment for boring readers with a story on The Urban Plum, a mediocre hotel restaurant (Better Living centerfold).

In view of all the Better Living typos and errors, including her own whoppers, can she really afford to expose misspellings on The Urban Plum menu?

Here is one of her gems in today's review: The lobster burger "stank of unfreshness." 

A front page filled with what-ifs

Image via Wikipedia

A new city councilman in Englewood holds a day job at the state capitol in Albany, N.Y.

If you're trotting out an old story about higher education, why not dress it up with a misleading headline? Here's one on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park today:

New vision for funding state colleges

But in the fifth paragraph, Staff Writers Pat Alex and Elise Young report that many of the recommendations in a 134-page report "have been made by groups impaneled by [Governor] Christie's predecessors over the past two decades."

So the "new vision" is up to 20 years old? Editor Francis Scandale must have put this room-clearer on the front page, because the former Hackensack daily lionizes former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, who headed the latest panel. 

Most of the rest of A-1 today is filled with a long story on bills by North Jersey lawmakers that didn't make it through Congress. Why not report on what they accomplished?

Ignoring the obvious

The lead story in head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section reports a 48-year-old Park Ridge woman died in an apartment fire, but the two reporters who labored over it never say whether the victim smoked. Instead, we learn she was "a lovely woman, very pleasant."

Also on L-1, a huge story from Glen Rock, where Scandale lives, reports renovation of council chambers is finally complete. This is one in a series of infrastructure stories Sykes often uses as filler when her staff is unable to produce anything more legitimate.

The "2011 PEOPLE TO WATCH" series on L-1 is sending the wrong message to readers of Local. All of the people featured so far have been statewide figures, suggesting Sykes doesn't think anyone local is worthy of note.

Commuting councilman

On L-3, Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano reports the chief of staff to the New York State Senate majority leader in Albany, N.Y., was sworn in as Englewood's newest councilman. 

The story doesn't say whether Michael Cohen's Englewood-Albany-Englewood commute is paid for by New York State taxpayers or how much quality time he'll be able to devote to his City Council duties.

There is no Hackensack news in Sykes' section today. A letter from a city resident raises an alarm about all the bonding city officials have been doing lately (A-10), though I can't recall seeing any of that reported in The Record.

See previous post on Alan Marcus lawsuit

A Jewish education conspiracy?

Image by Mirza R via Flickr

Teaneck might have to give $1.4 million to a Hebrew-immersion charter school.

How far will Orthodox Jews in Englewood and Teaneck go to use public funds to educate their children -- without having to actually send them to public schools?


Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park reports on an ingenious solution to a dilemma faced by parents who send their children to Jewish day schools at a cost of up to $15,000 a year, but who still are obligated to pay high property taxes, a good part of which funds the public schools they reject.

The Shalom Academy proposes a Hebrew-immersion program to serve students in Englewood and Teaneck. If its application is approved, Teaneck might have to give the school $1.4 million of its tax dollars and Englewood slightly more, Staff Writer Pat Alex reports.

Although Alex deserves praise for laying out the elements of this proposed educational sleight-of-hand, she doesn't go far enough. She should point out that any money Englewood has to give a charter school only makes it more difficult for the district to improve its elementary and middle schools, which are virtually all black and Hispanic.


Her story also could use more background. A few years ago, a slate of Jewish candidates promised to rein in spending, but were unsuccessful in their bid for seats on the Teaneck school board, and before that,  the same thing happened in Englewood. Now, a citizens panel of rich East Hill residents has asked the city to cut aid to the public library.


And the headlines don't focus on Englewood and Teaneck. Editors Francis Scandale and Deirdre Sykes sought put the Hebrew school proposal in a wider context of the Christie administration's support for such charter schools.


In Sykes' Local section, a headline on L-5 gave me a cynical chuckle:

UPDATE: ENGLEWOOD NOW A GREEN COMMUNITY

Of course, that's a reference to an environmental program. But the city has long been divided along color lines -- in its neighborhoods and in its schools -- a sad fact Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano has carefully avoided in just about everything she writes.

Dan Sforza and Christina Joseph, two of Sykes' clueless minions on the assignment desk, covered Englewood as reporters, but apparently learned nothing about the city they could pass on to Fabiano.


One of the untold stories is dramatic development of Englewood's main street and other parts of the city that accompanied big demographic changes in the past two decades, principally an influx of wealthy Orthodox Jewish families. 

What has happened to all the property taxes the city raked in from new apartments and condominium projects along Palisade Avenue and on both sides of Route 4? They certainly haven't been spent on the schools or to open a community center.


The Englewood update story in Local is just about the only municipal news in the section.