If this is best Sunday work editors can do, we're in trouble

On Friday, lane closures on Main Street, above, and River Street in Hackensack were only a foreshadowing of what is to come this Monday, when State Street south of Central Avenue will be closed for a week to replace the bumpy railroad crossing.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When a ShopRite supermarket ad wrapped around The Record's front page piques reader interest more than so-called news stories, we're really in deep doo-doo.

Editor Martin Gottlieb keeps hitting us over the head with baseball, sensational local or international news, and an endless series of columns on Governor Christie's pathetic showing in the race for the GOP presidential nod (A-1).

I got a kick out of a Christie quote in an A-1 Charles Stile column that sounds exactly like the ones he's been writing for a year or more:

"I've always said bet on the people who have been tested. When the lights get really bright, let's see who shines."

It won't be Christie, because the bright lights have been shining on his dismal performance in New Jersey since he took office in early 2010, and all residents can see is the dull reflection from a huge GOP turd. 

Keyless, witless

The Record's witless Road Warrior columnist focuses on a problem that takes far fewer lives than the greater menace of elderly drivers who mistake the gas pedal for the brake pedal (L-1).

The solution to forgetting to push the stop-start button and turning off you're engine is 1) buy an all-electric car, 2) move to a house with a detached garage or 3) buy one of the many vehicles with a traditional ignition.

Local news?

In Local today, more Englewood school news appears on L-3, but there is no education story from Hackensack, the biggest district in Bergen County.

Another story on L-3, about Holocaust survivor Marthe Cohen, is far more compelling than anything on Page 1 today.

Family owned

A story on local family owned companies is welcome, but the editors of Business continue to ignore downtown merchants (B-1).

Could spilled takeout soup really be the biggest problem Elisa Ung has encountered in eight years of reviewing restaurants and writing about delis and other food shops (BL-1)?

On the Opinion front, readers get another news-in-review column from burned-out Mike Kelly (O-1).

This one refers to Pope Francis' appearance in Santiago, Cuba, nearly a month ago -- in a column that is of absolutely no interest to anyone who isn't Catholic.

Jet lagged

Jill Schensul has been The Record's travel editor for more than a decade, so how believable is it that she traveled all day and found herself without a hotel reservation two hours before midnight (T-1)?

Instead of cutting the confusion over "proliferating" hotel brands, she simply adds to it in this overlong complaint that fills nearly two pages of the thin, 4-page Travel section.

And there is hardly a word about hotel loyalty programs that many travelers belong to, such as the rewards of the Hyatt Hotels credit card with a $75 annual fee.

This year, my payoff was two free nights in a $700-a-night perch at the luxurious Park Hyatt on 57th Street in Manhattan, near Carnegie Hall and the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle.

Saturday's paper

Baseball led Saturday's front page, too.

And there was yet another so-called Election 2016 story about Christie's fundraising on A-1, even though the election is more than a year away and there seems little chance the worst governor in state history will be the GOP nominee.

Saturday's Local section was dominated by crime news (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

Hackensack debate

Only three of the four candidates for an open Hackensack City Council seat took part in a debate at Temple Beth El (Saturday's L-3).

The fourth candidate, Deborah Keeling-Geddis, declined to participate, noting moderator Larry Eisen is a council-appointed zoning board member.

The debate took place Thursday night among Richard L. Cerbo, son of a former mayor; school board President Jason Nunnermacker, and Jason Some, who was appointed in April to fill the council seat left vacant when Rose Greenman resigned and filed a discrimination suit.

I don't recall seeing a debate announcement in The Record or any effort by Temple Beth El to get the word out that it was taking place.

Non-profits

Cerbo was quoted about a "heavier tax burden on homeowners," but not on his complaint about Hackensack University Medical Center and other non-profits that pay no taxes on hundreds of millions of dollars in property.

Nunnermacker, an attorney who ran unsuccessfully for council in 2013 as an ally of the Zisa family, is being backed by the city's Democratic Party machine in a desperate bid to claw its way back into power.

The board president said he feared "downtown redevelopment" could bring "as many as 500 new students in the next few years to an already overburdened school system," and put the cost of educating each one at $18,000 a year.

Inflated salaries

But no one asked how he could possibly know how many new students will be moving into the city.

And Nunnermacker also wasn't asked to explain high administrative salaries, such as the $172,000-plus being paid to the principal of Hackensack High School, just a few thousand less than Christie is being paid.

At two Hackensack elementary schools, lunch aides are being paid $22 an hour.

And this year, fewer than 1,000 of the city's 20,000 registered voters approved a $100 million dollar-plus school budget, which exceeded the city's own.

Christie's reputation as worst governor sealed by Sandy

This sculpture in the lobby of the Johnson Public Library in Hackensack was presented on the library's 100th anniversary.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Wait a minute.

Didn't the prolonged, bungled recovery from Superstorm Sandy in 2012 help seal Chris Christie's reputation as the worst New Jersey governor ever?

Well, that doesn't stop Staff Writer Charles Stile, who is back on Page 1 of The Record today with his signature B.S. about the governor as "a politics-be-damned crisis commander."

Not until his last few paragraphs does Stile acknowledge how the Christie administration blew it in the aftermath of the monster storm (A-4).

The veteran reporter still hasn't learned what every reader knows: You can't polish a turd.

Most readers went to bed on Thursday night with assurances from TV news that Hurricane Joaquin won't score a direct hit on New Jersey.

So, it's hard to understand why Editor Martin Gottlieb devotes close to half of the front page in an attempt to burnish Christie's image on the presidential campaign trail.

A$P

The millions of dollars in payments, fees and bonuses to A&P executives is especially outrageous given the low reputation of the supermarkets themselves (A-1).

ShopRite is the dominant chain for many reasons, and shoppers are ecstatic some A&Ps will be replaced by the low-price leader in North Jersey.

The gunman who invaded a rural Oregon community college and killed at least nine people could have shot dead 90 or 900 for all the difference that will make in politicians passing laws to deny guns to mentally unstable people (A-1).

21-mile drive

What are the chances I'll drive 21 miles to Piermont, N.Y., from Hackensack to try 14 & Hudson, which Elisa Ung raves about today, awarding 3 stars out of 4 (BL-16)?

Slim to no chance. How about a good restaurant closer to the majority of readers in central Bergen County?

The salmon entree Ung recommends sounds great, but she doesn't say whether the fish is wild or farmed ($25).

She describes a "center-cut fillet of salmon," which I've never heard of. All parts of the fillet are equally delicious.

Newsroom mystery: Where is local Editor Deirdre Sykes?

People who live on Hudson Street and on Broadway in Hackensack appealed to the City Council on Tuesday night for 25-mph speed limit signs, and a change in regulations allowing them to park their cars on the street for 2 hours.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Deirdre Sykes, the once-powerful head assignment editor at The Record, hasn't been seen in the Woodland Park newsroom for more than a month.

Her absence has generated rumors of health problems, weight-loss surgery, even death.

Others speculate Sykes is being treated for depression brought on by the ascendancy of Editor Marty Gottlieb, a demanding New York Times veteran who appears to have his hands in every story.

Today's paper

Page 1 today is of limited interest to local readers.

Two days after the murder of 12 people who worked at the Washington Navy Yard, The Record uses a headline newspapers have on a save/get key:

"Disturbing portrait
 of ... shooter emerges"

How many times have we seen the same headline on a story about a gunman who "heard voices" and whose "life appeared to have suddenly unraveled" (A-1)?

How trite. The real story is the cowardice of Congress, which is failing once again to enact meaningful gun control (A-6).

Unchecked errors

Road Warrior John Cichowski follows his error-filled Sunday column with a piece on road repairs today that is packed with numbers, and he likely transcribed many of them incorrectly (A-1).

The number of error in the Road Warrior column has accelerated as Cichowski approaches the 10th anniversary this month of taking over the job from Jeff Page.

In answer to a reader's question on Sunday, Cichowski cited the wrong Web site for the Motor Vehicle Commission, according to a concerned reader:

 "In his Sunday column, the Road Warrior appeared like a clueless amateur unable to provide correct information and advice about Motor Vehicle Commission office operations, the agency acronym, and Web site address in order to help people get a driver's license.

"It is unlikely the Road Warrior realizes that he made one of his all-time great gaffes by sending readers to a non-existent Web address, njmvc.com, for the most publicized Web site for the most important New Jersey government agency, the Motor Vehicle Commission, that any reader, driver or Road Warrior has to deal with.

"The absurdity of this gaffe is compounded since the Road Warrior provided this address in response to a reader's question about going to a wrong Web site address, which was actually a commercial site instead of the official MVC Web site, for renewing their license.

"The correct Web address for the MVC is www.njmvc.gov, which actually directs users to www.state.nj.us/mvc, which the Road Warrior also failed to mention.

To read the full e-mail to Gottlieb, Cichowski, Production Editor Liz Houlton and others, go to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:
 

Road Warrior is lost in cybersapce


Board revenge?

The Local section, now under the supervision of Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, carries the first Hackensack municipal news since Sept. 3.

Staff Writer Hannan Adely reports the Board of Education is refusing to pay the city about $1 million for a full-time resource officer at the high school (L-1)

School board Attorney Richard Salkin is quoted as saying trustees haven't paid for the officer since the 2005-06 school year "because the district was never billed." 

The attorney may be upset because members of the new City Council stripped him of a second job -- municipal prosecutor -- after they took office on July 1.

Salkin was making $76,000 a year for working two half days a week as prosecutor in Hackensack Municipal Court, according to Hackensack Scoop.

Salkin's board job pays more than $100,000 a year, that blog reported.

The board, which is dominated by allies of the disgraced Zisa family, reportedly spends more money than Ridgewood, which has some of the best public schools in New Jersey.

Why doesn't Adely try to explain that?

Living dead

There are no expanded local obituaries in Local, but nearly 4 pages of death notices today should yield a few in the near future (L-4 to L-7).

What is a photo of a $41.5 million South Beach mansion doing on the first local Business page today (L-8)?

Food for thought

The Record's Wednesday Food section is a distant memory, thanks to short-sighted Publisher Stephen A. Borg.

Sadly, the most engaging item about food in today's Better Living section is the ShopRite ad on the back page (BL-10).

Going all out to promote unhealthy food

This old bank building on State Street in Hackensack has been empty for years, and the parking lot next to it isn't being used. Meanwhile, customers going to the post office down the block have to fight over the four metered spaces out front, below.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Love unhealthy food? Fattening cookie dough? Salty, teeth-corroding potato chips? Artery clogging cakes?

Then, you'll be eager to patronize the three "food" company owners shown on the front of The Record's Better Living section today (BL-1).

Esther Davidowitz, the new food editor, actually has the nerve to call Joel Ansh, Marisa Iapicco and the trio of Adam Horvath, Camille Beck and Jared Levine "epicures." 

Davidowitz demotes to BL-2 in Better Living news of the opening of a healthy food place, Dosateria at the Whole Foods Market in Edgewater.

Staff Writer Sachi Fujimori has been writing so enthusiastically about Dosateria in recent weeks you'd think she had discovered a new aphrodisiac.

Bottom feeding

The editors of Better Living and Business are bottom feeders.

The major story on the Business front today is all about the titanic battle among franchises selling hamburgers and cupcakes, among other items (B-1).

Even today's front page is wrapped in the Summer Can Can flier from ShopRite, which is selling obesity fueling 12-packs of sugary Pepsi at half price (when you buy 4).

Hackensack police reported two editors from The Record, Deirdre Sykes and Tim Nostrand, had spent the night in big-and-tall sleeping bags in front of the ShopRite on South River Street in hopes of raiding the store's Pepsi aisle.

Racist verdict?

Readers likely were surprised by the lead story on Page 1, reporting that a civilian had been found not guilty of all charges in the slaying of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager (A-1).

That's because Record readers are so accustomed to seeing police officers cleared in the shootings of blacks -- in Garfield, Leonia and other towns.

Anyone who was stunned into senselessness by media coverage of the trial might wonder why Florida requires only 6 people on a jury hearing a criminal case, compared with 12 here in New Jersey and many other states.

They won't find the answer in today's story from The Associated Press (or Mess) wire service (A-1 and A-6) nor do I think I saw an explanation on CNN, which went "live" for closing arguments in the case.

Mind the gap
 
The entire Road Warrior column today is devoted to a gap in a Route 3 noise wall (L-1), leaving readers wondering when The Record will fill in the gap in coverage of real commuting problems.

Tens of thousands of words have been written about NJ Transit, especially since Superstorm Sandy, but no reporter or editor seems ready to explain why rush-hour seats on trains and buses are so scarce (see today's restroom editorial on O-2).

More errors

In his Road Warrior column on Friday, Cichowski reported incorrectly that passing a slower car on the right is illegal, according to a concerned reader: 

"Road Warrior tries to repeatedly endanger his readers in believing his lie that passing on the right is a violation, even though I have repeatedly indicated to him that New Jersey law (39:4-85) states it is not a violation when drivers pass vehicles on the right if done under safe conditions."

To read the full e-mail to editors and management, click on the following link to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Pass on Road Warrior misinformation 
 
Rent-an-editor

I saw two problems in today's Real Estate cover story on apartment rentals -- one of them so sloppy it could only have been inserted by an editor (R-1).

In only the third paragraph, readers encounter this ridiculous sentence:

"The recent housing bust ... pushed many more people out of single-family homes and into leasing offices ...."
  
Offices? That can't be right.

Working or renting?

On the continuation page, the story says Virginia-based AvalonBay is "working on projects" in Wood Ridge, Hackensack and Bloomingdale.

Avalon at Hackensack, shown on the cover, has been leasing for at least a couple of months.

Where was Production Editor Liz Houlton, who supervises the copy desk?

Out shopping for a new wardrobe at the Salvation Army? 

Dems buck under Christie's weight

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

All the focus is on Rep. Weiner's weiner, but will you look at that schnoz.

Is this Wisconsin all over again? Will New Jersey's Democratic lawmakers try to derail a deal between their traitorous leaders and Governor Christie to slash public employee benefits?

Wisconsin isn't even mentioned in the lead story on Page 1 of The Record today.

And the major A-1 photo doesn't show a demonstration by New Jersey's public employees. It shows Greek factions battling in front of the Greek Parliament.

What an odd choice for the front page. Does Greece remind Editor Francis Scandale of New Jersey because millionaires in both places pay little or no taxes?

Let's be frank

Readers can only hope Scandale's A-1 blurb and A-9 story today are close to being the last about Rep. Anthony Weiner, who is telling friends he is going to step down, The New York Times has reported. 

Boy, look at the embarrassing correction of an L-1 headline on Wednesday that said a jury would decide a 39-year-old murder case that is being heard only by a judge (A-2). Was that in the story?

Doesn't it seem like the news copy desk has been making a record number of errors since Liz Houlton took over as its main supervisor, eagle-eyed Nancy Cherry left the paper and veteran copy editors were given the heave-ho in the 2008 downsizing?

Hackensack renewal 

After filing two stories for Tuesday's paper, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado has two more today (L-1 and L-3).

She seems to have been reinvigorated, filing a whopping 12 municipal stories about Hackensack since May 18. 

I doubt head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, Alvarado's mentor, realizes the reporter's knowledge of Hackensack is flawed, despite all the years she has spent covering the city.

For example, in today's story on "controversial" plans for a new Syrian Orthodox church, she reports neighbors who oppose a bigger building cite the "increased traffic and on-street parking it will bring."

But Alvarado doesn't mention that for years, the existing Fairmount Avenue church has generated lots of traffic and a scramble for parking spaces in the residential neighborhood every Sunday.

Such omissions damage the paper's credibility.

New town reporters

The Englewood and Teaneck reporters, who left the paper, appear to have been replaced by two productive local staffers. 

Still, the Teaneck school district's plans for solar panels is nowhere near worthy of L-1 play, as it got today, unless your assignment desk is as clueless as the one working under Sykes.

Something rotten

On the first Business page, the highly promotional story on the opening of Fresh Market in far-off Montvale, quotes a supermarket expert as saying its prices are "equivalent to a ShopRite" (L-7).

But for Fresh Market, which emphasizes fresh products, that could be the kiss of death unless it can deliver produce of much higher quality than ShopRite's sub-par offerings.

How The Record baits readers

Image by SEIU International via Flickr

If you are going to be a reporter at The Record of Woodland Park, you have to learn how to bait readers. And the best way to do that with home rule is to tell readers their taxes are going to go up -- preferably in the lead paragraph of your story -- even if that isn't true.

None other than Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson does that today in his Page 1 story on the historic passage of health-care reform. He's dying to goad readers into finishing his story (and maybe feeling  bad about the reforms). I can recall the health-care reform demonstration Jackson covered, carefully omitting any mention of hysterical protesters who compared the Obama plan to the Holocaust. He's some reporter.

Today, his first paragraph says the House overhaul "expands coverage by raising taxes [and] imposing new fees." Isn't it irresponsible to write that without saying right away which taxpayers are going to get hit? You have to wait for the last paragraph of his story to find out the Borgs and other wealthy families will be the ones paying higher taxes and insurance companies will be paying the higher fees. I say, Hooray.

I'm glad Democrats finally got their act together or the incompetent, jock-itching editors would have undoubtedly put Tiger Woods on the front page again. 

The second story on the front is by Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado, whose dereliction of duty in covering Hackensack municipal and school affairs is well-known. Her last story in that vein ran Dec. 14.

Today's A-1 story involves Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa, who partly owned a company that sold three properties in Paterson to a woman now accused in a mortgage scam. Alvarado has written numerous stories about cops' lawsuits against the chief, but seems unable to bring herself to ask the city's mayor and council why they don't suspend Zisa.

Instead, she apparently has been told by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes to pursue the Zisa story wherever it will take her -- even if that means blacking out Hackensack readers for months at a time. As you may know, Alvarado was sidetracked on the Michael Mordaga vendetta for about two years before the results of that woefully weak "investigation" were published Dec. 16.


I guess I should be paying more attention to Jimmy Margulies, whose Sunday cartoon was so ambiguous on how Governor Christie is treating the rich. Today, his cartoon, on A-11, purports that in the face of looming state aid cuts, town officials are actively considering "consolidation, regionalization, merger [and] shared services."


From the cartoonist's pen to God's ears. Does Margulies live in North Jersey? Have you heard of any home-rule towns, with the possible exception of Teaneck and Bogota, discussing major ways to economize? Maybe he is privy to closed-door meetings. I feel this kind of distortion just pisses off local taxpayers.


Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano has an L-1 story today on an Englewood-based agency helping homeowners facing foreclosure. Her last story about the city ran March 4. 

I don't think she spends that much time in Englewood or you'd expect her to get to the bottom of why stores and restaurants on and off Palisade Avenue have been closing in recent years. Is it just the economy or are landlords too greedy? The latest is Zeytinia, the upscale food market across from City Hall. And I don't think she reported the ShopRite in Englewood was forced to throw away thousands of dollars worth of food during the storm-related power outage last week.