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| A political cartoon from The Sacramento Bee that ran during the campaign has turned out to be prescient. Governor Christie's T-shirt, right, says "Christie for vice president of the George Washington Bridge." |
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
Two stories on The Record's front page today are typical of the superficial reporting and editing the newspaper has done best for more years than readers care to remember.
Lisa Marie Segarra is an unfamiliar byline, but the problem with her Page 1 story on the fatal Sept. 29 train crash in Hoboken is all too familiar:
"Sleep apnea
eyed in fatal
train crash"
Segarra and her editors assume readers know what "sleep apnea" is, and never explain how a medical condition in which a person repeatedly stops breathing as they sleep might have affected the engineer before the crash.
If she Googled "sleep apnea," the reporter would have discovered -- and might have passed along to readers -- that insufficient sleep from the condition has been linked to occupational accidents like the train crash.
First-time buyers
With only three main elements on the front page today, the splashy piece on first-time home buyers could have been lifted from The Record's Sunday Real Estate section, long a captive of Realtors, bankers and other advertisers.
As it is, the upbeat story completely ignores how the American dream of owning your own home can quickly turn into a nightmare -- thanks to high property taxes, unscrupulous contractors and dishonest repair companies.
Wasted space
What's the point of the Charles Stile political column on Page 1 today?
As he's done time and again, Stile merely rehashes a news story about Governor Christie.
This time he regurgitates Tuesday's Page 1 story on New Jersey's credit rating being downgraded a 10th time -- a record for any governor.
All that's new is an updated thumbnail photo of the burned-out Trenton-based columnist, who has been the GOP thug's chief apologist.
Stile's focus on politics is really a waste of space in view of how the redesign of the print edition unveiled on Wednesday drastically reduces the number of stories in the paper.
Local news?
Today's Local section holds no interest for readers in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood -- the three biggest communities in Bergen County.
Readers will find stories from Wyckoff, Clifton, Pompton Lakes, Saddle River and Washington Township, plus court and crime news.
