Editors keep focus on TV and off newspaper's decline

The sun is setting -- at least for now -- on falling gasoline prices, and that pleases climatologists and environmentally conscious drivers of hybrid and all-electric cars, and saddens all the people trapped into making payments on their gas-guzzlers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In today's front-page coverage of Brian Williams and Jon Stewart, The Record focus on the flaws of TV news and satire, and avoids any examination of the many problems at the Woodland Park daily.

One of those is the shoddy job The Record does in covering accidents, such as the one that took the life of longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent Bob Simon (A-1 and A-6).

Simon, 73, survived wars, an earthquake and captivity, but died in one of the most meaningless ways possible -- in a car crash on 12th Avenue in Manhattan, a notorious speedway.

The Associated Press story The Record uses today was just slapped into the page.

And the editors did nothing to address unanswered questions, especially whether Simon was wearing his seat belt and just how fast the limo was going when the driver hit another car and lost control.

"The Town Car was so badly mangled rescuers had to pry open the roof to extract him [Simon] from the rear of the car," the New York Post reported.

Here is an AP video of the wreck.

Brian Williams

Marty Gottlieb, editor of The Record, continues to cover the inaccurate reporting of suspended "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams, knowing full well that one of his own reporters has committed far more errors, including deliberate falsifications (A-1).

On Jan. 25, Staff Writer John Cichowski, also known as the Road Warrior, capped all of the inaccuracies he's committed in more than a decade of columns.

That's when he ran a photo of a Route 4 bridge in Teaneck supplied by a reader, and claimed a major supporting column had a "gash" in it -- even though no such safety flaw was evident in the photo.

Of course, none of the bridges closed before and after that column included any on Route 4.

Jon Stewart 

In Staff Writer Virginia Rohan's assessment of Jon Stewart, the satirist from New Jersey who announced his departure from "The Daily Show," The Record doesn't come close to discussing his major shortcoming (A-1).

Stewart and his team focused on politicians and TV, especially Fox News Channel's racist coverage of President Obama, and rarely referred to the decline of such newspapers as The Record.

Rohan refers to Stewart's "faux news program," but the events he riffed on weren't fake at all.

I recall Stewart's coverage of a Tea Party rally in Washington that used a large photo of corpses to compare Obama's Affordable Care Act to World War II concentration camps.

What was remarkable was The Record's front-page coverage of the same demonstration didn't even show the photo or mention the outrageously inaccurate comparison.

Ridgewood thefts

Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli is rejecting an audit that showed nearly $850,000 in Ridgewood parking-meter revenue disappeared -- far more than former village employee Thomas Rica admitted stealing (L-1).

The prosecutor does put his finger on Ridgewood lacking "security controls and systems" for "many, many years."

Congratulations to the unnamed copy editor who wrote a bright headline on the jump page (L-6):

COINS: Prosecutor gives no quarter

Same old flood photos are 'good enough'

Image via Wikipedia

A road in Illinois during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

Waters hit 100-year high

That dramatic headline on Page 1 of The Record today doesn't get much support from the same old photos Editor Francis Scandale has been running since flooding from Irene began on Sunday.

How many boats, dinghies and other rescue conveyances can readers take before their eyes glaze over (A-1)?

Flooding may have reached a 100-year high, but you can't say the same thing for the journalism practiced at the Woodland Park daily by Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and others.

Last night, I saw images on the TV news that took my breath away -- all of downtown Paterson under water, shot from a helicopter. I was looking for them in The Record today.

'Good enough'

Publisher Stephen A. Borg doesn't believe in renting a helicopter to provide readers with dramatic photos he claims they are going to look at for only "a few seconds."

The same old boats, dinghies and flooded streets are "good enough," according to his philosophy.

And everyone knows Borg needs the money to pay his $9,300-a-month company mortgage and annual property taxes of $73,000 on his $3.65 million mansion on Churchill Road in Tenafly.

Anyway, we're talking about Paterson, one of the poorest communities in North Jersey and the city Scandale loves to portray as a center for drugs and prostitution.

City is a prison

Take a look at the lead paragraph in the main flooding story on A-1. Paterson is described as "a city in virtual lockdown."

"Lockdown" is used most often to describe what authorities do when prison inmates riot. Or, they lock down a neighborhood when a gunman is holding hostages or an airport when terrorism is feared.

Why is "lockdown" being used to describe Paterson, when all that should be conveyed is that flood waters are blocking access to downtown? 


And I still haven't seen a photo of the magnificent, flood-swollen Great Falls. Scandale seems determined to ban any positive images of Silk City.

I guess Scandale also put Governor Christie's tour of Wayne and other communities on A-1, because the state's chief executive escaped stoning by flood-weary residents.


The story doesn't say why Christie bypassed Paterson, which was hardest hit.

Same old column

In Local, Road Warrior John Cichowski adds a twist to make a stale column on MVC offices seem fresh, but the layout editors are so sick of him, they demoted the piece to L-3.

The perennial flooding and closure of Willowbrook Mall in Wayne have been reported matter of factly amid a rumor the original builder skimped on the size of sewers to save money.