Readers are hoping they'll survive Thanksgiving editions

On Thursday, The Record's useless Sports section joined numerous Black Friday sales fliers in going straight to recycling. The Thanksgiving edition's predictable front page focused on why a handful of people are giving thanks, ignoring the millions of middle-class residents targeted by Governor Christie.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Six years after Chris Christie broke his campaign promise to lower property taxes -- the one that likely got him elected governor -- The Record continues to ignore the millions who can't wait for his reign to end.

Today, Editor Martin Gottlieb devotes precious front-page space to a Wayne man who has overcome a childhood illness to help hold the Ronald McDonald balloon aloft during Thursday's parade (A-1).

Gee whiz. Isn't that heart warming? All our troubles are over.

Covering the few

On Thursday's front page Columnist Mike Kelly apparently could find only two people "who turned a personal tragedy into a rallying call for change."

Meanwhile, Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado interviews a handful of "refugees and asylum seekers" who are marking their first Thanksgiving in the United States.

Couldn't the local assignment editors and reporters find the energy to interview 20, 30 or 40 state residents on what, if anything, they are thankful for in the fifth year of Christie's mean-spirited rule?

2017 election

The Woodland Park daily already has started covering the 2017 election to pick the GOP bully's successor, but today's A-1 story is predictable.

Staff Writer Dustin Racioppi focuses on politics -- Democrats v. Republicans -- instead of issues or what would be good for New Jersey.

He also doesn't mention some of Christie's many failures, including vetoing a hike in the minimum wage (A-1).

For more wasted space, see Staff Writer Jim Beckerman's piece on "Betamax devotees" devastated by Sony's decision to end production of the videotapes in March (A-1).

Tens of thousands of older readers have been shut out by advances in technology -- from smart phones to computers to navigation systems -- yet I have yet to see that story reported in The Record by Beckerman or anyone else.

Traffic on Route 4 east in Paramus just before 8 this morning was much lighter than during the usual weekday rush hour.

One driver received a gift in the parking lot of 24 Hour Fitness in Paramus.

Christie and Syrians

An editorial on the contributions of Syrians to New Jersey is muted in its criticism of Chritie's hate-filled speech in the wake of Paris attacks on Nov. 13 (A-20).

"Christie, who refuses to call out [Donald] Trump for his anti-Muslim rhetoric, seems totally unaware of the Syrian community's long-standing contributions to this state," according to the editorial.

As was local Editor Deirdre Sykes, who waited eight or nine days after Christie sad he would bar Syrian orphans from New Jersey to assign a reporter to interview law-abiding Syrian merchants in South Paterson. 

Homeless

Today, a story on the Local front is The Record's annual recognition of the homeless problem in Paterson and Hackensack (L-1).

But more important than the homeless are Thanksgiving Day shoppers, because that gives the editors another excuse to write about the retailers whose ad revenue is keeping North Jersey Media Group afloat (L-1).

Poor editing

Staff Writer Christopher Maag covered Zach Blaifeder of Wayne, who held a line to the Ronald McDonald balloon in Thursday's parade (A-1).

His story begins:

"Walking 45 blocks down the spine of Manhattan, tethered to a giant balloon and surrounded by 3 million people, is an exercise in endurance."

Pretty good. But the editors missed a glaring error.

If any street could be considered "the spine of Manhattan," it's Fifth Avenue, which divides the East Side from the West Side.

Yet, Blaifeder and the rest of the parade never got near Fifth Avenue.

Zinburger

Restaurant critic Elisa Ung deserves some credit for praising "the most flavorful veggie burger I have ever tried" at Zinburger in Westfield Garden State Plaza (BL-14).

But, as usual, her review avoids discussing how the cows who gave their lives for the regular burgers were raised.

When you pay $10 to $15 for a Zinburger, do you get grass-fed ground beef or meat from cows who were fed chicken-coop waste and the slaughterhouse remains of chickens and pigs?

Ung doesn't dare say.

Correction fixes only one of three errors in Page 1 story

This store on Main Street in Hackensack may have been called "Young Forever," but it didn't manage to stay in business forever.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Page 1 story focused on what "many called the greatest catch they had ever seen," but in newspaper parlance, no one "caught" three glaring editing errors.

The headline over Thursday's front-page story by sports writer Art Stapleton was missing a coma:

'The Catch' a moment they'll share forever

Giant's bracelets from a friend fighting cancer

The other errors were on the continuation page, both in the caption under the photo of Giants rookie Odell Beckham Jr. (A-12).

Beckham was misidentified, and the caption writer said the bracelets were on his left hand, when readers could see clearly they were on the athlete's right hand.

Today, on A-2 of The Record, a correction fixes only one of those screw-ups, the one that called the pro football player "David Beckham Jr."

'Good catch'?

"Good catch" is a phrase that once was heard frequently in The Record newsroom, where a supervisor would commend a copy editor or other staffer for catching an error before it got into the paper.

I doubt that phrase is even uttered any more since Liz Houlton has proven so inadequate in the six-figure job of production editor and supervisor of the news and layout editors, copy editors and page proofers -- the staffers who see stories before they go to press and write headlines and captions.

'Stop the presses'

The Record's presses are in Rockaway and the newsroom is in Woodland Park.

So, I'm guessing from the seemingly endless stream of errors, inaccurate headlines and other screw-ups in recent years, no one in the newsroom actually reads the first copies, shouts "Stop the presses!" and tries to make corrections.

If they do, what is the explanation for this latest example of sloppy editing in yet another story on the paper's most important page?

No distractions

And when errors like the ones in the Odell Beckham story are made, it doesn't help that readers see them immediately, because the rest of the front page is so dreadful.

Look at Thursday's tedious column from the pompous Mike Kelly, whose lame writing about Thanksgiving could put you to sleep even before you ate turkey.

Believe it or not, this was his second paragraph in a column that led the paper:

"Yes. Thanksgiving is generally a food-focused holiday, with countless tables crammed with turkey and all manner of vegetables and pies, and relatives and friends flocking to our front doors."

"Countless" and "all manner"? Kelly sounds like a blithering idiot.

Money talks

Thanksgiving shoppers at the malls dominate the front page today -- payback to the paper's biggest advertisers (A-1).

I noticed that the majority of the bargain hunters in photos on A-1 are white and Asian, and the majority of needy people enjoying free holiday meals on L-1 are black.

Drive-by journalism

In the Local-news section, L-3 is dominated by a large photo of a two-car crash on Route 287 south that killed one of the drivers, a 43-year-old woman from Kinnelon.

Was Jennifer Pechko a mother, daughter, aunt? Was she on her way to a Thanksgiving dinner? What caused the accident? Was the other driver charged?

You won't find any of the answers, because no one who worked the holiday -- from the photographer to the assignment editor to the supervisor of the copy desk -- gave a shit that this woman died unexpectedly on the highway.

To them, her death is merely a photo op.

The photo caption at the bottom of the same page doesn't say whether the turkey a Paramus homeowner was deep frying before his house caught fire ended up at the local food bank (L-3).

Pricey restaurant

Reading Staff Writer Elisa Ung's review of Houston's, an upscale restaurant in Hackensack's premier mall, I finally realize why I never ate there in all the years I've worked and lived in that city (BL-16).

Two crab cakes go for $37, and really don't look better than the half-dozen we buy at Costco Wholesale for $21.99.

"A flagrantly high $16" for spinach dip. A veggie burger for $19. Filet mignon for $49. 

She has been doing this cushy gig for seven or eight years, with all of her meals paid for by The Record.

Ung seems to be saying the only reason she tried Houston's is that the name came up most "when I talk to people in the restaurant business about where they eat out or the places they admire."

Maybe next week she'll write about a restaurant that isn't patronized by wealthy restaurant owners and chefs who have money to burn.

Or, she could have told readers they could assemble a reasonably priced dinner, if they stuck to the $7 kale salad, which she called "addictive," and one or two of the potato and vegetable side dishes.

And if you can persuade the restaurant to serve you the whole br0nzino, the $27 fish could be shared by two easily. 

   

Editors want you to fret over $219,000 conference table

The Empire State Building in Manhattan as seen through the window of NJ Transit's 165 Local on Boulevard East.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Boy, I would have loved to hear the Sunday night newsroom discussion on what to put on the front page of The Record today.

One of the poor schmucks who gets stuck working Sundays probably had Editor Marty Gottlieb, a veteran of The New York Times, on the phone.

OK. We know Sundays are slow-news days, and there is only a skeleton staff on hand.

Still, why should readers of The Record care about what Kean University in Union spent on a custom-made conference table?

I just don't get it.

The story might belong somewhere in the paper, but not on the premium page of a North Jersey daily.

And the other stories on the front page seem to be there only to provide "the balance" of soft and hard news Gottlieb has insisted on since he took over nearly three years ago, turning The Record into a suburban edition of The Times.

Wild turkeys

The three wild turkeys shown on the front of Local today -- "IN A FOUL MOOD BEFORE THE HOLIDAY" -- have nothing in common with the millions of domestic birds that have been slaughtered for Thanksgiving (L-1).

Wild turkeys can fly over trees, and their flesh is probably a lot tougher and gamier than the bland white breast meat so many Americans seem to prefer.

So, there is no danger anyone would want to kill them. 

Pisses away $4M

The lead story on the Local-news front is about a new science building on the Dwight-Englewood campus, an expensive private school on the city's East Hill.

A urologist is donating $4 million of the $20 million cost, and will get his name on the building.

Dwight-Englewood has nothing in common with Dwight Morrow, the public high school that has been desegregated in recent years. 

But the smaller Dwight-Englewood gets far more ink in The Record than the public schools, including the city's still-segregated elementary and middle schools.

News blinders

In a Sunday story about a gift of books to the Englewood public school district, there is no mention of the schools' dramatic racial imbalance.

Another Sunday story about Englewood -- this one on the expansion of free Wi-Fi downtown -- continues to ignore the large number of empty storefronts and failed businesses.

Borgs are getting fatter on backs of low-wage workers

The warm, cozy interior of the restored train station in Ramsey, above and below. The ticket window was closed permanently this year, but commuters can wait for trains out of the weather, as well as borrow something to read from the public library. Hackensack, a far larger community with far more rail users, hasn't had anything like this for many years.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Today's Thanksgiving edition of The Record is stuffed with the fliers of retailers who will further exploit their low-wage workers by opening on the holiday.

The Borgs are growing fatter on the profits generated by all that glossy advertising from Walmart and other big chains.

Of course, an editorial today doesn't bite the mouth that feeds the greedy publishing family, and holiday store and mall openings don't even rate a mention (A-22).

No free lunch

The photo of a plump turkey under the headings "Taking stock" and "Thanksgiving comes to North Jersey" reminds veterans staffers that the Borgs -- many years ago -- ended the tradition of laying a free Thanksgiving buffet for employees who work on the holiday.

Where are the Borgs gathering for their bountiful holiday meal -- in Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg's East Hill mansion in Englewood or in son Stephen A. Borg's $3.65 million McMansion in neighboring Tenafly, where the publisher counts all his money?

Addicts on A-1

On Page 1 today, annual "giving thanks" coverage has Superstorm Sandy victims in Little Ferry playing second fiddle -- below the fold -- to recovering addicts in Paramus (A-1).

Meanwhile, the majority Democrats in the state Legislature have asked Governor Christie to suggest changes to a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to pay lower, in-state college tuition and qualify for state financial aid (A-1).

Otherwise, they are asking Christie to veto the measure he says he opposes, as he has with so much other progressive legislation, including a modest hike in the minimum wage.

"When he was running for governor, he supported it," said Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, referring to the tuition bill. "Now that he is running for president, he does not" (A-10).

More lies?

Does Christie's stance on the measure give a lie to all that promotion in The Record of the GOP bully as bipartisan and a compromiser who can get things done?

On A-3, a story notes that many of the so-called illegal students in New Jersey were brought to the United States at a young age by their parents, and have been living here for decades. 

Local yokels

Even with several holiday and Law & Order stories, as well as news about the police, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza couldn't find enough local news to fill his section today.

For the three readers who know who Conrad Susa was, a long, wire-service obituary appears on L-5.

Check out the awkward headline on the Local front -- "Cop chief" -- for police chief (L-1).

What was wrong with the well-worn "Top cop"?

Page 1 story on police spying raises questions

Teaneck residents can only guess what two cops were discussing on Nov. 2, four days after Sandy closed many streets and darkened hundreds of homes and traffic lights.

Today's Page 1 story on the role of local police departments in a federal anti-terrorism program raises a lot of questions.

For decades, The Record's editors have been humoring the many small departments in North Jersey, fearing that any tough reporting would cut off the paper from crime and other Law & Order news.

This is especially the case with head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, who have been relying more and more on crime, court and accident news and photos to fill local-news pages.

The A-1 story mentions four departments in Bergen County that have car-mounted night-vision technology and recording equipment, including tiny Harrington Park, where Sykes lives.

Residents of those and many other towns likely want their police to store the spy gear and pay more attention to stopping house burglaries, updating the driving skills of senior citizens and justifying the bloated salaries of police chiefs, many of whom earn north of $200,000.

Why haven't readers seen any stories exploring how many home-rule police departments come up short or why Governor Christie hasn't capped the salaries of small-town police chiefs, as he did for school superintendents?

What a sport 

In an A-1 photo today, the Barclays Center in Brooklyn resembles a beached Noah's Ark, an appropriate image given how many sports fans are overweight, beer-guzzling animals.

Editor Marty Gottlieb should know the majority of North Jersey readers' only interest in that sports venue is to keep as far away as possible from the surrounding, gridlocked downtown Brooklyn traffic at rush hour.

Sandy victims

The major element on Page 1 today is a story and photos on Sandy victims in Little Ferry and Moonachie enjoying traditional Thanksgiving meals (A-1).

A small photo and refer with that story sends readers to a pre-Black Friday shopping story on the Local front, not an L-2 story about Salvation Army Thanksgiving dinners for storm victims in Hackensack. 

Why separate Thanksgiving stories on victims in the three towns?

Black mark

Doesn't all this attention to Black Friday and naked capitalism -- including the recycling challenge of numerous sales inserts in the paper -- seem inappropriate only weeks after one of the worst storms ever to hit New Jersey? 

Notable locals

The Local front also carries an obituary for Phillip Varisco, 89, the former Hillsdale police chief -- the fourth local obit in a row from the prolific Jay Levin.

This week, Levin's death profiles included:

Singer and retired schoolteacher Benjamin W. Harris, 83, of Hawthorne, who died in a fall down a dark flight of stairs four days after Sandy hit; Mike "Jersey Mike" Van Jura, a colorful music promoter from Hasbrouck Heights who died of a heart attack at 36;  and Catholic girls high school teacher and coach Toni-Marie Hals, who died of ovarian cancer at 41.

The lives of these and other locals are far more interesting to North Jersey readers than all of the other stuff Gottlieb apparently obsesses over for Page 1, including the Rutgers football team, the Barlcays Center and all  of the other sports crap that runs outside day after day. 

Mass what?

Even though Sandy exacerbated the crisis in mass transit, Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to ignore commuters and again mindlessly explores  funeral processions today (L-1).

He also addresses "today's complaints," including one on "estrogen," an apparent reference to women drivers.

Rare corrections

Cichowski also publishes a rare correction in the last paragraph of his column (L-10):

"The column that inspired this question [on women] noted that licensed women drivers now outnumber males by 0.8 percent in New Jersey.

"But  sharp-eyed Hackensack critic Jeff Ross was good enough to correct my poor math. Let the record show that the margin favors women by a full 1.8 percent." 

On Thursday, The Record published another Road Warrior correction on A-2, leaving scores of errors in past columns that have never been acknowledged or corrected.

The assignment editor who handles Cichowski's column before it is sent over to the legally blind copy editors apparently knows less about any subject than the Road Warrior himself, and is a totally ineffective backstop.

Rolling over on reader

Cichowski also answers a reader's question on why Sykes and Sforza run so many photos of rollover accidents (L-10).

Instead of telling the reader, Dan Browne of Montvale, that local editors are desperately trying to fill the space of local-news story they're too lazy to gather, Cichowski claims most of the photos showed "SUVs whose high center of gravity makes them easier to tip."

Of course, what about the cars that rolled over, despite their lower center of gravity? 

Readers should be told about Sykes' low center of gravity, which keeps her planted in her chair in the Woodland Park newsroom and totally uninterested in covering Hackensack and many other communities.

GOP follies 
 
An editorial today mildly criticizes conservative scumbag Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, the only member of the state's congressional delegation who is against seeking additional federal aid in the wake of Sandy (A-22).

Readers, of course, clearly remember how Sykes and Sforza, the top assignment editors, wrote off Teaneck Deputy Mayor Adam Gussen, Garrett's Democratic challenger in the Nov. 6 election, and knocked themselves out to slant coverage against Gussen.

Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson wrote a long, flattering profile of Garrett, one of the most regressive forces in Congress; and Signature Editor Alan Finder made sure to run three large photos of the arch-conservative with it. 

Gussen was never profiled, none of his campaign stops were covered and his photo didn't run in the paper until a couple of weeks before the election.

'Quality' lies

In Better Living, a review of La Bottega, a fancy takeout shop with tables, notes "prices are on the high side, though most ingredients are high-quality" (BL-16-17).

But as usual, Staff Writer Elisa Ung leaves readers guessing as she stuffs a couple of sugary desserts down her gaping mouth.

Is the salmon wild-caught or artificially colored farmed fish? What about the prime rib? Is it free of harmful animal antibiotics, growth hormones and animal byproducts?

You'll have to call the Ridgewood restaurant to find out. Ung throws around the word "quality," but rarely backs it up.

That is a continuing disservice to readers, and leaves profit-hungry restaurant owners and chefs off the hook.
 

Turkey gives way to stomach-turning BBQ

The Record today promotes meat that is deliberately
burned, a sure-fire way to make it even less healthy.

You'll find photos of Thanksgiving meals on A-1, A-6, A-7 and A-8; as well as L-1 and L-3, but for a real stomach turner, check out the charred meat on the cover of Better Living today.


Barbecue pit masters have perpetuated the mythical benefits of "char," and gullible food writers like Elisa Ung have swallowed their arguments whole.


Unfortunately, meat cooked at high temperatures until it burns or chars has been linked to cancer, and the Woodland Park daily has no business glorifying carcinogens in a restaurant review (Better Living centerfold).


But it's what readers have come to expect from the dessert-obsessed Ung, whose review of The Blind Boar in Norwood presumably was edited by her boss, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill.


Ung and Sherrill are blind, too, rarely bothering with the details of how the food they sample and promote is raised or grown. 


Today, Ung tells readers the barbecue restaurant uses naturally raised chicken, but the pork and beef she sampled remain mysterious.


Bones to pick


Either Ung is ignorant or helping the restaurant owner hide the real quality of the meat. She spends more than half of the review describing everything but the food, and wastes space saying the theme restaurant is "less appropriate for anyone looking for a formal dining experience."


Can't readers figure that out for themselves?


What can readers conclude from the Eating Out on $50 review of Baste in Ridgewood, a Greek-inspired chicken restaurant, where free-lancer Jeff Page went over his budget, even though he fed only himself and one other person (Page 21 in Better Living)?


Either Page overeats or the restaurant is too expensive for a budget review.

On Pages 22 and 23, the weekly inspections appear, but where are the restaurants and other food places that are fined for violations of the state sanitation code?


More dead meat


Dead meat or poultry seems to be the edition's theme -- a story on the number of deer killed on state roads appears on Page 1.


In head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, readers are served a rare treat: a Road Warrior column that begins and ends on L-1. 


The commuting columnist actually ran out of topics that have nothing to do with commuting.


Two stories from Englewood appear on L-1 and L-6, though the first duplicates a story that ran just four days ago. However, there is no Hackensack news today.

Related post

• Well-done red meat linked to aggressive prostate cancer (cnn.com)