Heavy reliance on crime news exposes print-edition flaws

The provinces of Cuba and the island's flag are painted on the front plate-glass window of La Pola, a West New York luncheonette that specializes in the Cuban Sandwich or Cubano.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If you are the editor of a local newspaper that covers breaking crime news as much as The Record does -- and uses Page 1 to sensationalize murder and mayhem -- you need an editing and reporting staff that hustles, and late deadlines.

Editor Martin Gottlieb has neither.

The ex-New York Times editor often embarrasses himself with stale coverage like today's lead story on an "apparent murder-suicide" in a luxury Edgewater high-rise, where a man shot both his wife and 8-year-old daughter in the head before killing himself (A-1).

The Woodland Park daily managed to get something onto Saturday's front page, but the editors couldn't hold the paper for the prosecutor's press conference on Friday night.

So, all Staff Writer Jeff Green could report was that "three people were found dead on Christmas" before padding the story with four paragraphs at the end that amounted to little more than a shameless plug for the high-rise where the "holiday tragedy" unfolded (Saturday's A-8).

Nothing like the suspicious death of three people to drum up business at a luxury high-rise, but that is so typical of the commercialism that taints too many stories in The Record.

SUV hit-and-run

More dated police news appears today -- the hit-run death of a 59-year-old Teaneck man crossing the street just before 7 p.m. on Christmas Day (A-1 and L-1).

Even two days after the accident, there is not a word on Steven J. Leitbeg, the victim, except to describe him as a "resident of the township."

He's treated as so much roadkill by the lazy, incompetent local assignment editors, Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza.

Today's story doesn't say whether he was in a crosswalk when he was hit by an SUV "at Garrison Avenue and Cedar Lane" (L-1).

Nor does the reporter explore whether limited holiday police staffing was a factor in why the driver was able to get away on what is normally a heavily patrolled downtown street.

Law & Order news

After a major newsroom downsizing and 2009 relocation of the newsroom to Woodland Park, The Record's coverage of municipal news declined dramatically.

Thanks to Sykes and Sforza, Law & Order news became the new local news as they scrambled desperately to plug holes in their section with gee-whiz photos of fires and rollovers, police news and sensational trials.

That trend continues today, even though home-rule governments and rising property taxes deserve far more scrutiny than they are getting.

Can local readers hope for a change when Gottlieb retires at the end of January, bringing to a close four years of failure?

Best photos

Once a year, the editors publish images from Record photographers that "stood out" (L-1 and L-3), but none of those photos appeared in a daily fixture on A-2, "SHOT OF THE DAY."

Typically, those photos are supplied by the wire services from all over the world in what amounts to a slap in the face to all of the talented staff photographers.

'Humble' food

On the Better Living cover today, Staff Writer Elisa Ung recalls the best dishes she ate in 2015, what she calls "humble creations" (BL-1 and BL-3).

Ung swoons over mystery chicken sandwiches and a thin-crust pizza, but also touts a pricey platter of sushi.

This feature and Ung's "Informal Dining" reviews on Friday show the limits of her competency as the paper's chief restaurant critic.

She is in way over her head on most Fridays, when she reviews expensive steakhouse and other fine-dining restaurants and ignores how the dishes she sampled were raised or grown.

Readers can see that on Sundays, especially when her Corner Table column makes excuses for why wealthy restaurant owners aren't serving more organic or naturally raised food.

Ramen and pho

On Friday's BL-12, there were a few omissions in Ung's reviews of Menya Sandaime in Fort Lee and Pho Miu in far-off Washington Township.

She reports the Fort Lee ramen restaurant has only 25 seats, but fails to mention customers also are seated at tables in the employee break room to cut down on waiting times.

Ung also didn't report the kitchen can make vegetarian versions of at least two main dishes, as I discovered during a visit on Saturday night.

And her detailed description of the soup at Miu Pho doesn't mention the anise flavoring that sets the Vietnamese broth apart from all other Asian noodle soups.

On top of all that, the headline was a real clunker:

"Where noodles step up"

'Newsmakers'

In the past two decades, The Record has been derelict in covering the obesity epidemic; heart disease, the nation's No. 1 killer; and the large number of uninsured in New Jersey.

The editors prefer to assign medical writers to describe in excruciating detail children with rare disorders or a public official who survived a brain aneurysm.

On Saturday's front page, they were described as "newsmakers."

How would The Record describe all of those the editors routinely ignores?

As "losers"?

Columnists endorse dangerous, unhealthy practices

Saturday's steady rain couldn't dampen the Christmas spirit on Main Street in Hackensack, near the Bergen County Courthouse.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Did you see the Road Warrior column on The Record's Local front today and Saturday, effectively Staff Writer John Cichowski's obituary for the state's red-light camera program?

Cichowski has hated these cameras for years.

In fact, he hates them so much he never mentions they are designed to catch speeders who think nothing of killing or maiming pedestrians and other motorists in their haste to get wherever they are going.

You see this same selfish behavior in drivers who blow through stop signs, because they are late for work or for some other ridiculous excuse. 

You can tell a lot about an irresponsible journalist by the "experts" he quotes.

Although red-light cameras have been proven to cut down on intersection crashes, deaths and injuries in New Jersey and other states, he manages to find mostly critics.

New York City is lowering speed limits and installing more cameras to catch drivers who speed or run red lights. 

Why is New Jersey ending its red-light program, especially in view of a drastic reduction in police enforcement of speeding and aggressive driving?

Of course, those are questions Cichowski should be asking.

Taste v. health

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung examines beef and lamb from many angles in her Sunday column today except health (BL-1).

She could have sought out an expert from Consumer Reports, which is campaigning against the use of harmful animal antibiotics to raise poultry, cattle and sheep.

The magazine notes humans who consume a lot of meat or poultry containing those antibiotics are becoming resistant to drugs prescribed by their doctors.

Instead, Ung sought out Ray Venezia, the former "vice president of meat" at Fairway Market, the New York City-based chain that sells tons of beef raised on harmful additives.

Venezia evaluates beef on how it tastes, and declares the fattiest prime cuts are the tastiest.

Of course, Ung doesn't mention the fattiest beef also clogs arteries, and is a leading cause of heart disease.

Pension disaster

Governor Christie's heavily promoted pension reform is a disaster, according to the lead Page 1 story today (A-1).

The fund covering retirement benefits for most of New Jersey's public employees "is projected to go broke in a decade, not the 30 years [state] officials had estimated just months ago."

Only The Record seems surprised.

Readers know the Christie administration has declared war on the middle class and has lied or fudged the truth on the state economy, environment, roads and mass transit, among others.

Yes, Virginia. The GOP bully is the worst governor we've ever had.

Lots of news and views, but not about you

Editor Marty Gottlieb of The Record has been focusing a lot of attention on preliminary 9/11 hearings in Cuba, not the many problems facing residents who live in North Jersey.

Editor Marty Gottlieb gives us another disappointing Sunday edition today, leading Page 1 of The Record with more on a Wayne couple's reaction to 9/11 hearings in Cuba.

The main headline says "trial," but the text reports they were "preliminary hearings." Readers remain alienated and confused.

In keeping with the media's focus on trying to predict the future, Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson does his best in a so-called ANALYSIS to guess what tax rates will be on Jan. 1.

Ultimately, the densely written, eye-glazing story produces a lot of heat, but not much light.

The only words in the story you can bank on appear in the graphic on A-8: "If Congress does nothing ..."

The vast majority of readers stare at the other three elements on Page 1 and mutter, What does that have to do with me?

Too little, too late

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes leads her Local news sections with reports on the freeholder races in Bergen and Passaic counties, but the photos and profiles come too late for 22,000 voters who received and returned mail-in ballots (L-1).

The freeholder stories would have run sooner, if the Local section didn't waste the space on all those photos showing rollover accidents on North Jersey roads and highways or downed utility poles.

Ignoring reality

Today's Road Warrior column ignores the region's traffic and mass-transit crises to answer more complaining e-mails from drivers upset with the MVC (L-1).

Friday's Road Warrior column also was based on reader e-mails, and had something to do with road signs and E-ZPass, though I just scanned it. 

Donut-hole news

New Milford Police Chief Frank Papapietro reports another luring attempt, this one at the Dunkin' Donuts on River Road, a police substation (L-1).

The drought on Hackensack municipal news continues today.

Dishing the dirt

Today's Better Living cover is dominated by The Corner Table column, which is supposed to deal with issues facing restaurant goers in North Jersey (BL-1).

Instead, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung writes about three rich guys who eat out a lot and tweet about it. Who cares?

Where is Mike Kelly?

On the Opinion front, readers are told, "Record Columnist Mike Kelly is away from the office on a short leave."

That's about as hard to comprehend as one of Kelly's columns.

Did he get hit by a car? Is he ill? Or maybe he's on vacation or "investigating" something.

One thing is for sure. Few readers miss him.

More Obama bashing on Page 1

The YMCA on Main Street in Hackensack. After prospering for more than 110 years, The Record left the city and scattered its operations to other parts of North Jersey.

You never know when The Record's editors will use a front-page story to take a swipe at President Obama, burying the truth inside, where only the most persistent readers go.

Today's splashy Page 1 takeout on Garfield hangs a possible delay in cleaning up neighborhood pollution dating to 1983 on Obama's "plan to cut $37 million from the Superfund program" (second paragraph).

Taxing readers

Deep inside, only the hardiest readers learn taxes on chemical and oil companies to fund cleanups like the one in Garfield expired in 1995, "when Congress refused to reauthorize it despite the urging of President Clinton."

"President George W. Bush did not support reauthorizing the tax," The Record reports, and last year, a bill to revive the Polluter Pays Restoration Act went nowhere in Congress.

Just smell the manure

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, the big news is harness racing.

But L-1 also carries the first story on Englewood's struggling downtown in many years (L-1).

The Record virtually abandoned coverage of downtowns in Teaneck, Englewood and other diverse communities after North Jersey Media Group pulled up its roots in Hackensack -- delivering a royal F.U. to Main Street. 

Why stop now?

Thankfully, most drivers have to go to the MVC only every four years or so, but that didn't stop Road Warrior John Cichowski from writing his 107th column on the dysfunctional agency (L-1).

The letters "MVC" in the headline instantly put to sleep readers looking for genuine news on commuting in one of the most congested regions of the nation.

Fooling consumers

The Record's Business section is so intent on promoting mattress companies, clothing chains, real estate agents and even sellers of business jets that its lone consumer columnist is a welcome relief.

But in today's piece on poor service, Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais really lets down readers by not naming an airline or a "popular seafood restaurant in Maine" that simply don't care about customers' bad experiences (B-1).

Heart attack on a plate

On the front of Better Living, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill's homage to Julia Child ignores the late great TV chef's heavy reliance on butter and cream -- two ingredients shunned by anyone who wants to eat healthy today.

Shell-shocked

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung's entire Sunday column discusses pasture-raised eggs available at only three small markets in northern Bergen County (BL-1).

But where is the list of restaurants that serve naturally raised eggs? 

It's a sad commentary on Ung's Corner Table column, if readers can't get that information from the restaurant reviewer.

Food columnist spins out of control

Readers who follow the dessert regimen of Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung may end up on the operating table for surgery to bypass their dangerously clogged arteries.

When Elisa Ung was hired by The Record in 2007, she was a walking contradiction -- an overweight Asian woman -- who had succumbed to the occupational hazards of food writing and restaurant reviewing.

I recall her walking past the news copy desk in Hackensack in late afternoon, talking obsessively about food to younger staffers.

I can't imagine what she looks like now after consuming hundreds of the sugary, artery clogging desserts she is addicted to, as her column on the Better Living front today so amply demonstrates (BL-1).

Just deserts

An entire column on tiramisu as "dessert perfection"? 

The continuation page even has a cookbook-promoting recipe for any fool who wants to try making this dessert at home.

Of course, a balanced approach would have included a sidebar on coronary artery bypass surgery or discuss the unhealthy minority who order dessert at every meal.

Ung's column, The Corner Table, is supposed to address such restaurant issues as the dysfunctional tipping system, restaurants' outrageous markup on wine or how few restaurants serve naturally raised food.

Last week, she did a column on ceviche. Just think: A discussion of one dish ad nauseam every Sunday.

Disappointing edition

Forgive my rant on Ung, but there is so little in the Woodland Park daily's disappointing Sunday edition from Editor Marty Gottlieb.

The front of  head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section is dominated by a "fireball" touched off when a tractor-trailer ran off Route 17 and into an office building's support columns (L-1).

This is an impressive job of reporting, but for some reason, the story never raises the possibility the driver had a heart attack or some other medical emergency.

Round and round

The entire Road Warrior column today is devoted to a "traffic risk management expert" from the Federal Highway Administration and roundabouts (L-1).

John Cichowski, who has written the column since the end of 2003, is single handedly responsible for North Jersey's traffic congestion by forever defending the right of drivers to clog the roads in their gas-guzzling cars and SUVs.

Local is missing any significant municipal news from Hackensack or anywhere else.

More fattening stuff

On the Business front, the paper promotes fattening, teeth-rotting soft drinks from Coke and Pepsi (B-1).

I haven't seen a word in The Record on Consumer Reports' campaign against harmful antibiotics in meat and poultry. 

Bell tolls for readers

 

In Opinion, the Editorial Page urges the Legislature to override Governor Christie's veto of a Port Authority reform bill (O-2). 

The GOP bully is telling North Jersey commuters they have nothing to look forward to but ever-higher tolls and overburdened mass-transit alternatives.

 

More readers scream, Who cares?

The YMCA on Main Street in Hackensack.

On Page 1 of The Record today, the Hackensack reporter is writing about a hardware store in Glen Rock.

Columnist Mike Kelly grabs most of the front page to push around thousands of words about Garfield's woes without slamming inaction by environmental officials or investigative foot-dragging by Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli.

Readers of the Local front try to figure out what Road Warrior John Cichowski is trying to say about GPS systems -- especially the large majority of drivers who don't have them and spend most of the time lost because of lousy road signs.

Promoting business

In every section today, Editor Marty Gottlieb and his subeditors seem so bored with their job of covering local news that they often chase after the irrelevant or end up promoting a commercial agenda.

Most of L-1 is devoted to a story by Jay Levin, the local obituary writer, on efforts by North Jersey towns to control the spread of dog shit.

No Hackensack news

There is no Hackensack news in today's paper, but an L-3 story lists eight streets in Rutherford that will be repaired. 

A huge photo on the same page shows two columns of charitable, overweight motorcyclists who are breaking every anti-noise ordinance on the books, but never get tickets (L-3).

Vacant stares

Why should shoppers care about vacant stores on Routes 4 and 17 (Business front)?

Similarly, why should restaurant goers care about the problems of chefs selling barbecue in North Jersey -- especially in The Corner Table, a column that is supposed to be devoted to customers' issues (Better Living front)? 

Too bad a sappy Father's Day column by Kelly appears on the same page with far more compelling reading -- an upbeat piece on the challenge to the health-care law and another on the criminality embodied by Richard Nixon (Opinion front).


Wealth management


In view of how most people can't afford a second home on the New Jersey shore, why do the insensitive editors flaunt the wealth of North Jerseyans who buy "bargain" vacations home in Europe (Real Estate front)?

Travel-section weary

Talk about being out-of-touch.

Three of the four shore restaurants recommended by Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill are in far-off Wildwood and Atlantic City (Travel front).

What about the shore north of Asbury Park? Are all those places serving swill?

She promotes American Cut in Atlantic City, a steakhouse that charges $26 to $135 for entrees, but she doesn't say whether the beef is naturally raised or filled with harmful additives.

Editors continue to screw commuters

The Record of Woodland Park publishes another story about the Port Authority's 50% hike of Hudson River tolls months after it might have figured in the public debate.

The Record's editors -- and the reporters who do their bidding -- don't cover mass transit and commuting; they cover the meetings of the agencies that provide those services.

A perfect example is the story that leads the paper today -- the Port Authority violated its own policy   when it raised Hudson River tolls to $12 last year.

But the story amounts to so many sour grapes, coming many months after the public debate and after Governors Christie and Cuomo caved in to the profligate bistate agency.

Page 1 boo-boo

On top of that, the front-page graphic doesn't agree with the text of the story, which says, "Through 2015, tolls are set to increase by 75 cents each year, starting this December."

So, if I read that correctly, the toll -- now $12 -- will go up 75 cents in December and 75 cents in 2013, 2014 and 2015, a total of $3. 

But the A-1 graphic shows the 2016 toll as "$12.50."

Christie's screwing

Does Christie give a shit about New Jersey commuters? No. 

He cancelled the Hudson River rail tunnels, grabbed $1.8 billion in tunnel money to fix highways and packed the Port Authority with his cronies.

Does Road Warrior John Cichowski give a shit about commuters? No.

The Mad Journalist has been knocking himself out in recent years writing about roof snow, potholes, suicidal pedestrians, head lice, teen drivers and a bunch of other irrelevant topics -- anything to avoid writing about commuting problems. 


Screwing Hackensack

Editor Marty Gottlieb's recently renewed focus on Hackensack appears to culminate today with a Page 1 piece by Mike Kelly, who is running neck and neck with Cichowski and Bill Ervolino for the title of "The Record's Worst Columnist."

Hackensack is one of the best-run communities in North Jersey, and its police force has overcome the burden of being led by Police Chief Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa to give residents both service and security.

So, what's Kelly take? The headline declares:

Zisa case, 

lawsuits

leave city

in 'havoc'

On what does Kelly base his overlong piece? Did he interview any of the 43,000 residents? No.

He quotes one of the City Council's chief gadflies, so-called reformer Emil Canestrino: "It's havoc in this town."

On March 26, an A-1 Zisa story in The Record carried this sub-headline:

Drawn-out case has 

Hackensack in limbo

What was the basis for that? Did that reporter, Stephanie Akin, interview residents? No. 

She quoted Canestrino's wife, Kathy, as saying Zisa's long-standing legal troubles have "put a lot of things in limbo."

Well, at least readers know the Canestrinos feel the city has deteriorated from 'limbo' to 'havoc.' 

But does Gottlieb really expect readers to take seriously this kind of lazy, amateurish journalism from two reporters working for head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes?

Is this what he learned in the all the years he spent at The New York Times -- hanging a story and a Page 1 headline on such flimsy reporting? That's just shameless.  

Where's the beef?

The rest of Gottlieb's Sunday edition is pretty thin.

In Better Living, Staff Writer Elisa Ung squanders her entire Sunday column on promoting a so-called Korean taco at T.G.I. Friday's, one of those restaurant chains that charges a lot of money for low-quality food (BL-1).

She never questions the use of the word "Korean" to market a taco without kimchi or gochujang, a Korean red-pepper paste.

Readers expecting an exploration of restaurant issues from the customers' point of view are disappointed again by Ung's misnamed column, The Corner Table.

She might want to rename it The Owner's Table.

Editors reveal Christie's minority strategy

Publisher Stephen A. Borg supports Tenafly officials who have consistently opposed the extension of light-rail service to the old station, above, fearing even more burglars will find rich pickings in the town Borg calls home.

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what Governor Christie has done for all the minorities in New Jersey.

In 2010, he proposed cutting $5.5 million from the school breakfast program for low-income students, and first lady Mary Pat Christie chose to tackle the hunger problem in the state -- not the obesity epidemic.

A couple of years after the governor got rid of the only African-American state Supreme Court justice, he named a black lawyer to a seat on the high court, but because the nominee also is gay, he wouldn't be able to take part in any cases involving same-sex marriage.

Today, The Record's front page provides a partial answer to the GOP bully's minority strategy:

A state police escort for a wealthy, led-footed African-American pro football player who led dozens of friends in super cars on a 100 mph-plus trip to Atlantic City (A-1 and A-4). 

That item is only one of Editor Marty Gottlieb's bizarre choices for Page 1 of the Woodland Park daily's once-respected Sunday edition.

Editorial fantasy

If the Nets have been losers since they moved to New Jersey 35 years ago, why make them winners by giving them so much of A-1 today?

The so-called essay on the "City of North Jersey" that leads the paper is a fantasy from the uncluttered mind of a lifer whose cushy job has been the talk of the newsroom for years.

Staff Writer Charles Saydah, the error-prone letters editor, completely ignores all the corrupt municipal officials who have stopped any real progress for residents of more than 100 North Jersey towns.

Sure. We have lots of highways. But we're also saddled with an antiquated local-road system whose traffic jams rival the city's infamous congestion, as well as a dysfunctional mass-transit system. 

Unhealthy news

The only serious piece on A-1 today is Staff Writer Lindy Washburn's eye-opening story on the fund-raisers needed to help people left behind by our pathetic health-care system.

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, the Road Warrior shows he isn't completely brain dead on commuting problems, but he buries any useful suggestions in a discussion of politics that few readers will slog through (L-1).

View from Tenafly

The latest in a series of stories on Tenafly break-ins appears on L-3 -- apparently inspired by Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who nervously tracks the progress of burglars as they get closer and closer to his Churchill Road McMansion.

Borg already is being held up by Tenafly officials for annual property taxes of around $70,000. He got his $3.65 million mortgage from the family bank, North Jersey Media Group.

Words from a sage

One of the paper's legal experts -- Columnist Mike Kelly -- weighs in on the trial of suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa (O-1).

Here is one of the reporter's brilliant insights: "Think of the 'Real Housewives of New Jersey' mud-wrestling with the cast from 'Jersey Shore.'"

You can be sure the gray-haired Kelly isn't wrestling with anything -- least of all his conscience.

More table scraps

Readers of The Corner Table column in Better Living continue to wait for a discussion of restaurant issues that directly affect them, including low wages for servers, tipping and restaurants that dish low-quality food to boost profits.

Instead, Staff Writer Elisa Ung continues to promote owners and chefs.

Today, Ung's review of eco-friendly initiatives at restaurants is interesting, but why didn't she list chefs who donate leftovers to homeless shelters and food banks (F-1)?

Now, that's the most meaningful recycling of all. 

 

A rare nod to our senior citizens

Image via Wikipedia

A brain scan of a human with Alzheimer's disease.

Several years after Editor Francis Scandale took over at The Record, readership started falling. His response was to tailor news coverage to 20-year-olds in what turned out to be a failed strategy for attracting new readers.

But his affection for 20- and 30-year-olds continues as he and other editors give the back of their hands to older workers and older readers.

They replaced the food editor with a young, inexperienced man; routinely ignore the challenges facing elderly drivers and run far more stories on autism than on Alzheimer's disease.

So today's lively, Page 1 story on two North Jersey residents who are looking forward to their 100th birthdays comes as a pleasant surprise. 

It's especially poignant having been written by Jay Levin, an accomplished reporter whose local obituaries usually end up on the back pages.

Never a safe city

At the top of A-1, the first chief quoted in the story on police cutbacks is the head of the force in Englewood, where residents and pedestrians aren't safe even when the department is at full strength.

The assignment desk and staff in Woodland Park must have taken a three-day weekend, if a Star-Ledger story on school budgets was needed to plug a hole on A-1 today.

Bathroom idles

Scandale, Sykes and other editors were alarmed their smart phones stored their locations and could reveal how much time they waste in bathrooms (A-1 and A-7), instead of getting out of the office, talking to their neighbors and learning something -- anything -- about North Jersey.

Wrong again

On the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski is wrong when he calls the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid an "electric" car.

Readers looking for municipal news in head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes's section will find not one, not two, but three stories about historic preservation (L-1 and L-3).

Leaves a bad taste

The reporter who wrote a gushing profile about the Corrado family appears to have never shopped or purchased expired food in one of its North Jersey food stores, where the quality of produce has dropped in recent years. (Business front). 

The flagship Clifton store has been known to cover the use-by date on salad mixes with a price sticker.

The Corner Table Columnist Elisa Ung appears to be tired of leaving the office. At the end of her Sunday column on the Better Living front, she asks readers for tips to help her write two future columns.

What's next? Polling customers and publishing their opinions in her restaurant reviews?

The gang that can't report or write straight

Image via Wikipedia

The Record story has to be read and re-read to find out what happened in Washington Township.

I don't know how many editors and reporters worked on today's Page 1 story about a man who was killed in a shootout with police, but the confused jumble in the paper isn't much better than the incomprehensible account on the Web site, northjersey.com.

Jerry DeMarco, The Record's former Breaking News editor, used his superior contacts to report on Cliffview Pilot.com that the man was the one who called police, and the fatality may have been a case of "suicide by cop."

The account in the Woodland Park daily is full of problems -- from a clunky A-1 headline that doesn't tell you who died to a dropped word in a quote from the prosecutor to saying the prosecutor "wrote" instead of "said" when using material from a press release.

Fuzzy writing

Still, the story could have been a lot clearer if the editors and reporters stated at the outset there were two men named Robert Ellis, a father and son, but that's on A-6, the continuation page. 

Instead, readers get the useless information on the front page that the dead man's "last known address was in Ridgewood." 

Just before the story jumps, the prosecutor is quoted as saying, "The exchange [of gunfire] resulted in [the younger ] Ellis' death, and he was pronounced at the scene around 2 a.m." The word "dead" is missing.

No standards

With the departure of News Copy Desk Co-Slot Nancy Cherry and the merger of The Record and Herald News copy desks in 2008, the newspaper abandoned its high standards for headlines and editing. 

What you see in the paper now are all the screw-ups by the assignment editors who work under Editor Deirdre Sykes -- the editors who are supposed to fix any broken copy submitted by reporters before it is sent over to the copy desk.

More embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today.

Burning issue

On the front of Sykes' Local section, a story on burning wood to heat homes completely omits any discussion of potentially harmful air pollution.

Business plan

Landlord Hartz Mountain Industries is opposing a $102 million tax break that may lure Panasonic out of one of its buildings, according to a story on the Business front today. Hartz also got burnt when it was rejected as the developer of the Meadowlands parcel where Xanadu is now being built.

Maybe the real story is that Hartz continues to contribute money to the wrong politicians.

Wine and food snob

Elisa Ung's The Corner Table Column on the front of Better Living discusses private wine lockers for big spenders at three restaurants. 

But isn't there a problem revealed by the photo on F-1, showing wine bottles standing upright in wine lockers at Capitol Grille, a high-end steakhouse in Paramus that can't spell "grill." 

Unopened bottles of good wine are supposed to be stored on their sides. 

Who is incoherent?

Columnist Mike Kelly complains about the "incoherent dialogue" in the wake of a congressman's hearing on Muslims (O-1). 

But it is Kelly himself who is incoherent, and I'm wondering, if like Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the moron who called the hearing, the columnist is hiding his sympathy and support for the terrorist group known as the Irish Republican Army.