Editors afflicted with schizophrenia on the real Christie

Hackensack University Medical Center apparently ran out of room in Hackensack and built its Fitness & Wellness Center in neighboring Maywood. But the non-profit HUMC doesn't give seniors enrolled in United Healthcare's Silver Sneakers program the free membership they enjoy at 24 Hour Fitness, Gold's and other gyms.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record leads its thin Sunday edition with a story strongly suggesting Governor Christie is one of the unindicted co-conspirators in the illegal George Washington Bridge lane closures.

But the editors continue to assign a reporter to cover Christie's visits to early primary states, and portray him favorably as a "down-to-earth, straight-talking Jersey guy [and] a bipartisan pragmatist" (A-1 and A-2). 

That flies in the face of how he's governed New Jersey since early 2010, issuing more than 350 vetoes to thwart the Democratic majority in the state Legislature.

Many say, 'Guilty'

No matter what he's said about his knowledge or participation in the September 2013 lane closures, the court of public opinion has found Christie guilty.

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes' coverage of what he said or what he did in New Hampshire last week is a slap in the face to New Jersey residents, who have lost so much under the Christie administration (A-2).

The schizophrenia continues on the Editorial Page, where Margulies' cartoon lampoons Christie's lame explanation on Bridgegate (O-2):

"My appointees closed the bridge lanes without telling me."

"I WAS NOT INVOLVED ..."

"Because they kept me in the dark and misled me ..."

"Christie For President
A new type of leadership"

Just remember what Bridget Anne Kelly said after she pleaded not guilty to conspiring to close bridge lanes to punish Fort Lee's Democratic mayor for not endorsing the reelection of the GOP bully.

"Kelly [Christie's former deputy chief of staff] said ... that it would be 'ludicrous' to believe she was the only one in the Governor's Office who knew about the lane closings ...." (A-1 and A-12).

Must-read list

Don't miss the riveting Page 1 story on all of the homeowners who were victims of the greedy real estate industry (A-1).

On the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski explores his encyclopedic knowledge of North Jersey footbridges (L-1).

On the Business front, Staff Writer Joan Verdon warns, "Malls reach a crossroads" (B-1).

It never occurs to Sunday Columnist Elisa Ung the Chef's Table in Franklin Lakes is "half empty," because many restaurant goers are eating healthier and rejecting foie gras, Grand Marnier-soaked strawberry shortcake, and French food made with heavy cream and butter (BL-1). 

On the Opinion front, Mike Kelly gives us a second column on Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich only the reporter's and mayor's families will read (O-1). 

Devoting most of today's Travel section to a Washington Post story about cassoulet -- a French bean-and-pork stew -- is an odd choice given all the readers who will never try it (T-1):

Muslims, observant Jews, the growing number of people who don't eat meat and the legions who won't be vacationing in France anytime soon.

Home-delivery mix-up: Features and opinion, no news

A small but vocal group of residents nagged Hackensack officials to start twice-a-week garbage collection this year. But the city caved in before encouraging more recycling and starting a composting program to reduce the waste stream.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's plastic bag in my driveway this morning contained two Better Living sections, two Opinion sections, two TV books and some advertising.

When I called, I was told the news sections would be delivered "after 10 a.m.," but at 10:45, I decided to sit down at the computer, because I have things to do and places to go today.

Crappy burger

It's clear from Elisa Ung's Sunday column, The Corner Table, this ignorant woman hasn't read Consumer Reports in many years, and has no idea the magazine has been exploring such important food issues as harmful animal antibiotics and salmonella in poultry.

In fact, Consumers Union, the magazine's policy and advocacy arm, called on Trader Joe's "to stop selling meat and poultry raised on a steady diet of antibiotics."

Ung refers to Consumer Reports as "the magazine many of us use to buy a washing machine" (BL-1).

This is what you get with a restaurant reviewer who spends most of her time writing about celebrity chefs and the problems facing wealthy restaurant owners while ignoring customer issues.

Her column today discusses a new entry in the crappy hamburger sweepstakes in North Jersey, but doesn't compare the beef used and whether any of the patties are made from antibiotic- and hormone-free beef.  

Atlantic Shitty

On the Opinion front, burned-out Columnist Mike Kelly -- he of the inimitable shit-eating grin -- delivers a 40-year recap of Atlantic City (O-1).

The resort and its economic problems are of so little interest to the vast majority of North Jersey residents, you have to wonder why he bothered. 

The most incisive commentary on Atlantic City is not Kelly's.

Margulies delivers another hard-hitting cartoon on O-2 today.

Free travel

Travel Editor Jill Schensul reports on another free press trip today, this time to East Berlin (T-1).

I would never pay $118.60 to drive one of the world's unsafest cars, but she makes it sound so wonderful.

The Travel section was delivered with Saturday's paper.

Where is the local news in our local paper?

There are no stories from Bergen County's biggest towns in The Record today.

The 8-page Local section in The Record today dramatizes how little local news is being generated by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her clueless minions.

I couldn't find any stories from big Bergen County communities -- Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood, Ridgewood et al. -- but Sykes needed minor accident and brush-fire photos to fill the section (L-2 and L-3).

And too many of the stories in the section are follow-ups to previous reports:

Another hearing on the proposed 47-story residential towers in Fort Lee, a project that is being treated like North Jersey's Pyramids (L-2) ; another protest march in the fatal police shooting of Malik Williams, 19, of Garfield (L-3); another hazardous-waste collection (L-3), another boring Road Warrior column (L-1), and yet another story on a study of Bergen County  law-enforcement consolidation (L-1).

Columnist crashes

The main element on the Local front today is a round-up of soil contamination in parks and fields that has been the subject of numerous individual stories.

A "road warrior" is someone who travels frequently, especially on business, so who came up with that title for a commuting column that has deteriorated into a column for drivers since John Cichowski took it over?

His column today -- how to operate a car for dummies -- is one of the worst in recent memory, because Cichowski himself is clueless on how cars work, as is evident from all the inaccuracies in his work. 

Why not rename the column, "Car Warrior, "Fender Worshiper" or "Dummy Behind the Wheel"?

Budget muddle

On Page 1, I had trouble following the "analysis" on spending in Governor Christie's budget, and wonder why it took almost three weeks to pull it together.

The main element on the front page is an appalling story by Staff Writer Barbara Williams on how a national medication shortage is affecting a 58-year-old cancer patient from Saddle River, with a sidebar on a 5-year-old girl with leukemia (A-1 and A-6).

But the stories don't say whether the national health care law addresses those shortages.

Busted

On A-5, a photo taken a year after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan shows a bus being lifted off a rooftop. 

It appears to be in better condition than the buses used on NJ Transit's No. 780 route between Englewood and the city of Passaic.

Just desserts

In Better Living, The Corner Table column explores traditional Irish fare -- heavy with meat, meat and more meat, plus fried food -- one of the worst diets on the planet (F-1).

North Jersey is full of Irish pubs that serve food, so why did staff Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung choose only two, both in far-off Ramsey?

On Friday, Ung gave us another lukewarm review of a restaurant, Rosario's Trattoria in Midland Park, where she liked the desserts better than anything else on the huge menu.

Travel weary

With rising air fares and a rising number of fees, more consumer-oriented reporting would be welcome in the Travel section, where such stories are few and far between.

Today, I was bored to tears by the cover story on a staffer attending a wedding in India, as well as Travel Editor Jill Schensul's column on one foreign airline's "social media project."

'Look at how fat our governor is'

Image via Wikipedia

Michael Drewniak and Governor Christie after lying to the media again.

At breakfast this morning, I was looking at a small photo of Governor Christie at the bottom of The Record's front page and said out loud to my wife and son, "Look at how fat our governor is."

"The [horizontal] creases in his pants look like they were pressed in," I went on, drawing a good deal of laughter from both. My wife, who was standing, fell to the floor.

I've been fat all my life, and have gone from defending fat people against media onslaughts to wondering why The Record and other media continue to give Christie a pass during the obesity epidemic, especially in view of his cuts to school nutrition programs.

Laurel and Hardy

The photo of Christie shows him walking next to a much thinner man, who might be Michael Drewniak, the governor's combative spin doctor, trotted out when the GOP bully is tired of lying and refuses to speak with reporters.

The accompanying story by Staff Writer John Reitmeyer of the Trenton Bureau (A-1) is a so-called analysis that clearly shows how he and other reporters refuse to confront Christie on most serious issues -- including taxing the wealthy, obesity, the war on unions and unconscionable cuts in programs for poor women and children.

Hey, Editor Francis Scandale, where's the analysis in what essentially is a rehash? 

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

Christie caricature.

Media delusions

What a hoot. Reitmeyer refers to the media as "restless." Antsy, perhaps. Sheepish, cowardly and afraid to challenge authority -- for sure. 

Most of the stories and editorials in The Record could have been written by the Christie administration.

All Record editors -- fat and thin alike -- have avoided any critical reporting or comment about Christie's apparent inaction on the deadly obesity epidemic, or even questioned why first lady Mary Pat Christie made hunger -- not overeating -- a priority.

Most of A-1 today is taken up by a photo and story on the move of the "Miracle on the Hudson" fuselage to a museum, the second such photo in the paper recently. Is this really front-page news?

Bad hair day

The lead story in Local is on "flood mitigation," a real room-clearer. The terrific standalone photo of a state hairdressers exam on L-1 should have been on A-1, in place of that duplicate "Miracle" photo.

But it's clear the lazy, clueless assignment editors working under Editor Deirdre Sykes didn't have any municipal news for her section, so she had to fill the front with that photo and another of a minor truck-auto collision.

More breaks for wealthy

In Business, a story on Christie's funding  cuts to Urban Enterprise Zones doesn't mention the governor is giving tax breaks to wealthy small-business people instead, without any evidence they will create jobs (B-1). 

In Better Living, The Corner Table restaurant column goes far afield to report on challenges facing country club chefs, but Staff Writer Elisa Ung doesn't  say whether any of those clubs bar blacks, Jews and other undesirables (F-5). 

As a restaurant reviewer and food writer during the obesity epidemic, Ung is a model of irresponsibility -- using her limited expense account to stuff her face with dessert, while avoiding salad, vegetables and fruit.

On the front of Opinion, a note tells readers Columnist Mike Kelly is on assignment -- likely to the nearest toilet seat to come up with fresh ideas.

Klutz on vacation

Travel Editor Jill Schensul's cover story -- "Colombia casting off the shadow of fear" -- won't come as news to the thousands of North Jersey Colombians. The South American country has been a safe destination for at least five years (T-1).

Anyway, who would kidnap that kvetching vegetarian? Barbara Jaeger, her cheap editor, would refuse to pay even $1 in ransom. 

A boatload of mixed messages

Image via Wikipedia

A reader wants to know why Governor Christie doesn't rein in excesses at the state university.

Governor Christie unveils a proposed 2012 budget that calls for sacrifices by tens of thousands of public employees -- while preserving the wealth of his supporters -- but doesn't tell taxpayers he's relying on $240 million in federal funds other Republicans have voted to cut. (See Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park today.)

Still, Christie calls on President Obama to rein in federal spending, or as he put it on "Face the Nation": 

"The spending has been out of control and not as advertised when he ran for president," the Republican thug said of Obama.

You can't have it both ways. What other misery is he planning for middle- and working-class New Jerseyans, while he refuses to tax millionaires? 

Christie has plenty of company in sending mixed messages:

If you can get past the Hollywood and Broadway references again today (Charles Heston, "Kumbaya"), Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin throws a fit over the home-rule system -- in a column that seems to argue taxpayers can no longer "afford" to carry public workers' generous pension and health-care plans (A-11).

But you have to work to find the paragraph about home rule, because it's the penultimate one:

"The target should not be cops, firefighters or teachers. The target should be home rule with its petty, parochial thinking, its maze of unneeded bureaucracy and its bloated budgets packed with political cronies. Fix that and you fix everything else. Fix that and unsustainable contracts are never awarded. Fix that and you consolidate overlapping departments and agencies while preserving fair salaries and benefits for fewer workers. "

If you're not already confused, read the editorial just above his column today that is unequivocal in calling on uniformed public workers to be flexible and accept inevitable changes in their pay and benefits. For all we know, Doblin wrote this unsigned editorial, which doesn't even mention home rule.

A letter to the editor on the same page today blasts Christie for not reining in the excesses at state-owned Rutgers University, which has hired "a politically connected Republican insider as vice president for public affairs at an annual salary of $230,000" -- or $55,000 more than the governor makes and $55,000 over the cap he set for school superintendents.

"It's hard to understand why the taxpayers need to pay our state university to lobby the very state that owns it," David L. Rutherford of Ridgewood writes.

Columnist Mike Kelly hits a rare home run with his column on L-1 today -- about how a teen helped his grandfather, who was haunted by his World War II experiences.

Fading features section 

The front of Better Living is dominated today by a feature on community cookbooks, but not a single recipe from them appears in the article. 

Yet, Features Director Barbara Jaeger found room for some pablum: a wire-service piece on healthy foods, including bananas, eggs and canned beans (F-2).

Also on F-1, Staff Writer Jim Beckerman says an electronic tablet for to-do lists and meeting notes is good for "serious environmentalists fretting about waste-paper," but the reporter recommends "you simply throw it away,"  including the battery.

I guess he never heard of recycling.

Really poor timing

Just as gasoline prices are approaching $4 a gallon, the paper urges more environmental damage by publishing an elaborate story on luxury RVs and campgrounds, replete with photos, by Travel Editor Jill Schensul, a vegetarian whose love for animals doesn't extend to the air we breath.

This reads like a paid advertisement aimed at the wealthiest of readers, such as the Borg family and their jet-setting pals.

The headline on the front of Travel on Sunday trumpeted, "The Luxury RV Experience," but if you read the article, it doesn't seem as if Schensul actually spent any time in one of these polluting behemoths, and she's careful to avoid any mention of the dirty diesel fuel they use or just how wasteful they are.

There's no way to know, but many paragraphs in this nearly two-page article seem to have been lifted directly from RV manufacturers' press releases.

We have to thank Jaeger, Editor Francis Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes for Sunday's and Monday's great papers. Keep up the good work for your advertisers.

It quacks like an editor taking a freebie

Image by insidethemagic via Flickr

The Record's lavish coverage of a new cruise ship takes up a third of the Travel section.

The Page 1 headline today tells us the Packers added to their legacy with a Super Bowl win, but what does  spreading the coverage all over A-1, L-1 and the Sports section tells us about Editor Francis Scandale? Green Bay isn't even a team that plays in New Jersey.

Of course, we know Scandale loves the male-bonding, ass-slapping, towel-snapping and jock-strap waving camaraderie of the news meeting when sports is on the table, but it goes beyond that.

Scandale is no intellectual. Nor is he interested in issues, such as dictatorships in the Middle East, so the Egypt story keeps on bouncing onto and off of the front page. 

He's antsy, like most journalists, and gets bored by a story quickly. He needs to be stimulated every minute of the day -- and he thinks the same of his readers.

More drunk fans

Bill Ervolino's Super Bowl story on fans at a Westwood tavern might have sounded like a good idea, but in the paper, it reads like every story written from a tavern on game day (L-1).

The lead A-1 story on a new proposal for a Hudson River rail tunnel is important for the region's future, but The Star-Ledger beat The Record to it. 

Lucky for Scandale, the two papers have a cooperative news gathering agreement, and Star-Ledger stories plug a lot of holes left empty by The Record's lazy assignment desk under Editor Deirdre Sykes.

Another drone

On the Local front, why is Columnist Mike Kelly wasting his time on a single small-engine plane operated by the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, when he could be writing about the hundreds of small planes and business jets that ruin the quality of life in Hackensack and other towns near Teterboro Airport?

At  the top of L-1, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado was on weekend duty and writing about whether ponds and lakes are safe for skating. Good thing she didn't fall through the ice or Hackensack residents would go from little news to no news about their city.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Mickey Louse

In Travel Editor Jill Schensul's lavish spread on a new Disney cruise ship, she uses the phrase "full disclosure" a number of times, but makes no effort to come clean with readers on whether this was an all-expenses-paid press junket in return for a million dollars of free publicity. 

Her report and photos cover more than a third of the thin, six-page Sunday section.

Although she has a reputation of being a good writer, she delivered this "full disclosure" clunker on Sunday: "My palate is not sophisticated....[But] I was traveling with a serious food knower."

"Food knower," huh? I guess that must make me "a serious fraud knower."

This one is for wrapping fish

Image by Nationaal Archief via Flickr

The Sunday paper leads with a crime story -- a Seton Hall student from Virginia is slain at a party in East Orange. Gripping news for Bergen County readers of The Record of Woodland Park.

The dominant A-1 story is about North Jersey's ridiculous home prices, still artificially high despite the recession, and for that we can thank the greedy real estate industry, whose advertising  helps keep the paper afloat. 

The third front-page story is about a Navy veteran whose slaying hasn't been solved. Why is this cold case on Page 1?


The Local section is another Deirdre Sykes' joke on readers. The big L-1 story has the headline, "Towns weigh change" -- a guaranteed room-clearer -- and the subhead uses the word "service" twice -- a major no-no.

Desk Warrior John "Limp Chick" Cichowski continues to roam far from his mission of writing about commuters, with a story on the driving record of a moron from a reality TV show. You won't find any Hackensack or Englewood news in the section.


Could there be anything more promotional than Elisa Ung's F-6 column on a single pizzeria in Allendale? Does she really expect us to believe the owner is "America's Best Pizza Maker," as an industry magazine proclaims? What a sell-out.

Three letters to the editor in Opinion today objected to the A-1 story Sept. 18 about an obscure Jewish practice of killing chickens for Yom Kippur. Let's hope the editors kill any more story ideas from Staff Writer Deena Yellin, if they involve Orthodox Jews.

Who isn't bored with the full page of photos in Travel showing readers holding up the section while on vacation? This is one page less in a thin, six-page section that the self-styled klutz of a travel editor has to fill with useful information for travelers. 

Take a good look at those photos. All of the people appear to be white or Asian, which largely reflects the racial make-up of The Record newsroom, although Publisher Greedy Stevie Borg long ago gave the heave-ho to most of the older workers.

(Top photo: The Record's local news assignment desk.)

Note to readers

Don't miss the previous post: "Tales from the old Hackensack newsroom," and don't forget to click on "comments" for Jerry DeMarco's recollections of working side-by-side with head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes (aka Mama Crass).

Readers are scratching their heads

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If part of Grand Avenue in Englewood is one way and another section carries two-way traffic,  readers need to know that right away, especially if you cover much of the front page with a big photo showing a collision between a bus and a cop car. Instead, with this story and others today, The Record of Woodland Park leaves many scratching their heads.

Well, you can search the A-1 caption and read the story and caption on L-1, and unless you are familiar with Englewood, it's all very confusing, as the former Hackensack daily bobbles yet another routine story, leaving readers to fill in the blanks for themselves. 

Here's what the three reporters who worked on this epic tale don't tell you. The Bergen County police officer's car crossed over the double-yellow line before the collision in front of Sonny's Pizzeria -- on the two-way stretch of Grand Avenue south of Route 4. North of Route 4, Grand Avenue is one way until Palisade Avenue, where it becomes Engle Street. 

The A-1 photo shows the police car straddling the double-yellow line and angled toward the front of the Red & Tan bus, but the story never addresses that. Was the cop on his cell phone or was there a mechanical failure in the Ford Crown Victoria, which many police departments continue to use despite safety problems and fatal crashes involving officers? Did the officer have a seizure or other health problem? Your guess is as good as mine.

Yet the story contains a lot of unnecessary information, such as interviews that reveal "it is not uncommon to see police pursue vehicles on Grand Avenue." Huh? The officer in the collision wasn't involved in a chase, his superior told the paper. And one of the reporters uses a quote on a save-get key: "It sounded like a bomb." Where are the weekend assignment editor and the news copy desk on a story this bad?


If the officer was at fault, it's the second black mark against county police, who reportedly shot at burglary suspects during a chase the other day. The county prosecutor is investigating the gunfire. But with nearly 70 police departments in the county, why do we need this county force?

Back on A-1, Staff Writer Michael Gartland continues his excellent work covering Bergen County government with an expose of the huge debt rolled up by the county Improvement Authority. But below the fold, two Business reporters bore us with a long story about a builder of multimillion dollar homes who foundered during the recession, and who owes creditors $11 million.

Does anyone feel sorry for this man, who was at the center of artificially inflating the values of homes that frustrated many first-time home buyers? And is it really fair to readers to portray greedy investors -- who gave him money to help build these monstrosities in hope of a big profit -- as victims? Why is this story on A-1?

In the A-section, Teaneck reporter Joseph Ax has a story about the township's Muslim mayor visiting the White House, but there is no Hackensack or Englewood municipal news in the paper, or news of many other towns. 

The L-1 story on "green" burials is fascinating, but it makes no mention that Orthodox Jews and other groups have been burying their dead in this fashion for eons.

 If it wasn't for Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais, the paper would have little consumer reporting. Today, on the Business front, he tackles the hidden fees that are so difficult to learn about when you're trying to compare airline fares. 

Of course, the real question is why this issue hasn't been covered extensively in the Travel section, where klutzy Editor Jill Schensul today celebrates hugely wasteful and polluting RVs.


The Borgs can rest easy tonight, knowing Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes and their minions are doing such a great job.

(Photo: The infamous Ford Crown Victoria police interceptor.)

Worst transportation reporter?

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 Most experts agree that more mass transit is the solution for traffic congestion in North Jersey and that buses, trains and light rail aren't expected to pay their own way. But not so-called transportation reporter Tom Davis of The Record of Woodland Park, which on Page 1 today publishes its third negative mass transit story in six months.

 Davis is probably the worst transportation reporter The Record has had in the past two decades, and that's saying something, in view of Dan Sforza's elegies on highways of the future that he wrote -- instead of reporting on the quality of train and bus service -- when he was a transportation reporter.


Sforza may now be Davis' assignment editor, which would go a long way in explaining why the latter selectively reports on the debate over extension of light rail into Bergen County. Davis, in today's piece and in an article in December, portrays light rail as negatively as possible -- completely omitting all the positives. He must think readers are fools.


It's only in the last paragraph of today's story -- on Page A-12 -- that he finally acknowledges no transit agency in the United States was ever set up to make money. So why does almost his entire story make such a big deal of light rail's financial losses?


Under Editor Frank Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, the former Hackensack daily seems to have appointed itself as taxpayers' watchdog. While ignoring coverage of Hackensack, Englewood and other major communities, these editors and their obedient reporters have been drumming a relentless beat -- teachers make too much money, cops make too much money and, now, mass transit loses too much money. 


In Better Living, the only food news appears to be a Chicago Tribune piece on biscotti and mandelbrot. What did $70,000-plus Food Editor Bill Pitcher do, take a three-day weekend? Does anybody miss Restaurant Reviewer-on-Leave Elisa Ung's Sunday column, which often amounted to little more than free advertising for a restaurant owner or chef?

How much longer can Travel survive as a section with barely any information readers can use to negotiate arcane airline rules, find the best deals possible and select decent hotels? 

The Record on the Road -- photos of travelers holding the Travel section -- is such a waste of space. The only thing of substance in the section today is a column by the klutzy travel editor, Jill Schensul. Let's hope the paper paid for her 15-day trip to Europe or was it one of those cushy, free familiarization trips the travel industry is notorious for lavishing on writers? 

Is that all there is to Travel? During the obesity epidemic, Publisher Stephen A. Borg, in his wisdom, folded the Food section, but kept Travel. That must be the "responsible journalism" espoused by North Jersey Media Group from its mountain-top headquarters.

More lazy journalism

The last five daily editions of  The Record contain a lot of dreck and  a lot of short-cut or lazy journalism, but there were signs of life among local news editors and reporters. Still, I didn't find any news about Hackensack, which the newspaper appears to have declared dead.

Today's front page is dominated by a headline, "Sports gear scam hits high schools,"  which reports a "massive financial fraud against high schools in New Jersey," including falsified helmet-safety tests and lavish gifts to school officials. I plowed through the page-and-a quarter continuation of the story without seeing any mention of whether the same company tested helmets for junior football players.

And the reporters never say why we didn't learn about this a year ago, when a company president pleaded guilty, despite the release then of a "startling document." I guess it wasn't startling enough to wake up editors and reporters asleep at their computers.

Governor-elect Chris Christie says state finances are even worse than he realized, but the story is relegated to Page A-4. Three corrections appear on A-2.

Giovanna Fabiano, the reporter who covers Englewood, Englewood Cliffs and Leonia, seems to have awoken out of a slumber, with five stories in five days. Today, she reports on a protest by Englewood teachers, one of the easiest stories a reporter can do. She must be waiting for a protest by drivers, before reporting on Englewood's Manhattan-like downtown traffic jams, or a protest by residents, before reporting on how many of them are awakened by gunshots from the open-air police firing range.

The Business section has a second story in four days about a Wyckoff store's jewelry giveaway -- much too promotional for my taste, especially when you consider none of the 30 bags were hidden in diverse communities.

Monday's front page was wasted on an elaborate package reporting that a convicted senator from Paramus was due to report to federal prison and a recap of nine other politicians who are behind bars. Do North Jersey readers need any reminders of how many corrupt politicians we're saddled with? Then, the paper actually sent one of its own photographers to Pennsylvania to get a photo of the senator, but you can hardly make him out through the SUV windshield. All that way, and no photo of the rug-less felon?

I was more interested in storm damage to the communities I've visited on the beloved Jersey Shore, but searched the Star-Ledger story on A-4 in vain for any meaningful detail.

An editorial on A-11 bemoaning the state's poor showing on carbon dioxide emissions, much of them from cars and trucks, only served to highlight how little reporting the former Hackenack daily does on the  quality of mass transit, including some of the decrepit buses serving minorities. Have any of the transportation reporters ever ridden a bus or train in the last 15 years and written about it? When he was transportation reporter, Assistant Assignment Editor Dan Sforza ignored the loud, screeching brakes and roaring engines of new NJ Transit cruiser buses -- and the impact they had on residents along Grand Avenue in Englewood and other routes --  preferring to write about "highways of the future."

The Local section Monday is dominated by a feel-good story from Paterson, which is getting far better coverage than Hackensack, perhaps because the newspaper moved its newsroom to Woodland Park many, many months ago. In the same way, New Street, which runs by 1 Garret Mountain Plaza, where most of the staff is  located, gets more ink than any street in Bergen County. Better Living reports on restaurants in the West Englewood section of Teaneck, finally shedding the bewildering "Progressive Dining" label of the past.

Page 1 on Sunday reports the outrageous pay of interim schools superintendents, another in a series of stories designed to push taxpayers' buttons. The newspaper lavishes hundreds of hours of staff time writing about symptoms of broken systems -- in this case, ruinously expensive home rule -- but refuses to use its editorial muscle to call for their abolishment.


Sunday's paper also reports Venetians staged a mock funeral for the city of canals, but I guess I missed the story reporting the death of  Hackensack. This paper also contains columns by Road Warrior John Cichowski and Mike Kelly, both of whom are so far over the hill, you can no longer see the hill. And to think the paper kept these turkeys, but silenced its only black columnist, its only Latino columnist and the only columnist writing about the heroics of  police officers, firefighters and EMTs.

In the Opinion section Sunday, the lead article on why Governor Corzine lost the election is from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Three letters to the editor inside the section expose the lies told by ex-Governor Christie Whitman in a column that ran Nov. 10 without an editor's note.

A 2010 Dine Out Guide came with The Record, but this special advertising section excludes any restaurant that didn't buy an ad in the 64-page booklet. An article in Better Living reports on holiday restaurant meals starting at $25 per person (or $24 at one expensive Greek place, if  you can manage to round up 25 people), but ignores cheaper alternatives, such as the sub-$20-per-person, multicourse meals and banquets at Lotus Cafe in Hackensack, including tax and tip.

The Travel section this past Sunday was a thin six pages, but contained a story about restaurants in Montreal, just a few weeks after one about restaurants in New Orleans, a welcome feature that has been all too rare in the past. I just wish Elisa Ung, the paper's restaurant reviewer, could have found healthier fare in Montreal, instead of stuffing her face with high-cholesterol food and high-calorie desserts.

Why did Saturday's paper lead with a story on how 9/11 victims are divided over trying the alleged mastermind in Manhattan? Isn't that a decision best left to prosecutors? We get more elaborate recipes from food editor Bill Pitcher, who must think we all love slaving over the stove for hours on end. One calls for 20 ingredients.

Why is a proposed expenditure by the Englewood City Council to refurbish a firetruck on the front of the Local section? Isn't there more important news than that? Inside the section is a preview of the teachers' protest the reporter covered Monday.

On Page 1 this past Friday,the newspaper highlights the need for campaign-financing reform for the umpteenth time, again without calling for an end to a system where only the wealthy can run for county or statewide office. I got a kick out of a letter to the editor on A-22 in which a Fort Lee man calls the Yankees a "bunch of overpaid prima donnas."

In Better Living, for the third week, there is no Starters column on a new restaurant. And as usual, the restaurant health inspections column is incomplete.

The vibe of a tabloid

Image by grantuhard via Flickr

The plastic bag holding The Record today was fat and heavy. But once I put aside the many useless advertising inserts, the Sports section and the thin Sunday Travel section, there wasn't much of interest in the former Hackensack daily.

Squeezed down at the bottom of Page 1 is a "refer" to a story on A-4 that reports Governor-elect Chris Christie would veto any tax hike from the Legislature after he takes office next year. Has Christie set a record for a governor-elect falling off The Record's front page?

There are no local news corrections on A-2, in contrast to Thursday and Friday. In general, today's paper is filled with a lot of shooting and crime news, giving The Record -- once respected for its local news coverage -- the vibe of a sensational tabloid.

On Page A-13, a letter to the editor discusses concerns about schools in Englewood that I don't recall seeing in a staff-written interview with the new superintendent Oct. 26. An editorial urges passage of health-care reform, a day after the front page carried a protest by crackpots.

In Local news, long stories with Paterson datelines report the arrests of alleged child abusers and sex offenders , but for yet another day, there is no municipal news from highly diverse Teaneck, Englewood and Hackensack, which was the paper's home for more than 110 years.

Most of the blacks in Bergen County live in those three communities. Is The Record turning its back on them by reducing and relocating most of its local news staff out of Hackensack?

Has the head of the local news assignment desk, Deirdre Sykes, failed miserably in her leadership role by tying up local reporters -- including the woman assigned to cover Hackensack -- on a mysterious, interminable investigation, which began in early 2007 and has yet to be published? What is Managing Editor Frank Burgos, the highest-ranking minority editor, doing to increase minority news coverage? Have the owners, the Borg family, noticed the precipitous decline in news from those communities, especially Englewood, where the wealthy Malcolm A. Borg lives and where he raised his children, two of whom are now running the paper? Borg himself grew up in Hackensack in a big, white house at Summit and Fairmount avenues with a back yard of more than 14 acres.

In all my 29 years at The Record, I can't recall seeing a long, positive story about the Jamaican community in Englewood, Hackensack and Teaneck -- the vast majority of whom are hard-working and church-going. But a couple of years ago, the Englewood reporter raced out to report a shooting during a Jamaican restaurant's customer-appreciation day.

In Better Living, as usual for most Saturdays, there is no food coverage -- unless you count a single recipe from McClatchy Newspapers  for the millions of tailgaters in North Jersey.

Am I the only one who is sick and tired of seeing readers in vacation spots holding up a copy of The Record's Travel section? Does the editor think all her readers are shut-ins? Couldn't she better devote the space in the tiny section to hard reporting about all the arcane airfare rules that bite travelers or the hoops we are asked to jump through to get low hotel rates? And what about travel sites whose hotel-room photos lure us into a non-refundable reservation, only for us to discover the place is a dump or that smoking is allowed in all the rooms?