Christie trashes Gannett's 'billionaire bosses' on Twitter

Governor Christie's Twitter page, above and below, has been filled with criticism of "billionaire newspaper owners" demanding a government subsidy in the form of payments to publish legal notices. This week, the state Legislature deferred action on a bill to remove that requirement, which Christie claims would save taxpayers $80 million a year.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

@GovChristie has been flailing away on Twitter at "billionaire newspaper owners" who "demand Gov't subsidy from taxpayers but refuse to open their books to show how much tax $ they already take."

The GOP bully just suffered an embarrassing defeat when he tried to get the state Legislature to enact what he calls "a commonsense piece of legislation" to "reform an archaic practice requiring taxpayers and private businesses to pay for costly legal notices" in newspapers.

But the bill isn't dead; action was deferred until the next session in the new year.

Hidden revenue

The Record of Woodland Park, now owned by Gannett, disputed the $80 million in savings Christie cited, if the new law offered the option of posting public notices online.

But nowhere in the week-long blitz of news stories, columns and editorials attacking Christie did The Record mention that, according to a message from the governor posted on Twitter:

"In the case of foreclosure, every family going through that trauma is charged an average of $910 just for the legally required newspaper notice.

"That is unconscionable, and in response to the advancing legislation the New Jersey Press Association proposes to increase those charges.

"As a result, required legal notices earned newspapers approximately $14 million for the 12-month period ending in October 2016," Christie says.

"Today, there are more than 65,000 foreclosures currently pending in New Jersey. That's $59 million in potential revenue going to private media outlets that can instead be saved by citizens experiencing foreclosure.

"For government entities, hundreds of millions of dollars of future resources to be spent on legal notices could now be made available ... for municipal and county services...."

One of Christie's Tweets refers directly to the layoffs at North Jersey Media Group after the publisher of The Record and other newspapers was purchased in July by Gannett Co., which now owns seven dailies in New Jersey.

Attacks Gannett

"Reporters blindly defend their billionaire bosses and their $80m subsidy while Gannett lays off their colleagues in Bergen," the governor tweeted, in an apparent reference to The Record, once known as The Bergen Record.

Of course, the paper's Hackensack headquarters were shut down in 2009, and the newsroom moved to Woodland Park.

The Record and Herald News have been printed in Rockaway Township for about a decade.

To all Democrats: Don't take election of Clinton for granted

Filmmaker Michael Moore (@MMFlint) tweeted five reasons he thinks Republican wacko racist Donald J. Trump will be the next president of the United States.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

"Donald J. Trump is going to win in November," filmmaker Michael Moore predicts.

"This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president," Moore said in a call to the voting booth that appears on his website, MichaelMoore.com and on Twitter.

One major problem, Moore noted, is that in poor, black and Hispanic neighborhoods, where Democrat Hillary Clinton has widespread support, "everything is being done to literally stop them from casting a ballot ... so in most elections it's hard to get even 50% to turn out to vote."

But in what Moore calls "the last stand of the angry white man," Trump's "crazed fans are going to be up at 5 a.m. on Election Day, kicking ass all day long ...."

Today's paper

To tens of thousands of Jewish, Muslim, Protestant, agnostic and atheistic readers, the retirement of the Newark archbishop is a non-event, so why does the story take up so much precious space on A-1 of The Record today?

Trump has pledged to build a wall on the Mexican border and deport 11 million illegal aliens, so why is Columnist Michael Kelly wasting our time with a Page 1 piece that has readers' eyes rolling:

"Trump a dilemma for many Hispanics"

Kelly's second column appears today on the Opinion section cover (O-1), where he looks ahead to the Sept. 12 trial of Governor Christie's key allies in the George Washington Bridge lane closures.

In the court of public opinion, Christie himself has been found guilty of involvement in the politically motivated traffic jam, but Kelly doesn't seem convinced.

Citing Christie's prosecution of Clinton at the Republican National Convention last week, Kelly fails to remind readers the GOP bully also erased emails, as well as text messages, related to Bridgegate, and "lost" his cellphone for two years, according to reporting by WNYC-FM.

Amateur hour

Don't bother with Better Living's amateurish appraisal of Fort Lee's diverse dining scene or the wildly exaggerated comparison to Manhattan (BL-1).

Staff Writer Elisa Ung has been reviewing North Jersey restaurants and writing about food for about a decade -- yet she still hasn't discovered Hiura, which opened on Main Street about 25 years ago.

Many consider the BYO with fewer than 30 seats the best sushi and Japanese restaurant around.

She also ignores BCD, a Korean restaurant in Fort Lee that serves organic soft-tofu soup and superior side dishes.

Trump's hate speech may encourage rash of terror attacks

Today's cover of the New York Post commenting on the Bastille Day attack on a crowd watching fireworks in Nice, on the French Riviera. (The town's name is pronounced "NIECE," not "NICE.") Below, a Post cover from February, when Governor Christie endorsed wacko racist Donald J. Trump for president in the apparent hope -- now dashed -- the billionaire would pick him as the GOP's vice presidential candidate.

Seven major New Jersey dailies -- six of them owned by the Gannett Co. -- cited the endorsement of Trump when they called on Christie to resign. However, The Record didn't, and it's unclear whether that position will change now that Gannett has purchased the Woodland Park daily.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Is there anyone Donald J. Trump doesn't hate?

Eleven million immigrants, all Muslims, women and legions of others are on the hit list of the Republican Party's presumptive presidential candidate.

Now, as we try to absorb yet another attack on innocent people in France, you have to wonder whether Trump's venomous speech is encouraging terrorism here and abroad.

"Has anyone else noticed?" CoCoWats tweeted on Thursday afternoon (@WatsJo). "Terrorist attacks have drastically increased since Donald announced his candidacy."

Meanwhile, Trump's fellow Muslim hater, Governor Christie, now is out of the running for vice president on the GOP ticket.

Instead, Trump has picked just what we all really need -- another heartland conservative, Gov. Mike Spence of Indiana, where only 6.6 million people live, many of them on farms.

Today's paper

In a Page 1 column today, Staff Writer Charles Stile, The Record's chief apologist for Christie, reports Spence is Trump's choice.

But the headline -- "Former mentor delivers hit to Christie's hopes" -- makes it sound like the GOP bully still is in the running for the Republican Party's all-hate, all-the-time ticket.

The headline on the continuation page (A-6) also is outdated, given the apparent selection of Spence:

"STILE: Former mentor's guilty plea delivers hit to VP hopes."

"Former mentor" is a reference to former Port Authority Chairman David Samson, who Christie has called a "father figure."

Samson pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday to bribery charges for pressuring United Airlines to launch what amounted to private jet travel to his vacation home in South Carolina (A-1).

Samson, who Christie named to the powerful job of Port Authority chairman, was charged as part of the FBI investigation into the politically motivated lane closures at the George Washington Bridge in September 2013. 

Searching in vain for local news that matters to me

In Hackensack, a former bank building at 210 Main St. is slated to be converted into apartments, one of the projects city officials are counting on to revive the faded downtown. I recall the original United Jersey Bank as having a majestic interior, including a high ceiling that was ornately decorated.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Page 1 of The Record today, Editor Marty Gottlieb is keeping his eye on legalization of gay marriage nationwide, school news and sports.

The front page carries a follow-up to Monday's report on how wealthy, one-school districts want to lift the salary cap on superintendents imposed by Governor Christie in 2011.

Of course, The Record has always ignored why Christie didn't impose a similar cap on police chiefs, some of whom are paid more than $200,000 a year.

And on the superintendents' pay, the editors never explain why small towns need a superintendent or what that educator actually does (A-1).

Raising superintendents pay would adversely affect Gottlieb's biggest audience, baby boomers and seniors, who pay extremely high school taxes, but that issue is never raised.  

On top of that, the home-rule system of government has proven a huge financial burden to property tax payers with its mindless duplication of services in the 86 towns in Bergen and Passaic counties. 

But Gottlieb, who lives in Manhattan, hasn't a clue, and his local assignment editors have been defending  the system for decades.

An editorial on A-10 bemoans the "brain drain" that inhibits more affluent districts from pursuing the "best and the brightest" to lead their schools.

Why isn't Edtorial Page Editor Alfred Doblin upset about another school issue, Englewood's segregated elementary and middle schools, more than 60 years after the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education?

Local news?

A photo on the Local front today shows a man with a cane who got off an NJ Transit bus on Anderson Street in Hackensack (L-1).

The caption notes the man "negotiates the slush and ice," but fails to report a snowbank created by city plows has blocked the bus stop itself for more than two weeks.

The weather story with that photo doesn't list Hackensack High School as one of the school that closed on Monday.

News handouts

Why did the lazy local assignment editors and the reporters working under them blow their cover in the first paragraph of today's lead story on L-1?

Staff Writers Stefanie Dazio and Abbott Koloff note the arrest of a suspect in the strangling death of Jordan Johnson of Fort Lee was announced in "a news release." 

On Monday, The Record reported on Page 1 details of who killed whom in Friday's murder-suicide in Closter were revealed by Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli on Twitter.

Excessive background

Every story needs background for readers who may not have been keeping up with crime developments.

But today's account of the arrest in the Fort Lee man's death seems excessively long -- perhaps because the editors, no matter how hard they try, can't generate more local Bergen news.

And Sunday's and Monday's stories on the Closter couple, Michael A. Tabacchi and Iran Pars Tabacchi, contain the same exact sentence when discussing the 15-month-old boy who was orphaned, but who isn't named:

The toddler is "by all accounts the centerpiece of a marriage that was taking root in a quiet, suburban neighborhood" (Monday's A-7 and Sunday's A-1).

But nothing is made of the age difference: The husband was 27 and the wife was 41.

The story on Monday also repeated interviews with their High Street neighbors that were published on Sunday. 

Editors miss big story about legal system

This pothole on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack was photographed on Feb. 23, but still hasn't been repaired. I called the Department of Public Works and was told crews are filling holes, but permanent repairs can't be made until warmer weather arrives.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

A Page 1 photo in The Record today shows a man in rumpled clothing who could stand in for tens of thousands of litigants who have been made poorer by high legal fees.

Although the editors say Governor Christie is paying $650 an hour to his Bridgegate lawyer, the paper has never explored a system with no apparent ceiling on legal fees paid by ordinary people who face age, race or employment bias or who file other civil suits.

And those high fees deny access to the courts for thousands of people with legitimate grievances.

Rewarding lawyers

Today, a front-page story discusses all of the judicial vacancies Christie has left unfilled, including 21 in Essex County, causing case backlogs (A-1).

But the story doesn't explain those backlogs delay the cases of plaintiffs who then have to shell out even more money in legal fees, playing into the hands of lawyers like Christie.

Screwing up the legal system is the latest accomplishment of the GOP bully, the worst governor New Jersey has ever had.

High legal fees

Staff Writer Kibret Markos, who covers the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, has ignored high legal fees in just about every story he's written about lawsuits.

And Markos never tells readers that plaintiffs only collect part of those huge multi-million dollar  jury awards that make headlines, with a significant portion going to the lawyers.

None of this is surprising, given the propensity of the Borg family, which publishes The Record, to sue people for alleged copyright infringement, forcing them to spend many thousands of dollars to defend themselves.

North Jersey Media Group also regularly employs lawyers from firms in New Jersey and New York, paying them hundreds of dollars an hour to file suits to enforce open-records laws and for other purposes.

Maybe the Borgs get a discount when they run favorable publicity about Pashman Stein, the Hackensack law firm they employ frequently.

Media negativity

Staff Writer Virginia Rohan panned Ellen DeGeneres' performance as host of the Oscars on Sunday night, but today, the paper reports the broadcast drew the most watchers since 2004 and that a "selfie" by actor Bradley Cooper crashed Twitter (A-4).

Was Rohan merely indulging in the kind of negativity the media seem to love, finding fault with nearly everything and often failing to report anything  positive?

Editors' favorites

Of course, the editors do have favorites, including Christie and Rep. Scott Garrett, the conservative crackpot who represents the 5th District in Congress, including the liberal bastions of Hackensack, Fair Lawn and part of Teaneck.

Today, an Opinion piece by Garrett appears on A-9, where he decries "government intrusion" in food choices and other consumer issues. 

Hey, give me a break. Garrett, you may remember, initially opposed President Obama's offer of billions of dollars to help Sandy victims in New Jersey.

I keep misspelling his last name as "Garret," as in the mountain near the Woodland Park newsroom, and that's likely because every word out of his mouth adds to a mountain of mean-spirited bullshit.

More headlines

On L-6 today, two local obituaries appear, retelling the lives of a Lodi High School coach and a state police veteran who got plenty of headlines when they were alive (L-7).

What about the unknown, unsung people who led interesting lives? Don't they deserve some special attention?

More bad reporting

Rohan is back today with way too much information about "the evolution" of Matthew McConaughey, who won the best actor Oscar on Sunday night (BL-1).

What a waste of space. I would like to have seen second thoughts on her harsh assessment of DeGeneres in Monday's paper.

I especially found curious the reporter professed to be puzzled -- she wrote, "Huh?" -- when the daytime talk show host told the audience they would be considered racists, if "12 Years a Slave" didn't win the Oscar for best picture.

Obviously, that was a reference to academy members rejecting a film with a black director, a black screenwriter and a largely black cast that is a clear condemnation of slavery, which enriched whites and drove the country into civil war. 

Hilarious pizza bit

And I can't fathom Rohan's claim that there was no payoff after DeGeneres ordered pizzas, said she didn't have any money and asked Hollywood bigs to fork over some cash.

Harvey Weinstein, the homeliest studio head in Hollywood, handed her a couple of big bills, and actor Brad Pitt also contributed to the pot.

Instead of wasting space on the "evolution" of an actor, The Record's editor, Marty Gottlieb, should run a long piece on the "devolution" of Christie, and explain why he deserved reelection last year.

And let's hope that if Gottlieb assigns such a story, he picks someone who isn't as dim-witted as Rohan.

You have to read Page 1 from the bottom up

To vote against the well-honed political machine that has dominated Hackensack for decades, residents will have to go to Line 11 at the bottom of the May 14 ballot, below, to elect independent City Council candidate Victor E. Sasson, editor of Eye on The Record and Do You Really Know What You're Eating?  Readers of The Record also have to employ this bottoms-up strategy.

After 7 straight days of front-page, sky-is-falling coverage of the Boston marathon bombing, local readers have learned to unfold Page 1 of The Record to find news that hits closer to home.

Editor Marty Gottlieb, who is walking around the Woodland Park newsroom humming "April in Paris," devotes most of the front page to the "big story" of the day, throwing crumbs to local-news readers.

Below the fold

Today, readers who look below the fold will find a story on the continuing decline of Catholic schools in Hackensack and other communities, and a report on towns investing in lightning-detection systems (A-1).

On A-2 today, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes acknowledges an error in the Dean's List she uses as filler in place of local news.

User unfriendly

On Sykes' Local section front, an interesting story on Fair Trade coffee farmers in Guatemala omits the address of the Teaneck General Store or any other place North Jersey readers can buy the coffee (L-1).

On L-2, a story on a proposal to limit comments by Englewood City Council members to 10 minutes doesn't say how much time residents have to comment or whether other municipal councils also impose a ceiling on their members.

In Hackensack, residents have a 5-minute limit, even though only a handful of people show up for the meetings.

Anyway, City Council members have been ignoring what they say for decades.


Better Living

The "Contact Us" box in Sunday's Better Living section continues to list Susan Leigh Sherrill as food editor, despite rumors she is leaving the job.

Sherrill has kept her Twitter handle as @susanlsherrill, but on the site she appears as Susan L. Axelrod, using her photographer husband's last name.

The Better Living editor is now Marc Schwarz, replacing Stephanie Rivers, who was hired in September 2011 to replace Barbara Jaeger.

Follow the bouncing news ball

Image by Bob Jagendorf via Flickr

Is this what 400 pounds looks like?

Boy's death stuns community

This Page 1 headline refers to Michael Cabaj, who was struck and killed by a train at 4:51 p.m. Monday in Garfield.

But his death wasn't good enough for Page 1 of The Record on Tuesday -- only for the Local front -- and supposedly the community wasn't stunned until Tuesday, so the story is promoted to the front page today.

Eye on The Record can only guess at the dysfunction inside the Woodland Park newsroom, but the last two editions speak volumes about lazy, clueless assignment editors working under the dead weight of Editor Deirdre Sykes, and Editor Francis Scandale scrambling day after day to find fresh news to fill  his beloved Page 1.

Exhausting news

Scandale must have exhausted himself berating the news copy desk to craft upbeat headlines on the multi-story A-1 package reporting Governor Christie's apparently final decision not to run for the White House.

Political Stile Columnist Charles Stile got the closest to one likely reason Christie is staying in New Jersey when he wrote, "In the end, it all came down to a gut check (A-8)."

That's right. Christie and his advisers took one look at his gut, and concluded the governor isn't healthy enough for a presidential campaign, recalling how he was hospitalized for an asthma attack in July.

Michael Drewniak, Christie's press secretary and chief spin doctor, has ignored questions about the governor's weight. Late-night comedian David Letterman has guessed Christie weighs 400 pounds.


An editorial on A-10 today notes, "Increasingly , we have found ourselves supporting his [Christie's] reform agenda."


That's certainly not news, given all the favorable Christie columns spilling from Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin since the GOP bully took office in January 2010.


On the same page, readers can find another in a series of letters from crackpots such as John Criscione of Fort Lee who blame President Obama for all of society's woes.

Railroad safety

On A-9, a photo shows two NJ Transit police officers. Who know the state mass-transit agency had cops who could guard railroad tracks and help prevent needless deaths, including the three Sunday night and Monday afternoon?

You certainly wouldn't know it from the columns of the office-bound John Cichowski, who has been masquerading as the Road Warrior. He's foaming at the mouth today, blaming the victims and lecturing readers about the physics of those big, bad trains (L-1).

Who cut out Cichowski's heart? More importantly, who cut out his brain and his instincts, so he doesn't question whether NJ Transit is doing all it can to make the tracks safer with fences and guards? 

Isn't he supposed to advocate for pedestrians, not state bureaucracies trying to limit their liability?

Just another killing

Sykes' assignment desk didn't think the murder of a Teaneck woman on Tuesday afternoon was good enough for Page 1 today or it held onto the story for the front of Local because it failed again to generate much municipal news.

Also, if you're killed in Teaneck, you have to be an Orthodox Jew to make The Record's front page. The victim in this case, Shaday Betancourt, appears to have been Hispanic.

The story mentions the victim's "family," but there are no details on whether the slain woman had children, parents or was employed. As far as Sykes is concerned, she's just another homicide victim, just another body.

Page L-2 today is dominated by news about the Englewood police, and L-3 resembles a police blotter.

From hunger

What a scam Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill has going on Publisher Stephen A. Borg, whose mind certainly isn't in the kitchen.

Her life-is-good smile is back on the front of Better Living in a photo accompanying her single weekly recipe, apple-date chutney. 


That's just what I've been missing in my diet. Now, I hope I can find an hour to make it.

Besides re-writing press releases for the Second Helpings blog on NorthJersey.com, tweeting and rubbing shoulders with celebrity chefs, she doesn't appear to do much else, making her the least active food editor in memory.

Two of her recent tweets refer to her husband, photographer Ted Axelrod, who sells photos to The Record and (201) magazine.

susanlsherrill Susan Sherrill 

Another fun morning photo shoot with @Axelrodphoto - apple date chutney for my @BetterLivingNJ column. yfrog.com/kki0wiij

3 Oct 

susanlsherrill Susan Sherrill 

Roasted oysters w/ herb butter, grilled squid, ribeye steaks, champagne - night in w/ @Axelrodphoto: priceless!

1 Oct Favorite Retweet Reply