He's big news on the front page, misidentified in Opinion

Late for work? On the way to the gym on Tuesday morning, I encountered this driver, who blew through a stop sign in Hackensack, and drove well over the speed limit on Spring Valley Avenue. Here, I was stopped behind the driver on Summit Avenue in Hackensack. One sticker says, "I brake for UFOs." The peace symbol obviously doesn't signal the hippie driver wants to coexist peacefully with other motorists.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's Woodland Park newsroom can't seem to get its accuracy act together.

On Sunday's front page, Bergen County Democratic Chairman Lou Stellato was portrayed as so powerful he could "make or break" a candidate seeking to become New Jersey's next governor.

But in the Opinion section, a photo of Stellato flummoxed everyone from the lowly photographer who took it to the production editor who gets paid six figures to prevent embarrassing errors from getting into the paper.

Lou who?

OK. I wouldn't know Stellato, if I sat next to him on the bus. But he doesn't look anything like James Tedesco, the Bergen County executive-elect.

Yet, the photo of Stellato ran with a caption identifying him as Tedesco, even though Tedesco was correctly identified in a photo caption on A-10 of the same edition.

The editors didn't run a correction on A-2 until Tuesday:

"A caption on Page O-4 on Sunday misidentified a man greeting supporters of Bergen County Executive-elect James Tedesco last Tuesday night. Pictured was Democratic Chairman Lou Stellato."

The problem may lie in how the lazy editors, including Production Editor Liz Houlton, have always relied on staff photographers to provide accurate spellings and identifications of the people in their photos, and have often failed to check the accuracy of the information.

More errors

A second correction on Tuesday noted the paper was wrong in identifying the type of crude oil carried by tanker cars through Bergen County.

The crude is from North Dakota, not Canada, as the L-1 story reported on Monday.

Today, A-2 corrects the misspelling of "the surname" of a high school soccer player that appeared on Nov. 4. "She is Katey Samarro," the editors note.

Bus woes ease?

A Page 1 story today reports the Port Authority has made some changes to ease the delays home-bound North Jersey commuters were facing leaving the antiquated bus terminal in midtown Manhattan during the rush hour.

But the story doesn't address the difficulty of getting to the gridlocked terminal, if you take a North Jersey bus into the city in the late afternoon.

Christie's future

Marc Schaeffer of Wyckoff is a letter writer who provides a perspective on Governor Christie's White House ambitions the editors and reporters are unable or unwilling to provide (A-10).

"Imagine the exuberance of the opposition research teams," if Christie decides to run, Schaeffer writes.

"The first vulnerability that will be exposed is the illusion of the New Jersey economic recovery Christie has advanced."

"Then, they will turn to the cesspool of patronage, cronyism and alleged financial impropriety at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey..."

You get the idea. 

Schaeffer analyzes Christie's chances of success in a way you have never seen in The Record, where the GOP bully has received overwhelmingly favorable coverage since he took office in 2010 and began his war on the middle and working classes.

Dead at 57

The Record's obituary writers can't be bothered trying to explain why so many African-American men die in their 50s, as you can see in today's story on rapper Henry Jackson of Tenafly (L-1).

Korean War veterans passing St. Patrick's Cathedral during Tuesday's parade up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Korean New Yorkers who fought in Vietnam also marched in the Veterans Day parade.

Hackensack news

Staff Writer Todd South didn't have anything to report about this past Monday's City Council meeting.

But today, the Hackensack reporter has an upbeat story on a Veterans Day ceremony for the nearly 30 veterans who now work for Hackenack University Medical Center (L-3).

Like thousands of other residents, I thought about the hospital on Monday, when I made my quarterly property tax payment of more than $4,300 to the city of Hackenack.

How much smaller would it have been, if the non-profit but tremendously profitable hospital made payments in lieu of taxes to Hackensack or returned anything in kind, like a couple of patrol cars or paving Prospect Avenue, which is torn apart by ambulances? 

If South is looking for story ideas, the hospital's not paying taxes on more than $180 million dollars in property could be it.

He certainly can't rely on his lazy local assignment editors to wake up one day and suggest the story.

More bad news: Christie says he's the new Reagan

On West Passaic Street in Maywood, two trees appear to have been trimmed by passing NJ Transit buses and trucks.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Do you remember President Ronald Reagan's "trickle-down" economics?

Reagan's two terms in office (1981-89) seemed like an eternity to many Americans, who believe he was the worst president we ever had until George W. Bush took office.

As a reporter for The Record, I was assigned to do a story on Reagan's budget cuts, and my Page 1 story detailed how he had slashed social programs for minority children, among others.

Now, Governor Christie has "compared himself to Ronald Reagan," The Record reports in a Page 1 column today on the GOP bully's TV appearances on Sunday.

Reporting every fart

It looks like The Record has committed itself to chronicling Christie's every word, every fart and every mean-spirited act, and to spinning them for what they mean for his presidential aspirations in  2016.

That election is three long years away, and if Christie actually gets the nomination, he faces certain defeat at the hands of Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Reader weighs in

Reader David B. Simpson of Tenafly is already sick of all the space The Record is devoting to its "endless speculation about Governor Christie's presidential ambitions and the prospects of his success" (Your Views, A-13).

Instead, Simpson says, The Record's "journalistic function" is to provide "a genuine factual  inquiry into the performance of Christie in office as to whether he really is accomplishing what he claims."

Take a hike

Hey, Simpson, don't you know Editor Marty Gottlieb and his gang of Christie-loving columnists and reporters don't give a shit what you think? 

And you have a nerve telling Gottlieb and the Borg family how to perform their "journalistic function."

Simpson voted for Christie, but bemoans the governor's "one-shot gimmicks to close budget gaps, and his willingness to subsidize public projects with extensive public money, such as in the case of the failing casinos of Atlantic City and the monstrous Xanadu project in the Meadowlands [American Nightmare]."

"You owe it to the people of New Jersey, and the nation, to provide an unvarnished portrait  of Christie's tenure in office, identifying both successes and failures," Simpson's letter says.

Don't hold your breath.

Hackensack mystery

For Veterans Day, the front page also carries a story about 1st Lt. Raymond Sachtleben, a World War II pilot from Hackensack whose B-24 bomber crashed in an English village in 1944.

The cause of his death was shrouded in mystery until villagers, a researcher in New Jersey and Hackensack High School students worked together on a memorial and a Web site (A-1 and A-8).

Clueless readers, including a boater, continue to consult Road Warrior John Cichowski on MVC rules and regulations, apparently unaware he has lost it completely (L-1).

Restaurant focus

Better Living's cover story reports on children who followed their parents into the restaurant industry (BL-1).

Issues faced by restaurant goers -- including service, tipping, rising prices and the quality of the food served by restaurants -- continue to be largely ignored.

Out of touch with many readers

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

The Record today left me unsettled. I was more interested in some of the smaller stories than in the package of feel-good Veterans Day pieces I found in two of the sections. I immediately felt uncomfortable seeing the big photo on Page 1 of a marine who has been paralyzed from the chest down since 2004 after being shot by a sniper in Iraq.

On Page A-6, a short story about loans to install solar panels reminded me of my experience -- it took two years to apply for a state rebate and have panels installed on my Hackensack home. I asked two Record reporters to look into the reasons for the delay, which I was told is typical in North Jersey, but was ignored.

In the Local section, there are stories about re-dedication of a Holocaust Center at Teaneck High School and two stories from Englewood -- the promotion of a veteran cop and  two elderly brothers who fought in World War II. Hackensack? Again, no news from the city where The Record was founded in 1895 and which was its home for more than 110 years.

Let me bring you up to date. The last two stories about Hackensack ran Oct. 13 and Oct. 3 (not counting any police or fire briefs).

In Business, a column on B-2 starts with the words, "Bankers are crooks!" That's refreshing. Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais knows that what happens to him often makes good copy -- a lesson some of the younger reporters should take to heart.