'Chocolate Face' discovers mass transit

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NJ Transit could double the number of bus seats into Manhattan, if the
Port Authority added a second, reverse bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.
But the agency refuses to give up more toll revenue from cars and trucks

When reporter John Cichowski won the newsroom competition to take over the Road Warrior column, he was supposed to become an advocate for commuters -- both drivers and mass-transit users.


But in the past eight years, Cichowski apparently has never taken a bus or train during rush hours to see first-hand how the system reached capacity and how commuters have been standing in the aisles for far too long.


Cichowski was hand-picked by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who likely is just as out of touch with the commuting woes of North Jersey residents.


So, Cichowski has written almost exclusively about driving rules and regulations, lines at the MVC office, potholes and all the other minutiae he could uncover while not straying too far from his computer.


Meanwhile, mass transit has gone to hell -- with a big push from Governor Christie, who killed the Hudson River rail tunnels a year ago, rubber-stamped big toll and fare hikes by the Port Authority and refused to raise the low gasoline tax to fund road and transit improvements.


Face darkens 


Cichowski? He had his head up his asshole for so long, his face has taken on a darker, feces-like hue -- to the point where he is referred to as "Chocolate Face" around the office.


Lo and behold. Today, the Road Warrior column on the front of Sykes' Local section is about mass transit.


But Chocolate Face expresses "outrage" at the cancellation of a parking garage for buses in Manhattan -- a project that would do nothing to expand the number of buses carrying commuters into the city or improve creaky local bus service.


For years, the Port Authority has tried to distract The Record and other media from what bus riders really need -- a second, reverse bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel to virtually double the number of seats during the morning rush.


Clueless newsroom


And the bi-state agency has succeeded on the bus lane -- just as the media never questions why the agency doesn't expand the PATH system. 


The answer: The Port Authority is doing everything in its power to undermine mass transit in favor of its main revenue sources -- cars, trucks, airports and ports.


Of course, Chocolate Face, Sykes, Editor Francis Scandale, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, Port Authority reporter Shawn Boburg, transportation writer Karen Rouse and others run around covering train delays, toll and fare hikes, and other related stories while missing the big picture.


If you try to read Cichowski today, it is basically a rehash of Boburg's and Rouse's recent news stories about the bus garage. He calls buses "behemoths," not letting on that none are as big as his swelled head.


The front page


Scandale really tops himself with today's crummy front page -- led by the incredibly inept Yankees.


But with the world economy in the tank, Congress paralyzed, New Jersey saddled with Christie until at least 2014 and all the other problems we have, does anybody outside of a small minority of readers really give a shit the Yankees' season has ended?


How does Scandale hijack Page 1 like this? Does anybody have the cure for his jock itch? 


Three more corrections on Page A-2 today add to the parade of boo-boos readers have been told about this week, but, of course, not every screw-up is acknowledged by a correction.


More Job 1


The passing of Apple's Steve Jobs was all over Page 1 on Thursday. 


Today, his death yields at least three more stories, an editorial, an editorial cartoon, a tech column and an Op/Ed piece, but millions of senior citizens who have been left behind by his tech revolution are wondering why the media are making all this fuss.


Contrary to what the pundits are saying, Jobs didn't change my life or the lives of millions of others. And I wish Scandale and The Record would have paid as much attention to my news copy desk colleague, Michael Thaler, before he died of cancer in 2008 at age 45.


As for the Jobs stories on A-17, the main Business page, the headline is atrocious. It uses awkward jargon -- "tasked" -- a word that should be banished from newspapers.


Readers in Hackensack and many other towns will look in vain for stories about their towns in Local today.


For early birds


In Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung faults the service at Amici Family Restaurant in Bergenfield -- an unusual choice for this snooty, fine-dining reporter. 


She gives the Italian-American restaurant with big portions and low prices a lukewarm, 2-star rating, but doesn't advise readers to do what I and other Amici customers do: 


Go early to avoid the crowds, the noise and the service glitches. If you want, you can take advantage of the $11.95 early bird special Mondays to Thursday before 6 p.m., and you don't need a reservation.


The review, however, is revolutionary in one sense. This is the first time Ung, who is addicted to sweets, has advised readers dessert is "totally unnecessary."  


Blog comments


At least one reader of Eye on The Record and Do You Really Know What You're Eating? is reporting problems with posting comments.


Comments come to me in the form of e-mails, and I have the option of publishing or deleting them. I've noticed a decline in comments recently, but have published the few I've seen.


The technical problems readers encounter are beyond my control. All of us are at the mercy of Google's blogging platform.

Related articles

• Transportation reporters are trippin' (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Christie gets more passes on mass transit (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Editors help PA sell toll, fare hikes (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Piggish Christie identifies with toll hikes (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

Where quality control is out of control

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Many Americans can't get over a black man living in the White House.

After two days of intense front-page coverage on Governor Christie's White House ambitions, Editor Francis Scandale isn't taking seriously the strongest indications so far Christie may, in fact, launch a campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.


Scandale must have succumbed to a severe bout of jock itch to think readers of The Record are more interested in Yankees playoff games than in the Christie story, which he pushed back to Page A-3 today.


Anyway, North Jersey residents are concerned about bear -- not Tiger -- hunting.


This is some lousy front page, and Liz Houlton's news copy desk can't even dress up the off-lead dud on the federal debt hanging over the state after Christie killed the Hudson River rail-tunnel project, leaving Manhattan-bound commuters standing in the aisles.

N.J. still

facing

bills for

tunnel

Putting the word "still" in the main headline is an instant turn off for readers, as if the copy editor can't hide his boredom with a story that basically is an update of old news. 


Of course, the news that should have been in the main headline is left to the drop headline -- the debt has grown to "nearly $274 million."


Day after day, Houlton's copy desk treats Page 1 and other section fronts with as little care as the back of the book.


Water boarding


The Paterson flood-overtime story, which had a long run on Scandale's front page, ends up on an obituary page today, but Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin's column unleashes all the piss and vinegar he can muster at Mayor Jeffrey Jones (A-23).


As North Jersey scandals go, $50,861 in overtime is chump change, but Doblin is not about to let on as he pulls out all the stops of his cutesy writing style to demonize Jones.


Look at the headline's ridiculous attempt to coin a word to describe the overtime controversy: "Otscam."


What a joke. Otscam? How lame. This has nothing to do with the much bigger FBI sting known as Abscam, so why invoke it here? It merely shows Doblin's desperation to both hook and hoodwink readers.


One of the milder criticisms: "Jones gets high marks for golfing; for being mayor, not so much." 


Isn't that what many observers say about Doblin's golf-loving boss, Scandale? 


Or how about this? Doblin gets high marks for output; for being a journalist, not so much.


Insulting readers


You could forgive Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski for boring readers to tears, if he at least passed along useful information in his endlessly repetitive columns.


On L-1 today, he tells us charter buses are inspected for safety violations, as are school buses, but he utters not a word about inspections of thousands of NJ Transit commuter buses on Manhattan and local routes. Unbelievable.


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section is dominated by news of Thursday's heavy storm in Leonia and nearby towns, complete with three photos of downed trees (A-1, L-1 and L-6).


Cops grab headlines


Have you noticed all the news about the police lately?


The promotion of Oradell Police Sgt. Frank Florio to chief is on the front of Local today. Below that, another story reports Lodi Police Chief Vincent Caruso ordered an officer to issue a ticket to the chief's wife for double parking.


On Thursday's L-2, Staff Writer Deena Yellin broke significant news -- council approval for the hiring of one police officer.


Also on that page, Staff Writer Denisa R. Superville reported a domestic-violence investigation of River Edge Police Chief Thomas Cariddi.


On Wednesday's L-3, an 8-inch story reported the hiring of an officer in Wood-Ridge, and a 4-inch story described how Cariddi, the River Edge chief, had been on a leave of absence since "last week."


On Tuesday's L-2, Yellin had more earth-shaking news -- Demarest Police Chief James Powderly is being honored for "his crime-fighting efforts."


Superville, the reporter, used her leave of absence story on Wednesday as a launching pad for assembling her story the following day on the domestic-violence probe. That's good journalism.


But is it really news when police chiefs do their jobs or is that Sykes' assignment desk desperately trying to fill the news hole in the absence of anything more legitimate?


Shit-kicking reporter


In Better Living today, the biggest photo with the restaurant review shows a bull prancing through pasture, a seemingly appropriate mural for Wayne Steakhouse in Wayne.


But when you finish reading Staff Writer Elisa Ung's lukewarm, 2-star appraisal, you learn absolutely nothing about how the expensive beef is raised (Centerfold).


You have no clue whether it was grass-fed, as the mural suggests, or confined to pens in feedlots, fed grain and animal by-products, and pumped full of harmful additives, such as antibiotics and growth hormones.


Ung reports Wayne Steakhouse's high prices (steak for two is $81.95), but passes along the owner's explanation that customers can save money by bringing their own wine.


So, the owner saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by not buying a liquor license. Instead of passing along the savings to customers, he kept his food prices high, reasoning that at least he doesn't soak them with $10 glasses of wine or $300 bottles. How noble.


In the review, there is little quality control in matching text and photo. 


Ung reports clams casino were "impressive, topped with huge slices of bacon." But no bacon slices appear in the photo. Perhaps, after her visit, the owner started cutting back to boost his profit on the dish.


The only menu item the dessert-obsessed reviewer found "mind blowing" was the house-made whipped cream served on apple strudel -- one of four desserts she tried. She sampled no salads or vegetables outside of creamed spinach.


I guess readers can conclude the bull mural is a tongue-in-cheek reference to all the bullshit hurled their way by Ung and the restaurant owner.

To many, he's just another rich white guy

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It was no surprise to see the obituary of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner on Page 1 of  The Record of Woodland Park today, coming a couple of days after  the top of A-1 was devoted to the passing of the public address announcer. But what explains this incredible excess?


The jock-itching, high-fiving, ass-slapping, male-bonding editors have simply run amuck, giving more space to Steinbrenner than to any other dead person in my memory -- presidents, included -- and I joined The Record in 1979 as a reporter. But if you are not a Yankees fan -- and we are legion -- he's just another rich white guy lionized by the media. The rest of today's paper sucks.


Truth is, Steinbrenner and Malcolm A. Borg, former publisher and chairman of North Jersey Media Group, have a lot in common. Both were born into wealth and privilege, both got much richer during their careers and both passed their businesses to a couple of spoiled brats.

Still, compare what the Steinbrenner sibs have done with the Yankees and what Publisher Stephen A. Borg and big sister Jennifer A. Borg, NJMG vice president and general counsel, have done with The Record, especially Stephen's emphasis on personal gain and Jennifer's expensive defense of what many see as long-established age-discrimination policies.

It's well-known the elder Borg is a reformed alcoholic, and many observers agree he lost control of The Record when he started hiring a series of out-of-towners for newsroom and executive jobs, the latest being Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale, who probably orchestrated today's shamefully excessive coverage, while continuing to neglect local news.


The Steinbrenner eulogy covers almost all of the front page, continues through two and half pages of the main news section under a special banner, an editorial and an editorial cartoon, then picks up in Sports, with more than four pages of added drivel. I could just manage to scan the stories and photos, but read few words. Isn't Bruce Springsteen the real "Boss"?

Steinbrenner's life and death mean nothing to me and tens of thousands of other readers, likely the majority. And what is important to me, as a resident of Hackensack, continues to be ignored by Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, who supervise a stubbornly unproductive news staff.


Look at today's Local section. Look at all the space devoted on the front to a cop who shoots a dog after he was bitten. Neither died. Page L-3 is all police or court news, except for a story on the postponement of a meeting in Englewood; it runs more than 10 inches. There's no Hackensack news today.

Local reporters like Giovanna Fabiano and Monsy Alvarado have become adept at writing long previews of meetings or hearings or court proceedings, then long stories when they are postponed. That is what passes for productivity under Scandale and Sykes. 


But is Fabiano working on a profile of Michel Bittan, the Englewood businessman linked to one of those alleged Russian spies, to finally tell readers just how influential he is in that city? Is she planning to write about the segregated schools there? 

And is Alvarado ever going to tell readers about the Hackensack budget and tax rate, or write about the new mayor? Karen Sasso's swearing in appeared in The Hackensack Chronicle on July 9, more than a week after it occurred.

Employee news


The name of Managing Editor Frank Burgos did not appear on today's editorial page for the first time, and presumably, he has returned to Pennsylvania. He won't be missed.

Monday, July 5, 2010


Last Monday's paper is nothing to speak of, nor was there any Hackensack news.

Governor takes back seat to Yankees

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After Tuesday's upset and with a new governor-elect girding himself for a battle to lower property taxes, you'd think The Record would give the whole front page to that story today. You'd be wrong. Instead, Chris Christie is squeezed down to the bottom of the page to make room for the Yankees winning the championship.

The former Hackensack daily likely intends the sports story to distract us from our daily tribulations and to bring a ray of sunshine into the lives of hundreds of thousands of North Jersey residents laid off during the recession, including the paper's many experienced staffers who were shown the door.

On Page A-2, you'll find three corrections of local news stories from the crack staff.

In the Local section, the drought continues on municipal news from diverse Teaneck, Englewood and Hackensack, but there are stories from several predominately white towns. And we learn that residents of Woodland Park rejected changing the town's name back to West Paterson, so The Record, which has moved printing and most staff out of Hackensack, is stuck with Woodland Park, where it is now headquartered (though there is no mention of that in the story or on Page A-2, where 150 River St. in Hackensack is still listed as where the paper is "published").

As usual on most Thursdays, there is no food coverage in Better Living, despite the paper's promise to readers to publish food news "every day" after the Food section was folded.

That's it for commentary on "The Trusted Local Source," the paper's new marketing slogan.