Behold the Columnist Mike Kelly Memorial Toilet Seat

Four days ago, a dirty snowbank at the Bergen Town Center mall in Paramus was an unwelcome reminder of the bitter, storm-filled winter we experienced. By Friday, the snow still hadn't melted completely.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The biggest critics of The Record's editors, columnists and reporters aren't the readers, many of whom pay little attention to bylines.

They are the copy editors -- faceless newsroom employees who work the night shift in a thankless job of trying to enforce standards of accuracy, style and grammar.

At the Woodland Park daily, they are last line of defense before the paper is printed in Rockaway Township. 

Before Publisher Stephen A. Borg put into motion a major newsroom downsizing in Hackensack in 2008 -- prelude to North Jersey Media Group moving to the sticks the following year -- I was one of those copy editors.

We worked without meal or coffee breaks and were allowed to pick the stories we wanted to edit and write headlines for unless they were destined for the front page or a section front.

Inside Kelly

In those days, columns by veteran reporter Mike Kelly ran inside the paper, on Page A-3, and were literally shunned by the highly experienced copy editors.

We hated editing Kelly's verbosity and endless ruminations on 9/11; former Governor Tom Kean; his pal, ex-New York Police Commish Bernie Kerik, and all the other crap the reporter began churning out after he was promoted to columnist in 1988.

It got to the point where our supervisors would literally have to order us to edit Kelly's column.

Some of us named the fourth stall in the men's room -- the copy desk was conveniently placed next to it -- the Columnist Mike Kelly Memorial Toilet Seat.

How appropriate. Kelly's shit copy found a parallel in the men's room.

Memorial column

Today, Kelly's column is on the front page, and it's a lame attempt to find humor in naming schools and other buildings after living public officials, some of whom go on to betray the public trust (A-1).

Until the old 150 River St. headquarters of The Record is torn down, we former copy editors will always have a really appropriate memorial to journalistic excess.

What could be more fitting then a toilet seat memorializing the columnist whose dated thumbnail photo radiates a shit-eating grin?

Desperate editor

Editor Martin Gottlieb must have really been desperate to put another boring Kelly column on Page 1 today.

Below that is Staff Writer Jim Norman's spin on a wild turkey that has made an A&P parking lot home and is being fed by customers (A-1).

But The Record continues to follow up on the 100-year-old Elmwood Park man who killed his 88-year-old wife with an ax before killing himself (A-1).

This story and earlier ones amount to the paper's only coverage of dementia and other forms of Alzheimer's disease.

Local news?

Mahwah Public Works Director Ed Sinclair has agreed not to sue the township, if officials pay his legal fees up to $35,000 after he was fired and reinstated in March (L-1).

Township officials also might consider paying for surgery to help the obese Sinclair lose weight, and lower their health-insurance premiums.

Today's Local-news section is dominated by crime news, court stories, a fire in an unoccupied house and other filler. 

The Record's weekly, Paterson Press, also keeps Bergen County readers abreast of the number of gunshot wounds in the Silk City, though there is no suggestion they are the fault of its sorry Police Department and do-nothing police director (L-3).

Chickening out

Don't bother rushing out to try five of the six "must-try chicken dishes" on the Better Living front today (BL-1).

The only one raised without harmful antibiotics is the whole rotisserie chicken from Le Bon Choix in Ridgewood.

But even with two sides, two sauces and cornbread, $28 for a whole chicken, raised at Goffle Road Poultry Farm in Wyckoff, is a rip-off.

This cafe is near Whole Foods Market, where two antibiotic-free rotisserie chickens cost a total of about $15.

Elisa Ung, the restaurant reviewer who wrote the piece, could care less. The paper pays for all of the food she samples.

Here's another black mark against Garden State Plaza

A driver from Pennsylvania gets a warm New Jersey welcome at a toll booth on the Garden State Parkway.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus -- often called the state's biggest mall -- appears well on its way to becoming the baddest.

The only story worth reading on Page 1 of The Record today is the heart-tugging account of how a Macy's escalator mangled the foot of an 11-year-old girl, and how a surgeon stepped in to prevent its amputation (A-1).

Westfield in the mall's name is for the Westfield Group, the Australian owner of Garden State Plaza and 90 other shopping centers in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Garden State Plaza receives lavish news coverage in The Record -- payback for all of those full-page ads from Macy's and other mall retailers that are keeping the Woodland Park daily afloat.

Recently, a story in Business heralded the construction of a wing of luxury stores at the Paramus mall -- just what we need as North Jersey continues to struggle with high unemployment and low job creation.

Lawsuits filed

The Aug. 16 accident that nearly killed Juliana Valdez of Bergenfield has sparked two lawsuits, including the family's federal action against Macy's and the company that maintained the escalator, ThyssenKrupp (A-10).

A second black mark against the mall -- and its apparent lack of security -- is the Nov. 4 invasion by gunman Richard Shoop, who committed suicide there, triggering panic among shoppers and a massive police response that proved completely ineffective. 

For a change, The Record's copy desk did a nice job on the injured girl's story, especially the set of bright headlines.

However, Production Editor Liz Houlton missed a major discrepancy: 

The story reports the girl is "getting around on crutches and a walker," but the big A-1 photo just above that shows her in a wheelchair, which isn't mentioned anywhere.

Wrong number

The 10th anniversary issue of (201) magazine landed with a thud on my doorstep.

As usual, the December 2013 issue is a celebration of the wealth and success of Bergen County's white residents.

OK. A few token blacks and other minorities appear in what Publisher Stephen A. Borg calls the pride and joy of all of his North Jersey Media Group publications.

In the current issue, a profile of Englewood stylist Rachel Johnson is the story of how an African-American woman succeeds by exploiting wealthy black athletes who don't have a clue about how to dress (Pages 76-77).

More deeply flawed reporting in Local

An ambulance from Hackensack University Medical Center, whose repeated expansions have forever changed life in its Hackensack neighborhood, and not for the better. The non-profit hospital doesn't pay taxes on an estimated $130 million in property.

On the front of today's Local news section in The Record, the first major Hackensack story since March 22 and the Road Warrior column both contain major errors.

If past practice is any guide, readers shouldn't expect to see corrections published on Monday's A-2.

Today's L-1 story on attorney Richard Malagiere and the controversial Bergen Passaic Long-Term Acute Care Hospital almost halves the height of the rejected building.

Given the bitter, 3-year battle between Prospect Avenue residents and the developer, reporting that the hospital would be 10 stories -- and not 19 stories or the originally proposed 24 stories -- is simply irresponsible, and only rubs salt in residents' wounds.

Dissing Hackensack

Hackensack readers are accustomed to being ignored by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza.

But they continue to wonder why The Record pays a six-figure salary to Production Editor Liz Houlton, whose sleep-deprived copy editors and proof readers keep on missing major errors passed onto them by Sykes and Sforza.  

The story on LTACH, as the hospital plan is known, quotes only two of the 11 candidates in the upcoming City Council election in reference to Malagiere, a Zisa family ally who is the former zoning board attorney.

Zisaville pays well

Malagiere has received more than $1.2 million in legal fees from Hackensack and the Bergen County freeholders in the past three years.

The story also quotes City Attorney Joseph C. Zisa Jr. as defending the retention of Malagiere on the LTACH case at $125 an hour to fight the developer's appeal.

Zisa, cousin of disgraced former Police Chief Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa, appears to see his role as facilitating the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to a small fraternity of lawyers, including Malagiere.

Say it ain't so, Joe

In the nearly 11 months since Ken Zisa was convicted, The Record has never questioned why Joseph Zisa still is the city attorney.

Throw the bum out, says City Council candidate Victor E. Sasson, editor of Eye on The Record. 

Another bum

Staff Writer John Cichowski has made so many major errors in The Road Warrior column, he has totally lost any credibility.

Today, his response to a question from Hackensack reader James Pepe about "anonymous reporting of litterers" is not only flip (L-6), but completely ignores the right to swear out a citizen's complaint, as I did when I saw a woman throw a lit cigarette butt out of her car in Teaneck.

I wrote down her license-plate number and make of car, drove to police headquarters and asked that a summons be issued to the car owner.

I was notified of a court date and showed up, as did the woman who littered.

The judge didn't fine her, because he said I couldn't positively identify her as the driver, but he did lecture her about the fire danger of throwing a lit cigarette butt out of her car window.

Any driver or pedestian can use the same procedure to have a summons sworn out against someone who litters, passes a stop sign or red light, or doesn't yield to them in a crosswalk.  

See previous posts on mass transit 

and Hackensack City Council campaign 

Now, the Road Warrior can't read a map

Readers are wondering whether The Record's lazy editors again will shrink from rating towns on how well they do cleaning up from Friday's nor'easter, and ignore bus stops buried in snow and property owners who don't shovel their sidewalks. That forces pedestrians to risk their lives by waiting or walking in the street.

Editor's note: Road Warrior John Cichowski's inability to read a calendar has been evident from recent columns that stated incorrectly how much time had passed since Superstorm Sandy. Now, in his Friday column on blasting to remove an old highway overpass, Cichowski blew it again, claiming the work is occurring at Routes 3 and 17. In fact, the interchange is Routes 3 and 21, as the following e-mail from a concerned reader makes clear.

"More Road Warrior incompetence and clueless mistakes explode in his Feb. 8 column in The Record about ongoing detonation and construction work for the Route 3 bridge over the Passaic River.

"One of his foolish reporting mistakes is so big it made it onto NorthJersey.com with the headline, 'Suffering through the Noise at Routes 3 and 17.'

"Sadly, this detonation-construction work is actually taking place at Routes 3 and 21, and nowhere near Routes 3 and 17.

"This mind-blowing mistake got through the copy desk even though The Record reported on Jan. 31 that explosion work on the bridge was "stopping traffic on Routes 3 and 21."

"If ever there was a colossal, bone-headed misstatement of fact by the Road Warrior that cries out for a correction, this is it. 

"If The Record management has any integrity, it would require this correction to appear in an upcoming Road Warrior column rather than hide it on A-2.  Road Warrior needs to publicly update his readers about his latest example of wrong-way reporting."


Read full e-mail



To read the full e-mail on  the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers, click on the following link:

John Cichowski: 'What day is it? Where am I?' 


Houlton and Sykes


Coincidentally, on Friday's A-2, Editor Marty Gottlieb published three corrections of a graphic and two stories that ran last Saturday and on Wednesday and Thursday.

Gottlieb may not be able to solve the age-old problem of reporters and columnists making mistakes on deadline.

But he can certainly insist that his six-figure production editor, Liz Houlton, enforce the high standards of accuracy, fact-checking and writing the paper's copy desk once was known for.

Of course, an even more fundamental problem is the attitude of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes toward the copy editors, who have been marginalized for decades.

The six-figure, full-figure Sykes has never promoted a copy editor to work on her assignment desk, and often holds breaking news stories as long as possible to thwart any attempt by the copy desk to fix fuzzy writing and factual mistakes on deadline.

In other words, to preserve the way she and her minions edit a lead paragraph or the body of a story, she gladly sacrifices accuracy.

In fact, copy editors long have been warned about making any changes in the all-important first paragraph of a story without getting the permission of an argumentative assignment editor.

This has resulted in a dead-end copy desk of mostly older, unhappy workers reduced to the role of headline writers.

And a daily newspaper that has become known as a laughing stock for sloppy journalism on a high school or college level. 

Road Warrior can't read the calendar

Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg's boyhood home in Hackensack.

Editor's note: In his Road Warrior column on Sunday, Staff Writer John Cichowski said it has been a "full four months" since Superstorm Sandy hit on Oct. 29. In fact, the three-month anniversary passed only five days before. Earlier, Cichowski incorrectly reported the day a train smashed into a tractor-trailer in Little Falls. Those glaring errors weren't caught by six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton or her clueless staff.

The inactivity of writing the vast majority of his Road Warrior columns from news releases, studies, reports and reader e-mails has caught up to Staff Writer John Cichowski, who rarely leaves his computer to do any legwork.

Here is part of another e-mail to management from a reader who is alarmed by all of the misinformation Cichowski passes along to readers:

"The Road Warrior continues to hand out misinformed, false, and exaggerated nonsense to commuters, who are desperate for real answers about repairs to Sandy-damaged rail stations.

"Road Warrior babbles more nonsense about how it has been four months since Sandy, when it has been a little over 3 months. This is after he babbled in his Jan. 25 column that it was 8 weeks, when it was really 12 weeks, since Sandy.

"Why doesn't The Record correct his nonsense before it is published?

"Mistaken column by mistaken column, it is becoming too much for readers to forgive.

"Instead of misinformation and false complaints, why didn't the Road Warrior notify readers about an upcoming NJ Transit commuter forum at Hoboken rail station on Feb. 12 so that they could voice their concerns directly to transit officials?"

Read the full text of the e-mail on the Facebook Bloopers page:

Time flies for the Road Warrior 



Levitating mayor

Ed Koch was such a great New York City mayor his powers apparently survived him, according to today's Page 1 photo caption.

The caption suggested the casket wasn't carried, but actually levitated out of the Fifth Avenue synagogue on Monday: 

"The casket of former Mayor Ed Koch left the funeral at Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue."

On A-2, a correction tells readers a Sunday caption listed Alicia Rose, but that she wasn't actually in the photo. Oops.

After years of practicing body count journalism in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Associated Press actually supplied a photo of Kabul residents who weren't being blown apart by a suicide bomber (A-2).

Who knew there was any normalcy in war-torn Afghanistan? But I question the photo overline, "SHOT OF THE DAY." 

The doughnut hole

The morbidly obese Governor Christie actually pulled out a doughnut and ate it during taping of the David Letterman TV show on Monday (A-4).

In 2011, Letterman put Christie's weight at 400 pounds. 

Now, we know what Christie is going to do after he loses his bid for a second term: open a Dunkin' Donuts franchise.

The money game

The Record is already covering the campaign, and will accord space to Christie and Democrat Barbara Buono based on how much special interest money they raise (A-4), just as the Woodland Park daily did with North Jersey congressional candidates last November.

Four photos with one story threw Production Editor Liz Houlton's copy editors into a dither (A-7). The caption refers to a photo as "adjacent," a word that should never be used.

Those old coots

On the front of Local, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes lampoons another elderly driver who apparently mistook the accelerator pedal for the brake pedal, and backed his car out of a garage and into a stream (L-1).

After years of publishing photos of senior crashes and other mayhem, some of it fatal, you'd think Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, would realize older drivers need information on where they can go to refresh their skills. 

Five paragraphs of Hackensack news appear on L-3 today. That's all she wrote. 

Sykes and Sforza continue to mystify readers by running minor accident photos on their front, and burying the obits of fascinating North Jersey residents, such as rememberances of Guy Tozzoli and Jack Reno on L-8 today. 

Reader blasts Road Warrior errors

Could more frequent use of the Google search engine by The Record's editors and copy editors help improve the accuracy and completeness of the thrice-weekly Road Warrior column?

Editor's note: At least one reader has brought frequent errors and omissions to the attention of Staff Writer John Cichowski, who has been writing The Record's Road Warrior column for more than nine years. His latest e-mail to the Road Warrior appears below:

John,

It would help if you stopped publishing articles, such as your 10/3 article, with clueless, misleading, incomplete, or false/incorrect info that you mistakenly report and then confuse or mislead readers with a review that contradicts or miscomprehends the facts.   It does not promote the integrity of The Record and offends informative readers.

Your clueless reporting and responses are truly most frequently glaring and troubling when you respond to readers' questions, who many times can get better answers by simply contacting state agencies.

You have a repeated habit to NEVER directly answer a reader's specific question.  Instead, you respond with other info, which typically is not correct, and that may not be related to the question.

This is the 5th article on which I've alerted you about your mistaken reporting since your 9/12 article.  You have made no attempt to correct or respond to your mistaken reporting and advice.

If no effort is being made to resolve these matters or respond to me, I am beginning to publicize these matters with other media personnel, news organizations, and your readers.

You reported that, initially, MVC's "Skip the Trip" will affect motorists born before 12/2/64. You FAIL to mention that it will also affect people born before 12/2/64, who renew their non-driver IDs.

You reported that MVC estimates that "Skip the Trip" could take 1 million people off long lines.  MVC estimates have actually stated that "Skip the Trip" could take UP TO 1 million people off long lines.

If you think the words "UP TO" are meaningless to your readers, anyone who advertises knows that inserting the words "UP TO" completely changes the meaning of a stated savings (i.e. savings of up to $400, which could be $1-$400, is a completely different meaning than savings of $400).
  
You confuse readers by cluelessly misreporting that MVC's estimate for the number of people eligible for "Skip the Trip" will not be reached because it doesn't subtract out exceptions for commercial licensees, convicted drunken drivers, and other categories that tend to complicate licensure.

MVC was very clear in their statements & news releases that their stated initial estimates for those eligible for "Skip the Trip"  already subtracts out these exceptions.

You FAILED to report on other factors, which are not included in their statements, that the MVC realizes would reduce their stated estimate of people eligible for "Skip the Trip."

You reported "4 years from now, [older] trip-skippers will be back to have their pictures taken". Then, "They'll still be in line with you."  This is ABSOLUTELY WRONG since in four years time the younger drivers will be allowed to renew their licenses on-line and NOT have to stand in line at the MVC with these older trip-skippers.

You FORGOT to report that renewals will still require in-person registration at an MVC office every 8 years.  How many times do you have to be reminded, and still not report this???

In response to a question about whether senators wait in line at the MVC, you indicated that "MVC insists state officials are offered no preference.  But I'm still waiting for a reader to say he has spotted one member of the New Jersey Senate and Assembly standing in line with him."

Readers are still waiting for you to simply ask a more relevant question to NJ legislators to indicate if they stand in line at the MVC for license renewal.  I was easily able to get answers today from legislator offices that appear to verify they stand in line.  Sorry, to burst a bubble of mystery you wanted to leave readers with. 

It would be interesting to see a picture posted online of NJ legislator(s) (smiling or not) standing in line with someone at the MVC.

You NEVER responded directly to a reader's question about "What happened to the court decision that said we don't have to [provide a SS number to renew a driver's license]"?

First of all, you NEVER referenced the specific court decision and if (Yes or No) or how it was actually relevant, or subsequently overruled, to the SS requirement since this was what she wanted to know.

You proceeded to answer with a very tenuous tangent for requiring the SS numbers based on incomplete and clueless reporting about the 1974 Privacy Act and post 9/11 security issues.

You misreported that "[1974 Privacy] act only limits the requirement [for SS numbers] in those cases in which there IS a clear authority to collect the number."

The [1974 Privacy] act actually only limits the requirement [for SS numbers] in those cases in which there WAS a clear authority [statute] prior to January 1, 1975 to collect the number.

Tax Reform Act of 1976 also already exempts MVC & state agencies from any restriction to the extent that Social Security numbers are collected "in the administration of any driver's license or motor vehicle registration." 

While 9/11 security issues reinforced these needs, Washington and New Jersey did NOT need 9/11 to allow collection of SS numbers, as you so stated.

As we say in watching political debates, "Thanks for not answering the question that was asked."

Here's hoping for change and better fact checking & reviewing (Googling?) by The Record's editors, columnists, & reporters, for more reliable, accurate, and common sense info prior to publication.