Selfish editor makes front page his own

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The Supreme Court convenes in the Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex, Trenton. Did Governor Christie dump the only black justice because he anticipated a battle over his deep education cuts?

Is it just a coincidence the so-called New Jersey stories on the front page today involve Glen Rock, where Editor Francis Scandale lives, and Colorado, where he lived before coming to The Record of Woodland Park?

Is the sixth story about Glen Rock's sister-city relationship with Onomachi, Japan, really Page 1 news? Readers still haven't seen any photos of the Japanese city.

Dissing Japan

Staff Writer Evonne Coutros looks down her Grecian nose at the Japanese, quoting their e-mails and making sure to include all their broken English.

The jailhouse interview with a Colorado man acquitted of murdering his father shows how easily the inmate O.J.'d both Scandale and veteran courthouse reporter Kibret Markos, making them look like fools for wasting A-1 space on his claim the killer is still out there.

Legal strategy

With a battle brewing before the Supreme Court on Governor Christie's unconstitutional cuts in state education aid, Columnist Charles Stile should be investigating whether the Republic bully got rid of the high court's only black justice to better his chances of prevailing.

Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano's byline appears on an Englewood story for the first time in 12 days. 

Although she has ignored vacant downtown storefronts, the Jamaican community and the city's segregated schools, she made sure to cover a two-year battle over a private-school athletic field in Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg's East Hill neighborhood (L-3).

Publisher Stephen A. Borg attended the school, Dwight-Englewood, at a time when most of the students at the public Dwight Morrow High School were black and Hispanic.

Pulling the rug from under readers

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The Record recommends you ask for "lean ground beef" next time to you have a burger.

There is what, 20 to 30 inches of text packed with places, dates, names and quotes, plus a photo and map, so why is the lead story on Page 1 about a boxer that ran away headlined "a mystery"?

It's no mystery: Editor Francis Scandale was desperate to sell this dog of a story, in another sign news judgment is far from his strong suit

Another non-story

Governor Christie creates yet another task force, this one on nuclear safety in New Jersey, and the non-story is on A-1 -- while the real nuclear drama in Japan is shoved back to A-8.

Scandale plastered Page 1 with one doomsday scenario after another in the wake of the March 11 quake and tsunami, losing all credibility with readers.

Garden variety pol

Convicted felon and former state Sen. Joseph Coniglio and his rug command the front page for a third day in a row, but his release from a federal prison camp plays second fiddle to college basketball fans.

There's more pet news all over the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, but this time the dog didn't make it.

Details stolen

For yet another day, Hackensack residents will search for municipal news, only to find Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado seems to have traded in her assignment for a police reporter's hat, turning out two stories on L-3.

In the story about an arrest in Englewood, none of the burglarized stores are identified for local readers, as if Alvarado is writing about a far off place like Denver or Iraq.

Holier than thou

I wonder where a Weight Watchers leader requests "lean ground beef" when she eats a burger out -- the advice she gives readers in an F-1 story today on healthy portions?

Road Warrior again puts driving foot in mouth

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When reading the Road Warrior column, drivers often exclaim, Whaaaaat?

Can drivers rely on Staff Writer John Cichowski when he answers questions about New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission rules and regulations?

Not always. Just how often The Record's Road Warrior columnist gets it wrong isn't known, because he is the kind of journalist who doesn't think it's always necessary to publish a correction on Page A-2 when he screws up.

Instead, he will try to repair the damage in a subsequent column, in answer to another question on the same subject. This week, however, he compounded the problem. 

Flawed advice

On Wednesday, Chick, as he's known around the office, told the owner of a 16-year-old diesel-powered sedan, "As for inspection, all non-commercial passenger vehicles from model years 1997 and newer" must be tested for emissions [my italics].

But that may have led owners of gasoline-powered vehicles -- the vast majority -- from thinking they are exempt as well, if their cars are older than the 1997 model year.

That's not the case, according to the Motor Vehicle Commission Web site. There is a different standard for gasoline-powered cars, which must be taken for emissions testing if they are 5 years old "and older."

So, even if you drive a gasoline-powered car older than the 1997 model year, it must be tested. The Road Warrior apparently doesn't know there are different rules for diesel and gasoline engines. 

Previous error

Wednesday's answer to the driver of a diesel-powered sedan apparently was an attempt to repair an error Cichowski made in a March 2, 2011, column that discussed which cars are subject to mechanical and emissions testing:

"...There has been confusion, mostly among owners of vehicles with diesel engines, which — unlike gas-powered cars — are exempt even from emissions inspection."

You can't get any wronger than that, in light of what he said Wednesday.

So he messed up twice on the question of emissions testing. How many other times has he been unreliable? Can readers believe any advice he gives?

Another big question: Who is Cichowski's assignment editor -- the editor who reviews his column before it is sent over to the news copy desk? Is he or she asleep at the computer?  

Of course, you have to wonder just how much Cichowski knows about cars and their impact on the environment.

Sixteen-year-old diesel cars are prized by their frugal owners, but they are among the dirtiest vehicles on the road in terms of air pollution.

Another columnist for the Woodland Park daily, Bill Ervolino, neglected to tell readers on Tuesday the whole wheat spaghetti from Trader Joe's he described as "luscious" also is organic.

Today's paper

After the March 11 quake and tsunami, Editor Francis Scandale focused every day on a possible nuclear meltdown and virtually ignored the human drama in Japan and among Japanese residents of North Jersey, but he certainly hasn't neglected coverage of Glen Rock, where he lives.

Page 1 today carries the fourth or fifth story about the borough's sister-city relationship with Onomachi, Japan. 

The lead A-1 story today contains nothing on disgraced former state Sen. Joseph Coniglio, D-Paramus, making an appointment for a new hair piece now that his sentence has been shortened by a federal judge.

Scram, Mac

Below the fold, a story on the "Grandparent Scam" doesn't refer to the paper and how Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and other editors abhor stories on Alzheimer's disease, help for older drivers and other subjects of interest to seniors.

Nor is there any suggestion "Grandparent Scam" is a reference to how Publisher Stephen A. Borg treated his father and grandfather to his four sons, Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, after Stephen took over and pushed him aside.

On A-3 today, a story on Governor Christie and the state constitution's guarantee of a "thorough and efficient" education (T&E) would have been front-page news for any other editor but Scandale, whose focus is on T&A.

Insulting readers' intelligence -- every day

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Another boat that "drifted" into Ishinomaki, Japan.

A dramatic photo on Page 1 of The Record today is ruined by a caption that wastes space by stating the obvious. 

A large boat with a red hull ended up in the middle of Ishinomaki, Japan, and unless you have been on the moon, you know why. But the news copy editor felt a need to explain, then blew it by writing, "a boat that drifted into town during the tsunami." 

Drifed? That's absolutely the wrong word -- something readers are accustomed to with the Woodland Park daily. How many sets of eyes saw this?

On Monday, a copy editor tried to explain what President Obama was doing with a soccer ball in Brazil. The A-4 photo caption said "dribbling," I thought he was "kicking" it, but does it matter? There's no need to tell readers what they can plainly see for themselves -- Obama playing soccer with kids.

This point was hammered home every night by News Copy Desk Co-Slot Nancy Cherry, but she left the paper more than two years ago and nobody has taken up the slack.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg and his editors folded sections, but they have failed miserably on their pledge to give readers education, food and other news "every day."

What readers are getting "every day" is a mediocre paper. It's no surprise, with Editor Frank Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and their minions just collecting a pay check every week.

Double editorial standard

An editorial on A-10 today slams Governor Christie for a double standard on pay for public school superintendents and charter school administrators, but says nothing about the hundreds of police chiefs whose salaries exceed the governor's $175,000 a year.

Year after year, reporters cover fires in Paterson and the paper prints dramatic photos of flames and tenants driven into the cold (L-6), but the editors never ask, Who owns all these fire traps?

Gobble, gobble

"I had no trouble gobbling it down," Staff Writer Bill Ervolino says of the free plate of whole wheat linguine with the house marinara he enjoyed at Park and Orchard in East Rutherford (F-1).  

He's a real sport, never turning down a freebie, and he has plenty of company on the staff, including Travel Editor Jill Schensul, Graphics Editor Jerry Luciani and Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill.

He loves Teterboro

There is no truth to a rumor that Malcom A. "Mac" Borg is planning to sell his shares of North Jersey Media Group and move to England. Borg just learned that country's chancellor is pushing a tax on private-jet travel.

ADD knocks disaster in Japan off front page

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Rock Road in Glen Rock. This is the size of the rock in Editor Francis Scandale's head. 

It took only about eight days for Editor Francis Scandale and all the other editors at The Record with attention-deficit disorder to find an excuse to knock the disaster in Japan off Page 1 today. It's buried on A-14.

Reporters and photographers presumably had complained about how exhausted they were leaving the Woodland Park newsroom in search of the Japanese who live in North Jersey -- as the clueless assignment desk under Editor Deirdre Sykes tried desperately to localize the story. 

King-size and then some

We know Governor Cristie is in bed with all the police chiefs whose salaries aren't capped, but now we find out the mattress must be the size of Hackensack to accommodate all of those snobby charter school officials (A-1).

Food prices have been rising for several weeks now, so the news copy desk is from hunger with that outdated head on A-1 today: "Higher food prices coming your way."

Office-loving columnist

You know by today's L-1 Road Warrior column that Staff Writer John Cichowski has never spoken to NJ Transit bus drivers who compete with all of those privately owned commuter vans. 

They're grateful for the help, because the bigger buses are standing-room-only during the rush hour and simply can't accommodate more passengers.

Sour-grapes journalism

In the years after Scandale left The Denver Post for The Record (2001), the former Hackensack daily always seemed to carry an inordinate number of stories about the Mile High City.

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Scandale moved to Glen Rock then, because he couldn't afford Ridgewood on his six-figure salary. 

The other day, he discovered Glen Rock has a sister city in Japan, and milked that for three days. Today, Glen Rock's talented youth are all over the Better Living front. So is Ridgewood talent-less?

What's next? Glen Rock as the ideal American town? 

Fractured writing

Reporter Jean Rimbach writes infrequently, but she really breaks news when she does, as in today's L-2 story, which reports that Gore Vidal, Barbie, King George III and the Rolling Stones -- all go to high school in New Jersey.

Here's her lede:

"From Gore Vidal to Barbie, King George III to the Rolling Stones, teenagers from around the Garden State tested their knowledge on an eclectic array of history questions Saturday in an academic competition at Ridgewood High School."

I guess the news copy editors -- who are treated like shit by Scandale, Sykes and the other dayside editors -- deliberately overlook such obvious errors so that Rimbach and other bad writers look like fools.

Either that or they're asleep.

Road Warrior screws up in Page 1 column

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A correction on an A-1 Road Warrior column highlights an ongoing problem with accuracy.

Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski's biggest failure as a journalist is ignoring the plight of tens of thousands of North Jersey commuters who use crowded buses and trains -- while churning out a mind-numbing series of stories on the problems of drivers.

You'd think he is in the pocket of all of the automobile dealers who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising in The Record of Woodland Park, including the many pages that made today's paper so fat.

A correction on A-2 today throws a spotlight on his accuracy:

Correction

The Road Warrior column on Page A-1 on Friday about motor coach safety incorrectly identified a Haledon company that had an alert placed on its record by the federal government. The name of the company is Charter Coach & Travel LLC.

I can't stand reading most of Cichowski's tortured prose, so had to go looking for how the company name was rendered in the paper on Friday. I finally found it, on the continuation page (A-10): "Carter's Coach."

Carter's Coach isn't even close to the correct name. How many other errors has Cichowski made over the years that were never corrected?

Judging from what I hear from readers and from my own experience in editing his columns for many years, Cichowski makes quite a few errors that are either caught on the news copy desk or get into the paper and are never corrected.

Even today's correction is flawed. The word "alert" should have been written "ALERT," as it was in Friday's story, signifying "warning evaluations" for "unsatisfactory performance" from the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration.

Disaster in Japan

Editor Francis Scandale keeps on squeezing as much as possible out of the sister-city relationship between Glen Rock, where he lives, and Onomachi, Japan (A-1). 

Today, free-lance Columnist Pat Kinney was taken out of mothballs for the second time since the quake hit a week ago Friday (L-3). 

Among the many angles Scandale has overlooked is publishing a profile of the Japanese community in North Jersey. 

Right now, all readers might know from reading Kinney is her oft-repeated statement that most Japanese families live here temporarily during the husband's job posting.

An enduring mystery is why head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes hasn't asked the only  Japanese staffer in the newsroom, feature writer Sachi Fujimori -- who can do it all -- to help out  or even why Fujimori wasn't sent to Japan to cover the big story.

The assignment wouldn't be that expensive for the paper, especially if she can hitch a ride on Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg's private jet.

They're tired of the story already

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Continued coverage of harness racing in The Record's Local section may hide more than two fans.

THOUSANDS FLEE AS CRISIS DEFIES SOLUTION

No end in sight

The Page 1 headline in The Record of Woodland Park today shows Editor Francis Scandale isn't even trying to hide how bored he is already with the disaster in Japan. 

Even if a damaged nuclear plant wasn't dangerously overheated, would there be an "end in sight" just one week after the main island was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami ? (It's now Saturday in Japan).

What doesn't seem to end are the stupid headlines.

Scandale must be temporarily out of insensitivity after printing e-mails from Onomachi, Japan, to sister city Glen Rock- -- including typos and broken English -- on A-1 and A-12 of Thursday's paper.

Today, two more e-mails appear on A-6, but they were translated from Japanese.

Complementary

On A-22, the headline over an editorial on Northvale cutting all funds to its library works well with the Margulies cartoon next to it.

The headline, "Civic butchery," is next to a cartoon showing a cleaver and scissor hanging over a crib labeled, "NJ  low-income kids," who are facing state cuts in pre-school programs.

Now, all we need is an editorial blasting Governor Christie for cutting funds from defenseless kids while preserving the wealth of millionaires. Don't hold your breath.

Feed bag is on

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section leads with a story on the Meadowlands Racetrack and the state's harness racing industry.

I know Local's layout editor, Jim "Corny" Cornelius, and News Copy Desk Chief Vinny Byrne love the horses, but had no idea Sykes was a fan, too.

Also on L-1 today, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado has her 102nd story on the Police Department, allowing her to continue ignoring city budget deliberations and the tax rate.

Paper for sale

On the Business page, a big photo shows the multimillionaire president of Benzel-Busch Motor Car Corp. overlooking the site of a $20 million expansion -- as the luxury car dealership threatens to swallow Englewood whole.

I'd feel a lot better about this story being news, if Benzel-Busch didn't buy an expensive ad that ran above the fold every day on the front of Local for nearly all of January.

Oh, by the way, the photo caption and story text drop the word "Car" from the name of the company. Can you get any sloppier?

Doesn't translate

In the Better Living centerfold, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung quotes the Korean owners of a Japanese-style pub as saying they are filling "a void" in Fort Lee. 

Both she and they ignore the Japanese-owned Izakaya Don in neighboring Cliffside Park. A Japanese izakaya has operated there for at least a decade.

Ung also seems to just be discovering Fort Lee as a restaurant town on par with Ridgewood, Englewood and others. Where has she been?

No escaping editors' laziness

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Since Saturday, The Record has carried only one story about Japanese residents of North Jersey.

You can hear the snoring above all that laughter from head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and the pounding of the keyboard by sub-assignment editor Rich Whitby, assuming they aren't contributing to The Record's newsroom snooze fest.

You also can hear snoring from the office of Editor Francis Scandale, who quickly ran out of ideas for covering the disaster in Japan through the eyes of North Jersey residents who might have relatives or friends living there.

You know the editors are lazy by all the junk in the Woodland Park daily today -- filling the space of legitimate stories they didn't generate.

Wire-story filler

On Page A-11 -- opposite a full jump page on the earthquake and tsunami -- more than a quarter of a page is wasted on a floating restaurant that was moved back to shore in Kentucky -- with no injuries and no starvation.

In Sykes' Local section, nearly a third of L-3 is devoted to Lyndhurst news -- an exercise class and a single restaurant being allowed to have outdoor tables. The lead paragraph of the fitness piece will put you to sleep.

Editor covers hometown

More filler appears on L-6: A doctor is honored for his service on the Health Board in Sykes' hometown.

Now, take a look at the messy story leading Local today (L-1). The reporter gets the official run-around on the identity of a Fort Lee fire victim -- no name, no sex and no age appear in the story -- but the headline on the continuation page says, "Woman dies."

That reminds me of what a lousy job the paper did on Sunday in reporting the death of Robert Ellis, 48, in a shootout with police early Saturday in Washington Township. There's not a single word of follow-up in today's paper.

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Shame on Scandale

Scandale is especially insensitive. He had a couple of heart-to-heart talks with News Copy Editor Michael Thaler before he died of cancer in 2008, and was well aware the copy editor had spent three transformational years teaching English at a junior high in Japan.

Does it occur to Scandale there might be other North Jersey residents living in Japan and teaching English now?  Do their families know where they are or even if they are alive? Does Scandale care? Can someone check if he's napping in his chair.

Sleepy assignment desk

Why aren't reporters sent to the airport, the Japanese-American Society in Fort Lee or the big Japanese supermarket in Edgewater to interview Japanese residents about their search for relatives in their homeland?

Television coverage of the disaster is putting the paper to shame. The Today Show located an American woman teaching English in Japan and connected her by cellphone to her relatives back home.

Coverage this morning also showed a Japanese couple finding the family dog in a tsunami-devastated neighborhood, and other residents recovering photo albums from the wreckage of their home -- all of which readers can relate to.

Green with mold

On Sunday, Columnist Mike Kelly defended Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who held a hearing on Islamic terrorists even as the congressman deflected any focus on his own support for the Irish Republican Army.

Today, Kelly is back with a long column on Englewood officials' quixotic bid to collect taxes on the East Hill mansion that has been owned by the Libyan government since late 1982 (L-1). 

In the process, Kelly gives more publicity to Schmuley Boteach, a rabbi and author who bought the house next door, knowing full well who lived there, but who has cried bloody murder ever since.

It apparently doesn't bother Kelly that Englewood appears to be doing little to improve the education of black and Hispanic children -- 99% of the enrollment -- in its public elementary and middle schools.

Or that city officials decided it was "too expensive" to convert the shuttered Lincoln Elementary School -- a 100-year-old building in a working-class neighborhood near downtown -- into a community center.

Hackensack readers still haven't seen any stories about budget deliberations or the tax rate from reporter Monsy Alvarado, although those meetings have been reported by other municipal reporters in Teaneck (L-1 today) and other towns.

Two-faced Christie

The lead story on A-1 today is another example of Governor Christie trying to score points with his conservative supporters across the country, while desperately accepting cash from anywhere he can get it to avoid taxing millionaires.

The state has already received $39 million and is asking for another $40 million under the new federal health insurance law he has denounced as "Obamacare," Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson reports.

A second look

The same quarter-page story on the NCAA pool appeared on opposite pages Sunday in the four-page Wall Street Journal insert carried by The Record Business section (B-4 and B-5).

Christie, aide escape stoning in flood zone

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A fortress is an appropriate symbol for the embattled Army Corps of Engineers.

Flood-zone residents in North Jersey are so worn down by decades of official inaction and media attention that fades with good weather, not one of them threw stones or even raised an eyebrow when they heard more empty promises from Governor Christie and his environmental czar on Friday.

As reported today in The Record of Woodland Park, Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin "said [in Pequannock] Christie will be sending a letter to the [U.S.] Army Corps of Engineers in the next two weeks to ask them to start planing for a study of ... long-term solutions, such as levees and flood walls."

A letter? In the next two weeks? Start planning for a study? Are Christie and Martin kidding? There have been so many studies in recent decades, the paper they are printed on could be used to build levees.

Water torture 

Flooding has dominated the front page this week, but there hasn't been a peep from Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin or his minions on how little Christie has done since he took office 13 months ago or how decades of study have produced so little relief.

In fact, Martin's preposterous statement was left to the last paragraph of a flooding sidebar on L-2 today. Why has North Jersey been left behind, when even the governor acknowledged flooding is being controlled by a corps project in Bound Brook and another sidebar on L-2 today says the same of Oakland? 

Editor Francis Scandale often fails to put local voices on the front page, but he did so today with interviews of Japanese residents in North Jersey, reacting to the disaster in their homeland, coverage of which pushed the flooding story off A-1 (except for a refer).

But this is one time he should have found room on Page 1 for Christie's empty, public-relations gesture of appearing in water-logged areas of Passaic and Morris counties -- not bury the story in Local. 

Here is more evidence of Scandale's deeply flawed news judgment, which readers saw as recently as the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and nearly a decade ago on 9/11.

More copy desk follies

And the news copy desk keeps on overselling the flood coverage. The A-1 refer declares:

Rising floodwaters

overtake North Jersey

On Friday, the A-1 banger head warned:

Brace yourself

But the vast majority of North Jersey residents weren't flooded out or even had water in their basements.

The copy desk also keeps on violating a long-held rule against describing in captions what is obvious to readers by looking at the photo, such as on A-6 today, where a man is shown looking at debris left by the tsunami in  Japan and the caption begins, "A man early today looking over debris ...." 

You'd think the editors could have used as much room as possible today to report the natural disasters in Japan and North Jersey. 

So what's the explanation for a second, long story on the Bergen County prosecutor ending monitoring of the Hackensack Police Department just two days after the initial story (L-3)?

And because the copy editor apparently didn't read the story that led the Local section on Thursday, the main headlines on the two stories are almost identical. Instead of readers saying, Oh, here's why the prosecutor is doing this, they are left wondering where they read the story before.

Couple of kudos

You have to commend the local staff for coming up with good stories that have nothing to do with flooding, such as Deena Yellin's readable profile of a 106-year-old Clifton man and Michael Gartland's war of words between the Bergen county executive and the county sheriff over budget cuts, both buried on L-6.

It's a wonder, in view of their bosses' laziness and incompetence, namely Editor Deirdre Sykes and her local assignment desk minions.

Another story that deserved better play today appears on A-3, reporting that property taxes rose an average of 4% statewide in 2010, despite Christie's campaign promises. 

A comment from Assembly Majority Leader Joe Cryan, D-Union, is left to the last paragraph:

"At least now we can stop the ridiculous myth that Governor Christie didn't raise taxes. It's now a proven fact that ... Christie gave New Jerseyans their highest property tax increase since 2007."

Margulies on northjersey.com