Editors play politics with Christie's reelection bid

To Staff Writer John Cichowski, a big problem for commuters is keeping their tires inflated properly, as the airhead explains in his Road Warrior column on the Local front today. Traffic inching toward the Lincoln Tunnel, above, isn't his concern.

By focusing on the politics of Governor Christie's bid for a second term, The Record's editors continue to hide the GOP bully's many policy failures.

In a negative story about Democratic challenger Barbara Buono, Christie is called "her popular opponent" (A-3).

Popular with whom? The millionaires and special interests he serves exclusively?

That story from The Star-Ledger commits the same sin as others by The Record's own staff: 

It quotes Brigid Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University, without mentioning she is one of the Woodland Park daily's Opinion columnists.

Harrison's column today is all about the politics of President Obama's joint appearance with Christie on the Jersey shore (O-2).

Boring politics

Politics are dividing the nation. They put readers to sleep, whether in news stories or columns by Harrison and Staff Writer Charles Stile.

Yet, Editor Marty Gottlieb and other media leaders are news junkies who are hooked on politics for all of the supposed controversy they offer.

Is anyone going to vote for Christie in November, because he appeared with Obama or Britain's Prince Harry at the shore, as the story on A-3 suggests?

Another thin paper

Readers have to scour today's Page 1 story on state police diversity for any numbers, such as the size of the force or the current training class (A-1).

The size of the force and how that compares with past decades isn't given, but readers are left to do the  arithmetic on A-6 to get the size of the training class (6% of 20,000).

Crippled thinking

A concerned reader didn't think much of Road Warrior John Cichowski's idea for colored-coded handicap parking stickers:

"The Road Warrior continues on his merry mistaken ways in his May 29 column. He promulgates an ineffective, impractical idea about disability parking tags and irresponsible, derisive, misleading, and negligently incomplete responses to readers' comments.

"He should offer a retraction to his endorsement of a faulty, poorly thought-out idea for 3 color codes for disability parking tags. It would NOT cover many circumstances and would create too much confusion, contradictions, & complexities for law enforcement, bureaucratic oversight, and those eligible for disability parking.

"He should focus on taking responsibility to correct the hundreds of mistakes and faulty advice or conclusions in his columns over the past 9 months and prevent future problems.

"Instead, he tried to fault me and mislead readers by taking one of my comments completely out of context on a previous column regarding potholes.  

"It shows how small minded and negligent the Road Warrior is for his readers and The Record. 

"I presented facts/comments about a business owner's ineffective response and culpability for his own problems and accidents based on potholes near his Carlstadt business."  
  

To read the full e-mail, click on the following link:

Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers

Where's the aspirin?

My Medicare coverage was set years ago, so I pity readers who have to plow through Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais' confusing columns on the health-insurance program for seniors (B-1). 

Don't look for any food coverage in today's Better Living section, which had to make room for a T&A cover story on that TV show, "The Real Bimbos of New Jersey" (BL-1).

The Real Estate cover story -- "Will house hunters pay for green?" -- appears to be based on a commission-hungry real estate agent's claim that a Ramsey "home's energy efficiency should add $100,000 to its value" (R-1).

That's preposterous. 

There's so little news on the front page

Image by babyknight via Flickr

The Record rented the New Meadowlands Stadium and invited readers to meet with Francis Scandale, Deirdre Sykes and other editors, as well as Staff Writer John Brennan. See the photo for how many showed up.

Instead of listing credit cards that give you 5% off at the pump, The Record leads the paper today with all the partisan rhetoric sparked by high gas prices -- a process story that amounts to little more than toilet paper.

Meanwhile, the editors of the Woodland Park daily buried a consumer column reporting gasoline prices ended their climb and actually fell last week (L-8). 

And where is the story telling drivers whether cheaper fuel at off-brand stations is just as good for their engines as the high-priced stuff?

Stalling the GOP bully

Readers get more non-news in the off-lead story on Page 1 -- Governor Christie's stalled attack on teacher tenure, plus lots of blather on the success of his Republican cohorts in other states.

The final long, boring A-1 story is aimed at a tiny but greedy minority who own those pricey "seat licenses" at the New Meadowlands Stadium. Yikes. Why is this news?

Someone should check Editor Francis Scandale's journalism "license" and how much seat time he's spending in the men's room.

Journalism jam

When I was at The Record, the reporter, Staff Writer John Brennan, earned a reputation among editors as a royal pain in the ass, loudly talking up his sports-business stories nearly every afternoon in a usually successful bid to get them on A-1 -- no matter how trivial or obscure.

Brennan, a former sports reporter who still struggles with reporting and writing fundamentals, would invade Tim Nostrand's office -- forcing the editor to stop planning his next meal.

Then, Brennan would obsessively describe in excruciating detail what he was working on, forcing every news copy editor to listen to his loud voice through the editor's open door.

To get him to shut up, Nostrand usually agreed to push Brennan's tripe for the front.

Killing readers

Instead of focusing on how most motorcycle owners deliberately modify their bikes to make as much noise as possible and disturb as many people as possible, Road Warrior John Cichowski devotes his column today to a spike in bikers' deaths (L-1).

Petty potentate

Should any mayor rule for 20 years? The story on state Sen. Nicholas Sacco winning another term in North Bergen makes no attempt to evaluate whether his tenure has been good for the town, but does quote the incumbents'  campaign claims (L-1).

Thanks to head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, the same superficial treatment is given to the victory of incumbents in Lodi's municipal election (L-3).

A rare story on mass transit appears on L-3, likely because those noisy diesel locomotives have awakened Staff Writer Karen Rouse, who lives next to the tracks, one too many times.

Free advertising

The only food coverage in Better Living today is shameless promotion of two cookbooks on F-1 and a cafe in Manhattan on F-3. 

Features Director Barbara Jaeger wanted her section to carry the letter "F" for all the times she has f--ked employees and readers.

 

Is the new food editor out to lunch?

Image via Wikipedia

 

Has anyone seen a byline from Susan L. Sherill since she came on board as food editor of The Record of Woodland Park on Sept. 1 (the day her name first appeared on Page F-2 of Better Living)?


I did see a Record story on (201) magazine's Restaurant Week that carried her tag line (she was food and entertainment editor at that North Jersey Media Group publication). And she has contributed to Second Helpings, the food blog on northjersey.com, as well as sending out numerous Twitter tweets.


But now, it seems, one of her restaurant reviews appears in the October 2010 issue of (201), with photos by her husband, Ted Axelrod. The gushing evaluation of Taverna Mykonos in Elmwood Park doesn't give prices for food, and there isn't one critical word in it. Was she comped? The restaurant cited this review in an e-mail offering customers a 15% discount. Here is the first paragraph:

"Beautiful and bustling, the Greek island of Mykonos is one of Europe's -- if not the world's -- top tourist destinations. Its namesake restaurant in Elmwood Park already shares the first characteristic, and judging by our visits, will soon be as packed and popular as one of the island's famous nightclubs in high season."

Doesn't this completely blur the line between food journalism and advertising? Read it for yourself at the following link: http://www.201.net/issues/2010/10/departments/DiningReview.story
 
I ate at Taverna Mykonos and I can tell you the "irresistible bread" she describes was a large, awful, doughy, dark-and-light swirl -- a loaf  so bad I asked for simple Greek pita instead.

Was this review left over at (201), just as Bill Pitcher's reviews appeared after he left The Record  as food editor? Or is it possible that Publisher Stephen A. "Greedy Stevie" Borg just eliminated Pitcher's $71,000-a-year salary and combined the jobs at the magazine and the daily?

Though she hasn't had a byline yet, she is planning big things for Better Living's food coverage. Next week, according to one of her tweets, she'll mesmerize readers with a comparison of cupcake mixes.


She also is planning a column, based on a recipe from a cookbook, according to another tweet. That's going to be ground-breaking food journalism.


Pitcher was a glorified recipe editor for much of the time he was at The Record, and he would ride around, looking for restaurants that had opened or closed for Second Helpings (repeated in the A La Carte column on Fridays). He was only about 30 when he got the job in mid-2006


Most of the major food stories, plus restaurant reviews and a Sunday column, were written by Elisa Ung, hired as restaurant reviewer in 2007.


Pitcher also was skilled at pulling stories off the food wire. During Ung's maternity leave, near the end of his four years as food editor, he reviewed restaurants.


Here are three tweets in which Sherrill discusses her plans (http://twitter.com/susanlsherrill):

1. Testing red velvet cupcake mixes today: Barefoot Contessa vs. Sprinkles vs. Duncan Hines - results in next Wed. Record! 8:11 AM Oct 7th via web
2. @doriegreenspan Starting column for The Record newspaper (I'm food editor) where I do a recipe from "cookbook of the week" - yours is first! 11:35 AM Sep 29th via web  
3. @doriegreenspan Your publisher just sent me a copy of your glorious new book, "around my french table" - can't wait to jump in! 11:05 AM Sep 29th via web 

'Eye on The Record' shall return

Image by TwelveX via Flickr










Eye on The Record is taking another break, this one about twice as long as my one-week hiatus in June.

I'll be spared all the dreadful local journalism in The Record of Woodland Park, but unfortunate readers won't. 


There is plenty of good reading, so spend a few minutes reviewing observations from the early days of this blog, including "Abandoning Hackensack" and "Stephen Borg prospers despite the recession."


Today's paper isn't anything to speak of, thanks to Editor Francis "Frank The Castrato" Scandale. 


The lead story is about the $400 million federal education grant screw-up, and the more than $500,000 paid a consultant. The Record didn't question the role of the consultant until the state attorney general launched a probe Tuesday.


The Local news section is thin, as usual, with big photos taking up the space of stories the staff didn't file. There is no Hackensack news today; reporter Monsy Alvarado is resting from filing two stories in two days. Englewood news? Nope.


But editors made room for a story about Rockleigh on L-3. Most residents live in an old-age home.


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes or one of her minions should take Road Warrior John Cichowski's pulse. His "Check Brain" light has been on for a couple of years now.


You'd think that with at least two highly paid food staffers -- the food editor and a restaurant reviewer -- Better Living could do better than boring wire-service coverage of food and wine. 

Before dim-witted Publisher Stephen A. Borg folded the Food section, readers enjoyed locally written food stories, a column by the food editor, and recipes every Wednesday. Now, readers get slop.

We demand better food coverage

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If The Record of Woodland Park can squander half of the front page on a single baseball game, I feel free to start right off demanding better food coverage -- and during the obesity epidemic, food news has a legitimate place on Page 1.


What we get now are poorly written, poorly researched articles and recipes from Food Editor Bill Pitcher, who is famous around the Woodland Park newsroom for his poor eating habits and unhealthy lifestyle. His food writers are no better, and that includes Elisa Ung, the on-leave restaurant reviewer, who is constantly obsessing about desserts and throwing around the word "quality" as if she knew anything about the origin of the food she writes about.



How does Better Living publish a Starters piece on a 350-seat steakhouse in Paterson without putting the place in context? Surely, this is the Silk City's first high-end, destination restaurant to open in decades. And don't readers deserve to know whether the beef served there is free-range and grass-fed or just conventionally raised and stuffed with antibiotics, growth hormones and animal byproducts?


The same goes for the meat served at Locale, the Closter restaurant reviewed by Pitcher today. Where does it come from and how was it raised? What about the odd name? Locale? Did they mean Local? What about that embarrassing typo that starts the second paragraph? "But" comes out "bur." Then, there is this about the owner's visits to white-tablecloth restaurants in Bergen County:

"He studied their customers, taking note of their wealth and wondering if there was room for another restaurant in their repertoires."

 Huh? Customers have "repertoires" of restaurants? Pitcher also makes it sound as if  Locale replaces the long-shuttered Korea Palace. Did the reviewer mean the first Korea Palace?


Later, Pitcher samples a dish of "Gulf shrimp." Gee. Are those the shrimp marinated in that special BP sauce? This reminds me of the pork tacos recipe he published at the height of the swine-flu epidemic. Hey, Bill, for your inflated salary, you should get your nose out of those gooey desserts and pay attention to what's going on in the world -- like the obesity epidemic.


If Editor Frank Scandale or head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes or your editor, Features Director Barbara Jaeger, don't recognize the importance of reporting on the obesity epidemic, you should go out on a limb and propose such a project involving all departments of the newsroom.


I hope you and the other editors aren't taking their lead from Governor Christie, who is greedily protecting the Borgs and other wealthy folks like himself from the "shared sacrifices" he is imposing on everyone else.


Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson has the best story on Page 1 -- contributions to congressmen who voted to fund a fighter-jet engine -- but it's shoved down near the bottom of the page.


The only Hackensack news in Local today is a story on the postponement of a hearing for suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa -- just two days after a long, detailed preview of the hearing by the same reporter, Monsy Alvarado. What a waste of space. What about the proposed city budget and tax hike, Monsy? When are you going to write about that? After the City Council approves them?


Does Publisher Stephen A. Borg have his eye on the 30,000-square-foot mansion in Alpine listed for $68 million (Page L-7)? Is he feeling cramped already in the $3.65 million Tenafly mansion he bought in late 2007 with a company mortgage only months before he downsized The Record and Herald News?


Will Borg order the project on the obesity epidemic? After all, he was a hands-on publisher when he took over in mid-2006, reshaping both local news and food coverage.

Or does "Let them drink wine" sum up his attitude?

(Photos: The stuffing in a stuffed shirt.)

No news sections today

Eddie Murphy via last.fm

I didn't receive the main news and Local sections with The Record of Woodland Park today, so let's look at Real Estate and the other sections I did get. (Customer service promised delivery of the news sections within two hours.)


In Real Estate, Staff Writer Kathy Lynn reports that in 2007, 143 homes sold for more than $2 million in Bergen County. Of course, one of those was the $3.65 million estate in Tenafly purchased with a company mortgage by Publisher Stephen A. Borg -- only months before layoffs and the departure of many veteran employees.


The greed of some home owners is clear. Eddie Murphy was asking $30 million in 2004 for an Englewood home he bought in 1985 for $3.5 million. (Borg sold the home he bought for $865,000 with his first company mortgage in 1999 for $2 million.) What does Michele Kolsky of  Coldwell Banker in Fort Lee really think of buyers? "All last year, [they] were under a rock." So I guess she is saying they are nothing more than bugs.


Better Living has a recipe for tomatillos as the only food coverage today.


In Opinion, the most interesting reading is in letters to the editor. The paper also found room today to print guidelines for writing letters, without mentioning the volume of readers' letters is so great, letters from employees, including editors, reporters and copy editors, won't be accepted or published.


That policy hasn't really been a problem at The Record because few newsroom employees believe in anything or are willing to go out on a limb to support others employees whose rights have been routinely violated.

Just like the old days?

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Hackensack news for a fourth day in a row might lead you to think The Record of Woodland Park has suddenly decided to repent for the neglect of the past few years. But today's story is about yet another suit filed against suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa, and it's reported on Page L-3 in far too much detail by Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado.

No. This is business-as-usual for The Record, using a dramatic photo from Thailand all over Page 1, despite having basically ignored the protests there for months; running another nonsensical column by Mike Kelly, who for some unfathomable reason is rehashing the history of Xanadu and speculating on whether the retail and entertainment center can be saved; and reporting on Zisa's continuing legal problems at the expense of other, more important Hackensack news.

In Local, a story on the Englewood Council's school budget cuts is the first municipal story from that city since April 22, when a follow on the defeated tax levy was published. 


No food coverage can be found today in Better Living. Food Editor Bill Pitcher apparently was too exhausted after writing his restaurant review, which will appear tomorrow.

Judging by salaries in the newsroom that have become public record, Deirdre Sykes and Barbara Jaeger, the editors in charge of Local and Better Living, respectively, likely are paid more than $100,000 a year. Your guess is as good as mine as to what they do, because there is little evidence in the paper itself that they are earning the money.

Today's local and food 'news'

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Hackensack and Englewood stories in Local today appear under "Update" -- essentially a rehashing of old news, with a smidgen of something new.

On L-2, Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado has her first Hackensack story since March 22 in The Record of Woodland Park -- that a police substation on Hudson Street opened a "couple of months" ago, but "officially" opened last week. There is no mention of Police Chief Ken Zisa, who is apparently the target of an editor Deirdre Sykes-inspired investigation that has forced Alvarado to ignore any other news about the city. Her last non-Zisa story ran Jan. 30.

On L-3, Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano reports on a hearing to explore uses for an old Englewood school and the Mackay Park skating rink. She had another short story, about the mayor's new Web site, on April 7 -- the first non-police news from that city since March 8.

In Better Living, Food Editor Bill Pitcher appears to be shamelessly promoting KFC with a detailed comparison of the Double Down -- bacon and cheese between two pieces of fried chicken -- against nine other fast-food items. (Photo: KFC in Kingston, Jamaica.)

Are we being asked to believe he or anyone else at The Record actually purchased all 10 items, then prepared an elaborate chart with seven categories, including cholesterol and sodium, only to conclude the Double Down isn't so bad after all. (The chart has no credit line.) Or did KFC supply Pitcher with the chart and maybe coupons for the sandwich to get tens of thousands of dollars of free, biased publicity from a major suburban daily newspaper?

Maybe, they should rename the "sandwich" Double Death, and put a sign on Pitcher's desk: Editor for sale to the highest bidder. Does he split the proceeds with his boss, Barbara Jaeger?

Three reporters on one story?

The Record of Woodland Park is trying to milk the murder of a 9-year-old North Jersey boy for all it's worth. The desperate, incompetent editors assigned three reporters to the story today and put it back on Page 1, but you won't find any news in the paper from Hackensack or the other towns those reporters are supposed to be covering.

The three reporters spend so much time describing the murder suspect's mental illness, none of them questions why the boy was sent to stay with relatives in New York City on a regular basis, why he was up at 3 in the morning in his uncle's apartment or whether there was a sexual motive for the crime.

Two other staff-written stories appear on the front page, including the unusual appearance of a column by consumer reporter Kevin DeMarrais. He says cable television customers have options in the battle over higher fees for programs, but have you noticed how difficult it is to find the savings or the bargains touted by newspaper columnists such as DeMarrais, whether it is for TV service, airline fares or hotel rooms?

If you are looking for news of your town in the Local section, you won't find any, but there is plenty of crime, fire and accident coverage -- what passes for local news in the former Hackensack daily. In fact, on the front page today is a promotion for a video of a "stubborn" house fire on northjersey.com, the pathetic Web site of North Jersey Media Group. Is that all the so-called digital news group could come up with? 

If you usually ignore the Business section, you'll miss health-care news, an example of odd packaging. Shouldn't health-care and non-profit news appear in the feature section, Better Living? It took years for the lazy editors to put restaurant sanitary inspections in the Friday entertainment-restaurant section, though the list often omits Wyckoff and many other towns.

The danger of  food editor Bill Pitcher using recipes from outside sources can be clearly seen today in Better Living's so-called 15 Minute Chef (no home cook can prepare this meal in that time; it's just hype). The all-knowing Washington Post says you can't find wild salmon this time of the year, so advises us to use artificially colored farmed salmon. But wild Alaskan sockeye salmon is available frozen year-round at Costco, including the store down the street from the old Record building, Trader Joe's and other stores.

On the opposite page, an article from the Chicago Tribune sounds like "Healthy Eating 101" as it tries to persuade readers to try such nutritious foods as sardines, cabbage, tomatoes and broccoli. The "how to eat" cabbage paragraph ignores the wide availability of cabbage kimchi in North Jersey.

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.

Short on Bergen County news

The Record today is the usual disappointment, short on local news and food coverage, but with a large patch of the front page devoted to the first game of the World Series.

A Page 1 tease, "Doc says defendant was too fat to kill," is the paper's way of addressing the obesity epidemic, which it has avoided reporting for years outside of an annual story saying it is getting worse all the time.

On A-4, a story carries a headline, "Number of trucks expected to soar on roads in Morris County," but the story doesn't mention The Record's Mercedes-Benz delivery trucks have been wearing ruts in Route 80 for a few years now, picking up the freshly printed edition at its Rockaway Township plant and returning to Hackensack, the newspaper's former home.

On A-10, a number of letters to the editor condemn the decision to endorse John Corzine for another term as governor, and readers point out the editorial seemed back-handed, because it omitted his accomplishments in office. On at least a couple of occasions recently, Record stories have reported that the governor raised taxes, but left out an important distinction: the higher levies are only on the rich.

The Local section has another story about Eastside High in Paterson, but I have read nothing about Hackensack High School in the more than two years I have lived in River City. The section has seven stories about Passaic County towns, only five about Bergen towns, plus a murder trial, political column, an expanded obituary and a story about Xanadu.

The local staff has struggled for years to fill the paper with Bergen news, especially when there were two separate editions: one for Bergen County, the other for Passaic and Morris counties. Now, there seems to be only one edition and the lack of local Bergen news is pathetic and a slap in the face to readers.

In Better Living, there is no food news, with the exception of an Atlantic City feature about a celebrity chef   judging a cooking competition and a promotion for Friday's restaurant review.