Editors don't apologize for swallowing blizzard forecast

The driver of a Ford Mustang turning wide at the snow-covered corner of Euclid and Prospect avenues in Hackensack on Tuesday afternoon. The snowfall was far less than predicted. Drivers of Hackensack's plows don't clear corners.

Who is supposed to clear the sidewalk and curb for pedestrians? Is it the city or the property owner?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Page 1 of The Record today, just about everyone apologizes for wrongly predicting a blizzard with 2 feet of snow or more -- except the media.

The Woodland Park daily jumped on the weather doomsday bandwagon and rode it all the way, but apologized to subscribers for not delivering Tuesday's print edition.

That paper was delivered a day late with today's edition, but one look at Tuesday's front page shows just how stale print journalism can be these days. 

New Jersey highways and Hudson River crossings reopened, and mass transit resumed operation in time for Tuesday's rush hour.

Profit over safety

The big weather photo on Page 1 today is more bad publicity for the cheap lightweight wood construction methods used in the 240-unit Avalon at Edgewater apartment building that burned down a week ago (A-1).

How long will the Virginia-based real estate investment trust allow the burned out skeleton of the Russell building to stand and announce to anyone looking for an apartment, You don't want to live here?

In a letter to the editor, Joyce Huber of Ridgefield said of the cheap wood construction and rapid spread of fire:

"We've become a Third World country if we allow profit to come before safety" (A-12).

That's naive. 

U.S. companies have always prized profit over safety, as all of the defective cars and other products show. They have killed thousands of consumers and made product liability lawyers rich.

First lawsuit

Meanwhile, Robert Loposky and Richard Kemp, two tenants of the so-called luxury apartment building, filed a lawsuit, alleging building owners were "negligent in the construction, maintenance and operation" of the complex, where the fire was started by an Avalon employee using a blowtorch to fix a pipe (L-1).

The first paragraph and sub-headline incorrectly call the suit "a class-action lawsuit" on behalf of the more than 500 displaced tenants who suffered economic loss, because only a judge can certify the suit as a class action.

The first paragraph also refers incorrectly to tenants as "residents."  

Cold cash

Also in Local, a story on L-2 reports wealthy Saddle River residents are allowing their children to attend a school where a malfunctioning heating system forces them to keep their coats on.

I guess that means residents prize clear roads more than they do the health and well-being of children, judging from this Anonymous comment I received from a resident in reaction to Tuesday's post:

"My town, Saddle River, is excellent at plowing and clearing snow and slush. Streets, even those hilly ones, are cleared quite quickly and efficiently. We expect -- and get -- nothing less." 

Of course, this proud Saddle River millionaire and residents of other wealthy Bergen County suburbs are more interested in maintaining "neighborhood schools" with no minority children than they are in working heating systems, even in winter. 

Snowstorm coverage you never see in your daily paper

My guesstimate is that 6 inches to 8 inches of snow fell on the Fairmount section of Hackensack, above and below, far less than relentless media hype led all of us to believe. On Monday, The Record's front page warned the storm "may dump 2 feet or more."

Editor's note: I didn't receive The Record's print edition today. Instead, I looked at the digital edition. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When I think of how The Record covers big snowstorms, I can't shake the image of one of the paper's obese local assignment editors trying to climb over a snowbank in the Hackensack parking lot many years ago.

Despite the effort, she flopped on her well-padded posterior and injured her back, then stayed out of work for weeks.

The Record certainly has made the effort, but always comes up short, forgetting just how important good snow plowing is to readers.

Broken Record

On Monday, The Record's front page blared:

North Jersey bracing

for The Big One

Today's Page 1 banner headline is similar and doesn't advance the story much:

READY FOR THE WORST

One bright spot on today's front page is a bit of colorful writing from the copy desk and Christopher Maag, who describes how just about all transportation was cancelled.

The headline:

Can't get there from here today 

"If it flies, rolls or floats, don't expect to see it moving today," Maag says in his second paragraph.

That sentence is just about perfect.

Snow clearing

Unless the editors grow a large set of balls, The Record tomorrow will shrink from rating Hackensack and other towns on how well they do in clearing streets, intersections and bus stops.

Nor will the paper go after property owners who shrug at the snow and refuse to clear their sidewalks or pay someone to do the job.

This has been going on for decades, even though uncleared intersections, crosswalks, sidewalks and bus stops endanger drivers and pedestrians.

Hackensack DPW

Some people you hire don't do windows; in Hackensack, property taxpayers can't get the Department of Public Works plows to do corners.

Bus stops along Main Street usually remain uncleared, forcing riders to stand in the street -- inches from passing cars -- or climb over a snowbank to get to the bus.

Quarterly property taxes in Hackensack are due in two weeks. 

But if the past is any guide, residents won't get their money's worth, and snow clearing will be as sloppy as ever.

The same can be said for Teaneck, Englewood and many other towns.

This sounds silly

When you work for a paper, with early deadlines and all the other impediments to timely coverage, you should avoid labeling a developing storm the "Blizzard of '15," as today's front page does.

If you are Road Warrior John Cichowski, you can't help just making up things or, as he does today, cite a 2013 blizzard in Wyoming in advising North Jersey drivers on how to prepare for being stranded in a big storm (L-1).

In his Jan. 20 column on the front page, Cichowski repeatedly misquoted state officials on why they want to raise the gas tax to replenish the state Transportation Trust Fund, which repairs roads and bridges.

The incentive to raise the gas tax is that the fund is months away from running out of money, not that gasoline has fallen to less than $2 a gallon.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

The Road Warrior has run out of gas again

Today's photos

Two photographs in the digital edition of The Record today are notable:

An AP photo of Governor Christie speaking to Iowa conservatives, crackpots and racists shows the GOP bully to be as ugly as his policies in New Jersey (A-2).

On the Local front, a photo by staffer Danielle Parhizkaran perfectly captures the grief of relatives gathered around the coffin of Vincent Capuana (L-1).

When events don't live up to the relentless media hype

Tourists posing for their close-up in Manhattan's Times Square, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

That stupid movie about the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jung Un opened in Clifton and other movie theaters, and none of the cinemas were blown up, according to Page 1 of The Record today.

Tuesday's front page quoted "experts," who predicted heavy rain may "lead to big backups" for holiday travelers.

Two days later, the Local front declared, "Travel chaos never came to North Jersey."

Last Saturday, Page 1 warned last-minute shoppers "Super Saturday" could be the busiest mall day of the year, but the next day, a huge front-page photo and L-1 story reported "smooth sailing" and "mild congestion."

When The Record predicts controversy, clogged highways and shoppers stripping store shelves, no such things happen.

Readers are tired of the hype, and tired of editors trying to predict the future and sacrificing coverage of what has happened in North Jersey.

Niche reporting

Today's front-page story on seniors is of interest only to those who are so sick they need a live-in health aide (A-1).

In the past few years, Staff Writer Colleen Diskin and her clueless assignment editor would have you believe all North Jersey seniors are confined to their beds, at home or in a nursing home.

What is a story on a 2004 tsunami doing on Page 1 today?

The obituary on Scott Kay, a Teaneck-based jewelry designer, doesn't mention the cause of death until near the end, and does so in passing (L-6).

Why did a 57-year-old die of cardiac arrest? Was it stress, diet or something else? No one in Woodland Park seems to know or care.

Artery cloggers

Staff Writer Elisa Ung certainly isn't concerned about heart health in her appraisal of Momma's Kitchen, where she was "charmed" by doughnuts served with chocolate sauce, ice cream sandwiches and "the profoundly light and creamy" cheesecake (BL-14).

The restaurant in far-off Montvale sounds like a great place: 

A BYO that serves well-prepared Italian-American comfort food at moderate prices, with no entree above $15.95.

Does Momma's Kitchen serve big salads or seafood besides mussels? 

There is so much background on the owners, Ung doesn't have room to say, even if she was inclined to.

But the biggest turnoff in the 3-star review is her saying the restaurant is "an excellent option when you ... want to eat much better food than you'd find at your average chain restaurant for around the same price."

Better than "your average chain restaurant"?

You mean Momma's Kitchen isn't that great when compared to other locally owned Italian-American restaurants?

On weather or election, we're sick of the hype

  One homeowner prepared for the storm by covering outdoor furniture.

Editor Marty Gottlieb delivers another screaming Hurricane Sandy headline on Page 1 today -- for the fourth day in a row.

"Bracing for the worst" is today's banner headline, hard on the heels of "Ready or not, here it comes" on the weak Sunday edition.

We may not be ready, but here it is Monday morning in Hackensack and we haven't seen any steady rain.

Sure, the trees are swaying in the wind and our power flickered out for a few minutes, but that's it so far.

OK. The storm center has yet to hit the New Jersey coast, and all of the bad things we've read in the paper may indeed come to pass.  

But once you've read the predictions of weather doom, there is pathetically little in the rest of the paper, especially the Local news section run so poorly by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy yes man, Dan Sforza. 

Hype sells papers

The hurricane hype is eerily familiar to readers who have been pounded into senselessness by coverage of the presidential election for the past year and a half.

President Obama's lackluster performance in the first debate was a godsend to Gottlieb and others media leaders.

They were able to whip up another horse race to keep readers engaged in an election process they lost interest in many months before.

Meanwhile, GOP hopeful Mitt Romney's many lies went unchallenged, as he moved toward the center and said anything to get elected.

Pascrell endorsement

The paper's endorsement today of Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. D-Paterson, was welcome (A-11).

The Record has paid far too much attention to the challenge by Republican Shmuley Boteach, an Englewood rabbi and author who is a master at manipulating the media.

Did any of the many stories on Boteach's campaign for the 9th District seat in Congress report how he bought an Englewood mansion, knowing full well the one next door was owned by the Libyan Mission to the U.N.?

Did The Record recall the almost daily coverage of Boteach's so-called protest in the summer of 2009 when the mission announced that Libyan leader Moammar Ghadafi planned to stay in the East Hill home? 

Did the paper's political reporters or columnist reprise Boteach's recent attempt to have his mansion declared a synagogue so he could gain exemption from city property taxes? 

No contest

It's likely the paper ignored all of Boteach's many weaknesses to make the race against Pascrell seem tighter than it is, just as it is doing with coverage of the presidential contest.

Buried in Sunday's Page 1 story on jobs is a report that the Congressional Budget Office predicted in January the nation will add 10 million jobs from January 2013 to January 2017 (A-5 on Sunday).

Similarly, private economists have predicted that the economy is likely to create 12 million more jobs in four years, regardless of who is elected.

If those predictions are credible, why hasn't anyone challenged Romney's ridiculous boast that as president he would "create" 12 million jobs?   

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