Obese editors have nothing to worry about

You've probably seen the Megabus on the New Jersey Turnpike, but did you know its journey  starts on West 34th Street in Manhattan, between 11th and 12th avenues, where frugal travelers line up rain or shine, below? On Wednesday, one young woman said you'd have to reserve months in advance to get a $1 ticket. She paid $17 one-way to Boston, saving $6 off the cost of a seat on Greyhound, but the cab she took to the bus stop was $9. Most of the passengers appeared to be college students -- our future leaders. God help us.

Editors Deirdre Sykes and Tim Nostrand of The Record are both obese, but they have nothing to worry about -- compared to Robert Sulitzer, who is suing a Carlstadt company, claiming it fired him "because of his weight" (L-6).

Sykes and Nostrand have kept their jobs as local editors despite their weight-related laziness and the terrible job they have been doing for readers in Hackensack and many other towns.

If it wasn't for Law & Order news or stories from The Star-Ledger, like the one about Sulitzer, there would have been big holes to fill on the local news pages today and Thursday.

At what other newspaper would today's blown-up photo and long Star-Ledger story about Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Parsippany be presented as "local news" (L-3)?

Gottlieb flops

Editor Marty Gottlieb took over the Woodland Park newsroom 14 months ago, but never cleaned house or cut the fat.

He fired cartoonist Jimmy Margulies to trim expenses, though his prize-winning work continues to appear on Sundays.

With his world view and sports obsession, Gottlieb  has proven to a bigger enemy to Bergen County readers than Sykes and Nostrand, if you can imagine that.

Beside presiding over an unprecedented decline in local news, Sykes and Nostrand have blocked any newsroom projects on the obesity epidemic, and have left questions about Governor Christie's weight to the national media or TV comedians and satirists.

With North Jersey Media Group devoting three-quarters of every dollar to First Amendment cases and other litigation, The Record's health plan doesn't have the funds to cover bariatric surgery for for the elephant-like editors.  

Giving us a break

Readers may be getting a break from all of the over-written, inaccurate columns from Staff Writer John Cichowski, who took over as the Road Warrior in September 2003.

Cichowski's usual Friday column didn't appear today, and his Wednesday column also was missing.

That suggests he may have been cut back to one day a week -- Sunday -- instead of three.

Cichowski's March 20 column about overhead message signs was one of his flawed efforts, according to a concerned reader, who sent another e-mail to management:

"It is bad enough that readers have to repeatedly endure flagrant mistaken reporting and unsubstantiated bad advice, but when the Road Warrior tries to whip up fantasy conspiracies -- as he did in his March 20 column about fictitious speed traps based on message signs that report traffic times -- he does a disservice to The Record and its readers.

"Concerned readers and flabbergasted state officials have to restrain themselves when responding to the Road Warrior's unnecessary investigation into an unsubstantiated "devilish conspiracy," "sinister meaning" and secret agenda to "generate revenue" through these traffic message signs.

"As always, in order to dedicate an entire column to junk conspiracy theories, the Road Warrior has to make up his own delusional theories or statements to try and give all of these theories some questionable credibility.

Sadly, the Road Warrior has repeatedly raised these false conspiracies without any substantiated facts or acknowledgements from traffic officials or police about New Jersey using E-ZPass or traffic message signs to generate revenues from speeding tickets."

See the full e-mail on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

 A welcome sign?

'Quality' meat

Readers hoping to avoid harmful animal antibiotics and growth hormones will have to read between the lines of today's restaurant review in Better Living -- Fink's BBQ in Dumont (BL-14).

Free-lancer Bob Probert throws around the word "quality," but doesn't back it up with any information about the beef, pork and chicken served there.

You can assume the worst. And, if you go, order the shrimp.

They stand in the way of greatness

Governor Christie mocks Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney for being in shape. (Getty Images)

Everyone on Wall Street and Main Street knows that New Jersey desperately needs more -- not less -- tax revenue, as The Record's front page reports once again today. 

But Governor Christie continues to push for a tax cut that will benefit his wealthy supporters most of all.

Oh, The Record long ago stopped including in its Christie stories who would get the biggest cut in income taxes. 

A middle-class family would save about $80 in the first year, enough to buy a bag of groceries.

Instead, the editors continue to give Christie a front-page pulpit for his ridiculous plan, and regurgitate even the most outlandish B.S. from the GOP bully.

You'll find this illogical statement deep in the text of the main A-1 story today:

"Christie argues that an income tax cut would help the economy by bringing businesses to New Jersey (A-8)."

Marty makes it worse

Editor Marty Gottlieb and his Trenton staff continue to ignore reality: 

It's our enormous governor -- with his rabid, no-tax policies -- who literally stands in the way of New Jersey once again becoming a great state.

At least an editorial today notes "it's the arithmetic that counts, not the politics" (A-12).

But what readers remember is Christie's relentless P.R. campaign -- plastered all over the front page almost every day.

In the newsroom

In the Woodland Park newsroom, two enormous editors stand in the way of The Record once again becoming a great local newspaper.

In the last decade, local-news editors Deirdre Sykes and Tim Nostrand have squelched any meaningful coverage of the obesity epidemic in New Jersey or what state health officials are doing about it.

Look at the story on obesity and health-care costs at the bottom of Page 1 today. It's based on a new "study."

You'd think that after years of staring at their ugly, bloated bodies in the mirror, the lights would have gone off in Sykes' and Nostrand's heads about the need to report on obesity.

Instead, they just sought solace in eating more food.

Screw all commuters

The third major story on A-1 today shows Sykes and Nostrand have given up all pretense of trying to ease the commute of tens of thousands of readers.

A story on Route 3 construction is on the front page, but not because of the continuing inconvenience to commuters.

What the editors are really worried about is the work not being finished in time for the Super Toilet Bowl, a football game scheduled for 2014. 

Lazy news gathering

Sykes and Nostrand are so inept, they squandered their staff on four full days of reporting on the death of Barbara Vernieri, who was murdered on Friday before her East Rutherford home was set on fire.

The story was slowly reported four days in a row on A-1 -- not three, as I wrote earlier -- and Tuesday's account ended up demoting Mitt Romney's insulting remarks to somewhere inside the paper.

Now, a day after the entire country was discussing Romney's campaign, The Record finally puts the controversy on Page 1. 

Laziest columnist

If two lazy local-news editors aren't enough, the lazy Road Warrior columnist continues to ignore the needs of commuters by searching out every obscure story or simply relying on e-mails from readers.

Today's entire column by Staff Writer John Cichowski is about "Route 23 signage" and a single reader's e-mail (L-1).

Sykes, Nostrand and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza had so little local news today they were forced to lead Local with Christie's remarks on the state Supreme Court.

Editor relies on sex to sell Page 1

Today's paper would be good for wrapping fish.

Maybe Editor Marty Gottlieb thought the erotic "50 Shades of Grey" trilogy is about sexual shenanigans in the newsroom of the Old Gray Lady, his former employer across the Hudson River.

What other explanation would there be for putting a book signing in Paramus all over Page 1 of The Record today?

A grab bag of politics, sex, medical malpractice and terrorism are the subjects of today's A-1 stories.

Pissing match

To lead the paper, Gottlieb continues heavy coverage of the contest between two Democrats in the 9th Congressional District -- highlighting how readers have seen little coverage of the race in the 5th Congressional District, headed by arch-conservative Rep. Scott Garrett.

The stories about Reps. Bill Pascrell Jr. and Steve Rothman have been careful to avoid mentioning that voters in Hackensack and other towns won't have any say in the outcome. 

Road Warrior screw-up

Two long corrections on A-2 include one for Tuesday's Road Warrior column by Staff Writer John Cichowski, who misquoted the head of the ACLU in New Jersey.

On A-10, an editorial urging readers "to get off our couches and do something" to ease the obesity epidemic makes no reference to the poor example set by Governor Christie and his overweight wife and son.

Elephant in newsroom

Indeed, instead of speaking about what the state or first lady Mary Pat Christie are doing about childhood obesity, the editorial praises first lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign.

The sad truth is that the paper's own obese head assignment editor, Deirdre Sykes, has blocked any newsroom project on the epidemic for more than a decade.

Readers yawn

Another Road Warrior column on the stillborn TRU-ID program at the Motor Vehicle Commission appears on L-1 today, eliciting yawns from readers who don't have to renew their licenses for another three to four years, and may be able to do so through the mail next time.

Hiding corrections

A day after an overblown, front-page story on the rescue of a worker from a vat of diluted acid in a Clifton factory, another story appears today on the Local front to correct inaccuracies in the original (L-1).

Sykes continues to put a negative spin on the prosecution case against suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa (L-2).

And the phlegmatic head of the assignment desk runs another story on a renewal plan for Hackensack from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (L-7), but she has yet to ask residents what they think or question officials on how soon it might become reality.

Obesity got worse in the newsroom, too

Image via Wikipedia

The Record's editors should be journalists first, despite their obsessions.

Obesity is a subject the editors of The Record have tried to avoid for decades, but it won't go away, just like all the extra pounds they haul around the newsroom.


Even after Governor Christie took office in January 2010, there appeared to be no greater awareness of the obesity epidemic -- the editors of the Woodland Park daily just continued throwing their weight around.


On Page 1 today, a story reporting nearly 62% of state residents are overweight appears at the bottom of the page, even though it belongs at the top, in place of new air-pollution rules. The headline:

Obesity problem

gets worse in N.J.

and across nation

The reporter, Mary Jo Layton, who was always in great shape, is sort of flip in her lead paragraph: "More bad news on the fat front."

Of course, the "fat front" has been as close as her supervisor, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, and Projects Editor Tim Nostrand, among other severely overweight newsroom workers.

Apparently, Sykes and Nostrand have kept a stranglehold on newsroom investigations for a decade or more -- and their uncontrolled eating hits too close to home for them to launch a project on the obesity epidemic.

At least when it comes to reporting on obesity, Editor Francis Scandale seems to be under Sykes' thumb. 


That's despite him being an athletic man who came to The Record in 2001 from Colorado, listed in today's story as among the five "thinnest states."


New food editor


In 2006, then-Features Editor Barbara Jaeger hired Bill Pitcher as food editor, despite his obesity and his well-known appetite for meat and sweets.


Pitcher, in turn, hired a new restaurant reviewer, Elisa Ung, a pudgy woman who didn't hide her overriding obsession with dessert.


Although Pitcher wasn't named in the article, he undoubtedly was one of the "Fat Pack" discussed by The New York Times Dining Section -- food writers or bloggers who can't control their eating.

It never occurred to Pitcher in his four or so years as food editor to use his own attempts to lose weight as a launching pad for a series on the obesity epidemic and advice that goes beyond the latest diet or exercise fad.

In fact, he turned his daughter, once a normal 2-year-old, into a grossly overweight little girl, whom he paraded through the newsroom. 

Other A-1 news

The big, front-page photo of the arena in Pamplona is another gee-whiz image that has little to do with life in North Jersey. It's just more of Scandale's newsroom bull.

Staff Writer Stephanie Akin again demonstrates the legwork and hustle that makes her such an outstanding reporter with both an interview of Secaucus ex-Mayor Denis Elwell (A-1) and a town reaction story to his bribery conviction (L-1).

The one question she doesn't address is why do New Jersey politicians such as Elwell, who also heads a trucking company, sell their offices and their souls for such little money? 

Woops

On A-2, another embarrassing correction notes a quote from a prepared statement, also called a handout, was attributed to the wrong Democrat in an A-3 story Thursday on Christie's budget cuts. 


Boy, that's sloppy.

A story on A-9 today doesn't mention the staff of the News of the World tabloid hacked into e-mail accounts, as well as voice-mail messages. 

How is that any different from Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg having IT staff hack into newsroom employees' e-mail accounts, and then disciplining workers? 

Another screw-up

On the front of Sykes' Local section, a caption refers to a sign on Route 20 in Paterson, but the photo above it shows only cars, a truck and a tire retread.

The Road Warrior column with them is another editorial eyesore -- and continues John Cichowski's boycott on the commuting problems of bus and rail riders.

In recent weeks, there seems to have been an uptick in municipal news, but the Hackensack, Englewood and Teaneck reports continue to rely too heavily on police and fire news.

Bar fire

In Better Living, Ung offers readers a lukewarm review of Vesta Wood Fired Pizza and Bar in East Rutherford. Is the bar on fire, too?

That 12-inch pizza for $12; is it the most expensive in North Jersey? She doesn't say, but she did sample four desserts.

On Page 18 of Better Living, free-lancer Jeffrey Page finds one of the tens of thousands of restaurants where two people can eat dinner for $50. How is this of any service to readers?