Columnist taps into racist, anti-Obama rhetoric on economy

Heavy winds on Saturday night brought down a tree, damaging at least three cars parked on American Legion Drive, near Prospect Avenue, in Hackensack, a neighborhood of high-rises and garden apartments.

This afternoon, a police officer told a young couple the tree won't be removed and they won't have access to their damaged car (the silver-colored one in the middle) until PSE&G removes live wires. American Legion Drive was closed for the same reason.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Republican Party appears to be pulling the strings of Staff Writer Mike Kelly, whose Page 1 column in The Record today demonizes President Obama and knocks his record on the economy.

Kelly focuses on "more than 100 people who had recently lost middle-management jobs at New Jersey corporations" who attended "a lecture on how to use social media" (A-1).

Kelly doesn't even mention Obama, the nation's first black president, whose every action has been opposed by the Republican majority in Congress in the greatest display of racial animosity since the end of slavery.

Trump's racism

But the columnist claims deep "social, political and financial tremors" are responsible for "the anti-immigration and protectionist rhetoric of Donald Trump," the Republican front-runner in this year's presidential campaign.

Of course, Trump, Governor Christie and the other GOP clowns clearly have been campaigning against Obama, and distorting the remarkable job he did in bringing the nation back from the recession.

War on middle class

Kelly also doesn't mention Christie or the GOP bully's war on the middle class in New Jersey.

He talks about "wage stagnation," but not Christie's veto of a hike in the minimum wage, or corporations like North Jersey Media Group, owner of The Record, eliminating raises for even the most productive workers.

He talks about "careers upended through downsizing," though not what happened to his newsroom colleagues -- including the food editor and director of photography -- who were shown the door after decades of employment at The Record.

Bad headlines

Today's headline on the Kelly column -- "Is this the end of the American Dream?" -- is especially bad because "American Dream" also is the name of the huge retail-entertainment complex under construction in the Meadowlands.

The words "American Dream" appear in large, bold type above the fold, certain to confuse readers who don't immediately start reading the photo caption or column.

On Friday's front page, a sub-headline struggled to describe the car of a Hackensack man who died the day before in the hospital after a collision with a police cruiser speeding to an emergency:

"Hackensack cruiser
hits unrelated car,
killing the driver"

I didn't know cars could be "related" to each other like humans.

See: Police cruiser pushed victim's car 40 feet

Local news?

North Jersey has so many commuting problems it's a wonder Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to find so many ways to avoid writing about them.

Today, he fills an entire column with horror stories on "roadside trash," employing his trademark exaggeration and hype in an attempt to engage readers or at least prevent them from falling asleep (L-1).

Today's Local front also carries a story on Henry and Mary Shoiket, 97 and 100, respectively -- a rare instance of reporting on seniors who aren't institutionalized or have just died (L-1).

The couple are described as longtime activists, "who have been fixtures at the weekly protests outside the Teaneck Armory for years."

Major error

On the Opinion front today, a caption incorrectly describes the large photo above the fold, and gives a wrong date for the official opening of the new World Trade Center.

The photo shows the interior of the World Trade Center Transportation Hub -- not the "main level of the new World Trade Center."

The date given, March 3, is the official opening date of the transit hub, not the office building.

Also on the O-1 today is a second Kelly column, this one on Atlantic City, that begins, "Once upon another time ...."

Like a fairy tale, this one puts readers to sleep almost immediately.

Headline hype is killing readers

Image by reinvented via Flickr
The Record's news copy editors and their supervisors have a long way to go when it comes to writing headlines that are more accurate and far less exaggerated.

North Jersey Media Group and other employers shed 8 million workers during the recession, so does the hiring of 200,000 last month really signal that "America [is] getting back to work," as today's big, black Page 1 headline declares?


Of course not. And The Record headline on Thursday calling Burt Ross, a mayor who refused a big bribe in 1974, a "N.J. icon" also was wildly exaggerated. We respect him, but he's no icon.


To sell papers, interim Editor Douglas Clancy and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes are allowing Editor Liz Houlton's news copy desk to get away with headline murder -- and it's readers who suffer.


Accidental editors


Their news judgment also sucks.


On Friday, photos of a flipped truck and a pickup that rolled over were all over A-1 and L-1, respectively.


So, what did they do with a spectacular photo of a burning truck, which trapped and killed the 66-year-old driver, and the account of an 18-year-old student "who collapsed in his teacher's arms" and died later? 


Even though these stories are more compelling than anything on the front page, they were banished to the front of Local -- likely displaced on Page 1 by the enormously exaggerated photo-text package on unemployment hitting a three-year low.


A lack of standards


The labor story is actually linked to the poor state of headline writing at the Woodland Park daily, because Publisher Stephen A. Borg shed five veteran news copy editors in 2008, including Nancy Cherry, the co-slot who enforced high standards of accuracy.


Sykes' local assignment desk does a fair job of covering the deaths of  Paramus High School junior Eric Micheo, 18, and John J. Mangini, 66, a Wayne man who died in a bread-van fire on Route 80 in Hackensack.


But both stories raise questions that are never answered.


The story at the top of L-1 notes Micheo was a member of the wrestling team "in the heavyweight category," but doesn't raise the possibility his death is  linked to his weight. 


Nor apparently was any attempt made to talk with the student's relatives, and find out whether there is a family history of heart disease.


New laws needed


At the bottom of L-1, a photo of a fireball accompanies the story, which reports the bread deliverer's van was hit from behind by a 21-year-old driver's car, causing the truck to overturn and erupt into flames, trapping Mangini.


Was the younger driver tailgating or speeding on Friday at 2:50 in the morning? Had he been drinking? Why wasn't he cited for trying to pass on the right?  


Of course, the bigger picture also is ignored. Is the Legislature revising traffic laws to hold drivers criminally responsible for their actions when they hit another vehicle and cause a death or kill a pedestrian they claim not to see?  

Reporter deserves a pat on the back

Image by Ed Yourdon via Flickr













Business reporter Hugh R. Morley deserves a hearty well-done today for his profile of an Oakland man who lost his job two years ago and who remains unemployed. It's filled with detail, and the reporter does a good job of exploring all the sacrifices the man and his family have made.


The story gets the play it deserves, on the front page of The Record of Woodland Park, but a nagging question remains: Why have the editors waited so long to try and tell the story of North Jersey's long-term jobless? Would a man out of work only one year make for a less-compelling story? And is this the only story readers will see?


I heard a horror story about a former colleague who left The Record more than two years ago, but have been unable to confirm the details. Surely, there are other stories about the long-term unemployed out there. Why stop at just one? 


Nothing says more about the abysmal state of local news under the so-called guidance of head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes than the lead story on the front of L-1 today. When the addition of turn lanes and traffic signals to a downtown intersection dominates the Local news section, you can only throw up your hands in disbelief and disgust.

The headline, "Traffic plan inches ahead," is about as dull as you can get. For the second week in a row, the word "inches" appears in black headline type. Last week, it was associated -- nonsensically -- with Hurricane Earl.


Now, the Johnson Public Library apparently has become so alarmed about the lack of Hackensack government news in The Record in the past couple of years that it is giving a seminar on "the city's inner works," according to an L-2 headline.


The story was written by Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado, who joins Sykes in shouting to all far and wide, "See, naysayers. We cover Hackensack government."


No. They cover their asses.

Belated recognition of the victims

Image via Wikipedia

Why is the story on victims of the recession pushed down to the bottom of Page 1 in The Record today, while two stories with the excitement of paint drying lead the Woodland Park daily? College degrees taking longer? Boring. Update on the stalled Xanadu project. Still in talks. How tedious.

Don't go looking for local news from the core Bergen towns of Teaneck, Englewood and Hackensack -- unless you want to read Columnist Mike Kelly's pathetic effort on a family of three displaced by the Prospect Avenue parking-garage collapse July 16. It apparently took him a couple of weeks to find the Gigantes and chronicle their "ordeal," but this drivel wasn't worth waiting for.


It's no surprise that, with all the unemployment and foreclosures, more people are calling hospitals, clinics and suicide hot lines (A-1), but why have we read so little about them in The Record? Can you remember more than a few articles in the past two years or so focusing on victims of companies like North Jersey Media Group?

Maybe that's why Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes haven't commissioned more of these stories. Readers might start to speculate about what is behind fundamental changes in their hometown newspaper -- from fewer sections to a precipitous drop in local news to sloppy copy editing. 

The paper has never fully disclosed how many veteran employees NJMG discarded after Publisher Stephen A. Borg snatched a $3.65 million company mortgage to buy an 8,000-square-foot home in Tenafly, replacing his smaller, $2 million mansion, also bought with a company mortgage. (Attorneys representing the company even withheld complete information on who was fired and who was hired in my recent age-discrimination lawsuit.)


Take a look at this Kelly column on L-1. The headline is, "Life's less free after garage collapse."  In fact, it's Kelly who has "collapsed" from the exhaustion of making something from nothing -- a pattern he has exhibited for many years.


He writes endlessly about a woman in a motorized wheelchair who once used Prospect Avenue sidewalks to reach Starbucks in Hackensack for a morning latte, but cannot go for a latte now because she is living in Route 17 hotel.  "Lisa Gigante's ordeal surely ranks among the worst." Really? This is journalism? Kelly never says why her husband can't drive her to a coffee shop.

On L-2, a proposed state police takeover of Palisades Interstate Parkway police was reported more than a month ago on Cliffview Pilot.com. A police brief on the same page -- "Special unit probes gunfire" -- omits the town.

Inside the Sunday news meeting

Image by allaboutgeorge via Flickr

What might have been said during the Sunday afternoon news meeting of editors at The Record in Woodland Park:

"OK. What have we got for A-1 tomorrow?"

"A teacher was murdered in her Dumont home, and a soldier from Ramsey died last week in Afghanistan."

"Is Governor Christie a suspect in the murder?"

"No. But her husband is."

"What else?"

"We have a nice feature on all the unemployed professionals who got census takers jobs."

"Don't mention that Victor got one of those jobs. What about the rest of Page 1?"

"We've been getting a lot of heat for not having minority or female columnists, so why not run Tara's column
out front on the guy who won the Masters. His wife has cancer."

"Plenty of wives have cancer. Plenty of husbands lost their insurance and their wives have cancer.
Plenty of wives have probably died of cancer during the recession. What's the connection here?"

"We don't have anything else."