Chris loves Sandy, but hates the rest of us

The new City Council, led by Mayor John P. Labrosse Jr., third from right, meeting at Hackensack City Hall on Monday night in an atmosphere of optimism for the city's future. A sign inside the 3rd Floor men's bathroom, below, seems to show the city has been conservation-minded, though it is just getting around to installing solar panels on its buildings, lagging behind Teaneck and other communities.

By Victor E. Sasson

Editor

Just imagine how Governor Christie is getting off every night thinking about Sandy -- the devastating superstorm he disguises as a siren who is luring unwary voters into giving him a second term.

The GOP bully is knocking himself out to convince voters he should be judged only by what he's done since Sandy -- and not on all of the promises to the middle class he has broken since he took office in January 2010.

And The Record of Woodland Park can't do enough to help him, continuing to run Sandy recovery news on Page 1, as it does today, or all over the Local front, even though more than 9 months have passed.

I have yet to see a story contrasting Christie's stand on the issues with that of Democratic challenger Barbara Buono.

As the bottom of today's front page shows, that's because Editor Marty Gottlieb continues to portray the contest as one that will go to the candidate who raises the most money (A-1).

Making babies

Gottlieb wastes more space today -- stories on A-1 and L-1 -- about the birth of the royal heir in Britain.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' pathetic attempt to localize the story omits the names of any of the women who gave birth at North Jersey hospitals on the same day or the names of their babies (L-1).

Assume the position  

Filmmaker Michael Moore is a genius who has the courage to make documentaries no one in Hollywood would undertake.

But his well-known weight problem makes some readers wonder how Kathleen Glynn, his colaborator, managed to survive 21 years of marriage to him, unless he allowed her to be on top (A-2).

Some staffers have wondered the same thing about Sykes' husband, a tall, thin graphic artist who once worked at The Record.

Hackensack news

Today's Local front is dominated by a suspected gang member who tried and failed to take on the re-energized Hackensack Police Department early Monday (L-1).

Robert Leonardis, 22, fired one shot that narrowly missed Officer Joseph Ayoubi, but was severely wounded when four officers fired back, Police Director Mike Mordaga said.

At a Hackensack City Council meeting on Monday night, one resident said she now calls the police when she sees something amiss in her neighborhood, and they actually respond.

In the past, she said, she didn't bother to call because she knew police working under the corrupt police chief, Ken Zisa, would do nothing.

Solar-power lesson

A resident asked the council and City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono why no solar panels are being installed on city schools.

Lo Iacono said the profligate Board of Education has refused to meet with the council to discuss solar power.

The systems being installed on city buildings cost taxpayers nothing.

Coffee is hot and cheap

Sykes continues to rely on photos of minor accidents in place of legitimate local news, and continues to supply readers with no information on the cause.

Clues in today's L-3 photo suggest an older driver (Mercury Marquis, blue license plate and handicap space) couldn't wait to get a morning cup of coffee McDonald's sells to seniors at a special, low price, so he crashed his car into the fast-food restaurant.

Business editors blow Christie -- again

Bruce Springsteen with Barack Obama. Springsteen's old songs describe a weak New Jersey economy that isn't far different from what residents are living with today.

The Record's editors appear to have appointed themselves defenders of Governor Christie and the weak New Jersey economy.

Just take a look at the elaborate defense of the state economy -- under the guise of a news story -- on the first Business page today (L-7).

The story claims the "left-leaning" treasurer of Australia criticized Christie's economic policies based on outdated Bruce Springsteen songs.

Treasurer Wayne Swan "painted a picture of vacant storefronts,  jobless dead-enders and closing textile mills."

Office potatoes

I guess the business editors haven't left the office lately and seen all of the vacant storefronts in Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and other downtowns.

Nor have they driven past all of the abandoned mills in Paterson and Passaic.

The Record continues to report with a straight face that there's been a "Jersey Comeback" -- instead of labeling it as another big Christie lie.

This spirited defense comes only a day after New Jersey placed last among 30 states in replacing jobs lost to the recession. 

And the state's unemployment rate is higher than the nation's, despite millions in business tax breaks from Christie.  

Of course, let's not forget how Springsteen snubbed Christie's invitation to play at his inaugural festivities in January 2010.

Ho-hum front page 

Editor Marty Gottlieb packs Page 1 today with three ho-hum stories.

The glowing profile of state Sen. Joe Vitale doesn't mention how ineffective he and other Democrats have been in the face of Christie's conservative no-tax policies and his lukewarm support of mass transit (A-1).

Did any reader plow all the way through the takeout on two Bergen County police officers who allegedly tampered with evidence in a burglary case (A-1)? 

Blinded by the sun

An editorial praising Christie as a champion of solar energy mentions PSE&G's four-year-old solar loan effort, but fails to say the program ended last Dec. 31 and wasn't renewed (A-10).

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, the big news is that more than 90,000 Orthodox Jews gathered in the Meadowlands to pray for lower property taxes and more Hebrew immersion charter schools (L-1).

Not so fast

At Chick-fil-A in Paramus, hundreds of conservatives lined up for their daily dose of harmful animal antibiotics (L-1).

As if chicken raised on antibiotics isn't bad enough, the breast meat is fried and some sandwiches include artery clogging bacon.

Instead of campaigning against same-sex marriage,  conservatives should boycott Chick-fil-A and other fast-food places that serve unhealthy poultry and burgers.

 

Editor should hang his head in shame

Image via Wikipedia

A U.S. Navy photographer captured this image on Sept. 13, 2001.

For Staff Photographer Thomas E. Franklin of The Record, it wasn't enough to beat all of his competitors by capturing a unique image of hope amid the despair of 9/11.


Today, in an inspiring Page 1 story on 9/11 photographers, Franklin eloquently describes the flag-raising photo he made on Sept. 11, 2001:


"Three resolute firemen on the edge of a battlefield, hoisting a tattered flag -- more than 300 of their fallen brethren buried in the debris behind them."


"Buried" is also a good word to describe what happened to Franklin's photo nearly a decade ago as The Record's Hackensack newsroom raced to put out the first edition.


Any editor worth his salt would have torn apart the front page for Franklin's image -- instead of settling for a paper with the same, old image of the smoking Twin Towers, the A-1 photo nearly everybody else used on the day after the attack on America.


He's no prize


But Editor Francis Scandale isn't any editor. He brought to the job a deeply flawed news judgment and an inability to stand up to the bean counters. 


Franklin's photo ended up on a back page on Sept. 12, 2001 -- so the iconic image's appearance on the front page today is nearly 10 years overdue. 


No one can say whether burying Franklin's unique 9/11 photo meant the difference to the jury that awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography to The New York Times.


Instead of hanging his head in shame, Scandale continues to stonewall and deny readers the inside story of why Franklin's photo was treated so shabbily on 9/11.


And his news judgment hasn't improved. 


As recently as this past Jan. 9, Scandale squeezed the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona under a one-column headline on the front page of a Sunday edition to make room for the large photo of a Jets football player.


Today's story by Franklin is moving and well-written, but his video on northjersey.com is especially powerful: "Witness to History"


Fixing a boo-boo


A correction on A-2 today acknowledges a news copy editor working for Editor Liz Houlton was hallucinating when he wrote "4.5 million" unemployed people, instead of "4.5" unemployed people, in a headline on Monday. LOL.


Red-light district


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes seems determined to use the Local section to chronicle every red-light camera (L-3), just as she has been running stories on every solar panel put up on schools, town halls or businesses.


Her assignment minions still are unaware of a deep drop in the price paid for so-called solar certificates, which are earned by homeowners who have installed solar power.


On L-5, a major story on the "new face" of the heroin trade -- focusing on a Fort Lee home -- is from The Associated Press, not the paper's local staff.


Business news is squeezed into less than a half-page of L-7 today.

Where is the New Jersey news?

Image via Wikipedia

According to the 2000 Census, New Jersey was the most densely populated state in the U.S.

There's only one New Jersey story on The Record's front page today -- an attack on Governor Christie's funding proposals for the nearly bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund. And like the story reporting his plan on Friday's front page, this one completely ignores the taxes that once fed the fund, and why he refuses to raise them. 

By hiding the debate over the traditional funding method for road and transit projects, the Woodland Park daily seems to be marching to the beat of the governor's drummer -- as it has in so many other selectively reported news stories, columns and editorials since the Republican bully took office about a year ago.

At the link below, you can find the information The Record withholds on taxes that have fed the state Transportation Trust Fund since it was set up in 1985. The official site says the state's gasoline tax, one of the three funding sources, is among the lowest in the United States.

Transportation Trust Fund Authority

I guess Editor Francis Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes were so eager to avoid a repeat of their awful coverage of the post-Christmas blizzard that they sent everyone out to cover Friday's short snowfall, and ended up with no other New Jersey news for A-1 -- except for a minor accident on Route 80 in Woodland Park, conveniently close to the office.

All readers get are stories on fluoride and massive bird and fish kills in other parts of the country.

A six-column auto dealer's ad appears in the middle of L-1 again today. Boy, is that jarring. The gas-guzzling German luxury cars it promotes are the kind favored by the Borg family, which continues to live extravagantly during the recession.

On Page L-8 Friday, President and Publisher Stephen A. Borg announced the Rockaway printing plant will get more than 20,000 solar panels and cut its electricity costs in half. 

But Borg said nothing about whether he, big sister Jennifer A. Borg and the father they've pushed aside, Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, will trade in their low gas mileage sedans and SUVs for all-electric Nissan Leafs. 

Sykes keeps you guessing

Two reporters labored over the fire death of a 48-year-old Park Ridge woman the other day -- it led the Local section on Wednesday -- but neither thought to ask if she smoked, and the clueless editors back at the office were on autopilot.

Today, a story on L-3 reports smoking was the cause of the fire.