Editors tilt at monster Port Authority

Weehawken's 9/11 memorial provides welcome respite from all of the construction noise along the Palisades south of the George Washington Bridge.

Today's front-page story on a U.S. senator scolding a senior Port Authority executive won't lessen the sting of scheduled Hudson River toll and fare hikes -- a year after they skyrocketed.

Commuters look to The Record for word on whether Governors Christie and Cuomo will stop the next round of hikes, but all they get is a lot of political theater, some of it rehashing an April hearing in Washington (A-1).

Tunnel vision

Am I the only one who thinks the Port's executive director, Bill Baroni, had a point when he accused U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., of taking decades of toll-free trips across the Hudson?

After all, the senior senator's name is emblazoned in huge letters all over that gazillion-dollar rail-transfer station in the Meadowlands, so why isn't Lautenberg using and promoting mass transit?

Page 1 today presents a "GOLDEN MOMENT ... "

On Monday, the main element on A-1 appeared under the words: "Golden opportunity."

One was a play on an Olympic gold medal, the other a play on New Jersey's Gold Coast. Enough already.

Taxing policies

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section today, a story reports thousands of Orthodox Jews in North Jersey are burying their heads in the Talmud to help them forget the high property taxes they pay (L-1).

You can just hear them muttering during morning prayer, "Oy gevalt! Why do I have to pay taxes for lousy public schools I don't send my kids to?"

The Orthodox in Englewood and Teaneck are especially upset, because their attempt to open a Hebrew immersion charter school in September was shot down by the state, and those largely minority districts won't have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars toward its operation.

Today's Local also contains a rare Hackensack story that has nothing to do with former Police Chief Ken Zisa or the many lawsuits he still faces (L-3).

I got my property tax bill a few days ago, so I no longer have to wonder when The Record is going to report on approval of the Hackensack city budget and tax rate.

Monday's paper

Monday's Page 1 takeout on the tension between preservation and development on the Palisades south of the George Washington Bridge buries the lede.

The inefficient home-rule system of government's insatiable hunger for ratables has thwarted any regional consensus on saving the cliffs from greedy developers.

Today, most of the land south of the bridge is one big construction zone. 

The story doesn't even mention the costly duplication of town services that demand more and more tax money to support them.

Olympics in the news

If you're wondering why there is no local news in the paper, consider this:

The big element on Sykes' Local section on Monday reported a Pascack Valley memorial service for the 11 Israeli athletes killed by terrorists 40 years ago at the Munich Olympic Games.

Readers who thought they had seen that before were correct: The big element on Saturday's L-1 was Teaneck's service for the same athletes.

Another disappointing Sunday

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Does any commuter doubt Hudson River toll hikes would have been lower if Governor Christie hadn't grabbed $1.8 billion in Port Authority funds for state roads?

Are voters supposed to clip out today's Page 1, side-by-side comparison of Democratic Reps. Bill Pascrell Jr. and Steve Rothman, and save it for reference just before the primary election more than five months from now?


Why is that running now? Isn't there anything else happening -- or not happening -- in Washington? Maybe that's the story that should be on the front page of this ho-hum Sunday edition.


And why does Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson give a pass to Rothman?


The Record has refrained from reporting the anger of many Democrats who feel Rothman is ducking out of a fight against an arch-conservative Republican, Scott Garret, the U.S. representative from Wantage.


And where in this long story is the biographical material comparing Pascrell, the scrappy former mayor of Paterson, to Rothman, who is from a privileged background in Englewood?


Finally, have you ever seen a more boring headline? Where was the supervisor of the news copy desk, Editor Liz Houlton, who earned the title "Queen of Errors" when she ran the features copy desk?

Two candidates

separated by style

You can slap that generic headline on any political story for years to come. It's probably on one of Houlton's save/get keys.


GOP bully speaks


More GOP bias is evident in the bully A-1 pulpit interim Editor Douglas Clancy gives to Governor Christie, who told editors he's finally going to do something about the free-spending Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.


After all, Christie is partly responsible for the huge Hudson River toll and fare hikes, as well as the recent increases on the turnpike and parkway.


Instead of raising the gas tax on his limousine-riding supporters, Christie grabbed billions in agency funds, shifting the money from the Hudson River rail tunnels he killed to state road and mass-transit projects.


Heat but no light


An A-3 story doesn't explain how higher prices for credits sold by solar-power producers would "come at the expense of ratepayers and utilities." 


And the story ignores credits sold to utilities by homeowners (and ratepayers) who have spent tens of thousands of dollars to install solar panels.


Determined to avoid writing about commuters, Road Warrior John Cichowski bases his column today on e-mails from truckers and other so-called professional drivers (L-1). He's boring us to tears recounting all these reader e-mails.


The Local news section continues to report on seemingly endless municipal reorganization meetings.


A jerk reveals herself


Can the editors explain why an unlabeled photo that appears to have been taken in Europe accompanies a column by Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung (Better Living cover)?


The arrogant Ung tells readers how they can get their "money's worth in a restaurant -- without being a jerk."


If anyone is a "jerk," it's the unseasoned reviewer herself, obsessing over dessert and blindly praising the cheap beef, poultry and fish many restaurants serve to fatten their profits.


On the Opinion front, an overly long column under the headline, "Key questions remain after Iowa caucuses," fails to answer the most obvious question -- why has The Record and other media wasted so much time and space covering the Republican nomination campaign?

It's time to really limit sports on Page 1

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Why didn't The Record list available highway toll discounts or ask North Jersey drivers for reaction to the big toll increases?

One look at The Record today and you know the male editors haven't resolved to end congratulatory, locker-room-like ass-slapping in the news meeting or limit sports on Page 1.


This photo isn't even celebrating a victory in a championship game. The Giants made it into "the playoffs." Who the F cares? Is that the biggest "news" interim Editor Douglas Clancy had for A-1 today? 


Are readers supposed to live Clancy's hangover? It's sad to see he is relying on the same male-bonding A-1 sports coverage as his clueless predecessor did.


Driving us crazy


Now, take a look at the Page 1 story on the reaction of out-of-state drivers to the "ridiculous" New Year's Day toll hikes on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway.


Did I miss the story with reaction from North Jersey drivers? And why does today's story bury the role of Governor Christie in the 53% turnpike and 50% parkway toll increases?


It seems the GOP bully is so determined not "to raise taxes" -- including the low gasoline tax to fund road and mass-transit improvements -- he grabbed $1.25 billion in turnpike authority funds intended for new Hudson River rail tunnels.


Christie killed the project, but not the toll hikes that were to help pay for the tunnels. 


Even today's editorial finally calls on Christie to raise the gas tax as a stable source of funding for the state Transportation Trust Fund (A-11). It took only two years for Editorial Page Editor Alfred E. Doblin to get behind the idea.


Please stay home


Maybe tolls on out-of-staters should have been raised 100%. All they do is spread their jaundiced view of the state, as seen from the turnpike -- "It's one big oil refinery" -- or crack the endless joke, "What exit do you live near?"


Hey, George Ward of Ellicott City, Md., and all the other belly aching, out-of-state drivers quoted today, why don't you "go around" the Garden State, if you don't like Christie's higher tolls? LOL.


The A-1 coverage Friday, Saturday and today also fails to list off-peak discounts and other discounts for seniors and hybrid-car owners that could make the toll hikes easier to swallow.


Another long front-page story -- on cellphone spying by "abusers," "stalkers" and jealous spouses -- seems pretty limited, so why did Clancy put it outside today?


Another big boo-boo


Editor Deirdre Sykes' assignment desk and Editor Liz Houlton's news copy desk are starting off the new year by failing to catch and correct another  embarrassing error -- this one in the name of a North Jersey woman who had the first-born baby in Bergen and Passaic counties (L-1).


Is she "Melida Orbe," which appears twice in the story and once in the photo caption, or "Melinda Orbe," which also appears in the story? She and her boyfrend named their baby, "Dilan," but that's likely their misspelling, not the paper's.


This despite what once was drummed into every reporter's head time and again: make sure you spell names correctly.


Smaller is better


Today's Local section seems to be filled mostly with small-town news, including the 2011 "Citizen of the Year" in Harrington Park, where Sykes lives, but there is nothing from Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck or other large communities.


Yet there are three stories from North Arlington.


Stomach turning


In keeping with Better Living's emphasis on unhealthy food and the restaurant reviewer's obsession with dessert, today's Shopping Corner feature on F-1 is wasted on just what every home cook needs -- a "molecular cuisine kit."


Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung says "you can impress your friends by making lollipops with foie gras."


Suck on this, Ung.

Delivering another slow-news edition

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Tolls are going up for New Jersey buses. Above, the midtown Manhattan bus terminal.

The Port Authority raised Hudson River tolls and PATH fares on Aug. 19, so why are readers of The Record just finding out today the hikes apply to thousands of NJ Transit and private buses, too?

Tolls will hit buses hard

Strapped operators may pass hike on to riders

Editor Liz Holton's news copy desk tries hard to sell the Page 1 story with those headlines, but no bus company quoted says it has decided to raise fares to compensate.

The $4 toll on buses is going up 150% -- to $10 on Sept. 18 -- and will continue to rise every year until it tops out at $13 in 2015, Staff Writer Karen Rouse reports.

There are holes in this story big enough for a No. 165 NJ Transit bus. 

Pedestrian reporting

Rouse doesn't say whether the toll hikes apply to all those commuter vans --which take the overflow from NJ Transit and other operators -- because Editor Francis Scandale told her their riders speak little English and don't buy the paper anyway.

And Rouse doesn't bother questioning Port Authority officials on what huge bus toll hikes say about the bistate agency's commitment to mass transit.

Three embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today, including the use of an incorrect photo for a 9/11 victim. But both men are dead and can't sue.

I don't think hapless flood victims will be amused by Margulies' cartoon caption: "Shower ... Rinse ... Repeat ..." (A-10).

Water on the brain

In an OpEd piece by James Ahearn, the former managing editor doesn't mention how strongly the paper's editors oppose a tunnel to funnel flood waters to Newark Bay (A-11).

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes has argued that without repeated flooding, her local-news assignment desk -- the world's laziest -- wouldn't have anything to cover.

Commuters hoping for news besides the toll hikes on buses won't find anything today from Road Warrior John Cichowski, who is on litter patrol (L-1).

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes has another Englewood story today (L-3), her fourth in four days.

However, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado seems to be covering everything but the city she is assigned to.

I'm surprised Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais didn't call first before schlepping into the city on a bus, only to find the French tourist office had moved and is no longer open to the public (L-9).

But at least DeMarrais provides readers with more information on how online reviews on Yelp and other sites can be manufactured to put restaurants in a good light.

Second look

Most photographers aren't "word people," but Thomas E. Franklin's moving piece on 9/11 photographers on Tuesday showed he is both an accomplished photographer and an accomplished writer.

In fact, his lean, powerful style puts to shame Columnists Mike Kelly, John Cichowski and others who seem to be pushing around words or whose florid prose leaves readers dumbfounded.

Piggish Christie identifies with toll hikes

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With only one reverse bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel, Bergen County commuters must stand in the aisles on buses that are slowed to a crawl by morning rush-hour traffic. 

Governor Christie refused to raise the low gasoline tax to improve roads and mass transit in New Jersey, but found the money for those projects at the Port Authority, greedily snatching $1.8 billion in agency funds -- equal to nearly four years of toll revenue.


Now, he's denying the $4.50 Hudson River toll hikes are a tax, one that will fall disproportionately on middle- and working-class residents, just as his recent budget cuts did.


"It's a user fee," the governor said Friday, as reported on Page 1 of The Record today. "If you look at a pig and call it a horse, and if a lot of people call it a horse ... is it a horse? No, it's a pig."


No one is calling Christie a horse, but many are calling  him an enemy of mass transit. An audit of the Port Authority is fine, but he should insist those higher tolls pay for an expanded PATH system and a second bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.


If it's a user fee, not a tax, then commuters are the ones who feel used by the governor and by Editors Francis Scandale and Deirdre Sykes, who are clueless about the sad state of public transportation in the region.


Law and order news


The major A-1 story reports arrests in the murder of a 27-year-old mother in Boonton, but it's hard to believe six reporters working for Scandale and Sykes couldn't find out whether the suspects -- the husband and a "woman" -- were romantically involved.


Still, it seems improper to say in the photo caption, "Nazish Noorani, who was gunned down in Boonton on Tuesday, being buried Friday ...." 


The dead woman is not in the photo, nor can you see her coffin, so it should have said, "Nazish Noorani ... was buried Friday ...."


Sykes' Local section catches up readers with telephone-pole news -- photos on L-1 and L-2 show two that were damaged by errant cars.


There isn't a lazier assignment desk in all of North America, Mexico and Central America.


Dig into all the police news and news about the police on L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6. Two of those stories are from Hackensack (L-3).


The hard-luck story on Englewood Cliffs' understaffed department doesn't say whether the police chief makes more than Christie or whether residents feel safe (L-1).


Black and white


It's hard to believe a white woman would sue a hospital because her baby was mistakenly breast-fed by a black mother for 30 minutes (L-3), but even harder to believe Staff Writer Kibret Markos didn't put that in the lead paragraph.


Even the clunky headlines don't tell the whole story. The word "suit" appears in the main head and "complaint" in the drop headline -- an echo that would have never been allowed a few years ago.


Overripe news


Better Living has run out of food news, so readers get a cover article on how to choose a watermelon -- more than three months after they first appeared in the North Jersey market (F-1).


The wire-service article reports watermelon "may also prove to be very helpful for those who suffer from obesity and Type 2 diabetes (F-3)."


Are you listening, governor?

When Christie barks, reporters scatter

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Commuters may take to boats to avoid huge Hudson River toll increases.

Have you noticed how many times Governor Christie, agencies like the Port Authority and other news sources refuse to comment on important public issues beyond their press releases and press conferences?


And have you noticed how many times reporters for The Record of Woodland Park obediently quote those refusals and make no attempt to get the information another way -- how they close their notebooks with a sigh and call it a day?


Jeez, is this the first time the Port Authority has proposed a huge toll increase as a bargaining chip and was willing to settle for less?


In Page 1 stories on Saturday, Sunday and today, The Record's reporters and copy editors seem to be stumbling in the dark.


Saturday's two-deck banger headline said the bi-state agency's plan "could double Hudson River tolls," but a chart just about the headline showed some tolls would nearly triple by 2014.


Poker faces


On Sunday, a Port Authority spokesman refused to comment on the possibility the agency would settle for a smaller toll increase, as it did in 2001, or a smaller PATH fare hike, as it did in 2008 (A-4).


Today, in the off-lead story on A-1, , a Christie spokesman declined to comment on the paper's report the new plan had been discussed with the Christie and Cuomo administrations or that the proposed increases "changed several times during the talks."


U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., was upset by the agency's proposals -- in contrast to Christie's response at a Monday press conference: "You're kidding, right?"


Menendez also said it's not credible that Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo were "blindsided."


Also from Menendez today is a powerful OpEd column on Page A-9, slamming the Tea Party for protecting special interests, who receive nearly $27 billion in "unwarranted" oil and ethanol subsidies.


Horse manure


Editor Francis Scandale may be grappling with unfocused Page 1 stories and emasculated reporters, but head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions continue to scramble for filler in the Local section.


An update on the Rotary Club's Gift of Life program to treat children with heart disease and its 770th patient (L-1) will appear again when its 820th patient is registered and a third time to herald its 850th patient, and so on and so forth.


Staff Writer Andrea Alexander reports the Teaneck school district still is interested in an $85,000 donation from Cross River Bank, but not whether the bank's officers send their kids to private schools and would refuse to contribute to public education (L-1).


More filler on the future of the state's horse-racing industry appears on L-3 -- once a premier page for local news.


From the laziest assignment desk in the tri-state area, that's all she wrote.