An emphatic two thumbs down for Roger Ebert

More than 10 NJ Transit bus routes were disrupted by the closing of the Anderson Street Bridge between Hackensack and Teaneck due to emergency weight-limit restrictions, above. Since the September closure, The Record hasn't interviewed a single bus rider on how their commute has been affected, but has carried the Road Warrior's endless hand-wringing over every tiny inconvenience faced by North Jersey lead-footed drivers.

With greedy publishing families like the Borgs and scandals involving fabricated quotes and even entire stories at such prestigious publications as The New York Times and Washington Post, you'd think Hollywood would have exposed the dark side of newspapers long ago.

You'd be wrong, of course, and critic Roger Ebert spent more than 45 years analyzing films without ever mentioning how directors have done exactly the opposite -- they go out of their way to glorify the press.

Hollywood might shy away from blasting the press because critics like Ebert, who worked for a big newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times, could make or break them.

And you know the only reason Editor Marty Gottlieb put Ebert's obituary on the front page of Friday's paper is because he was a fellow newspaperman.

The Record's Friday entertainment tabloid once carried Ebert's reviews, but they ended several years ago, in an apparent cost-cutting move.

He's no Jeff Page

Gottlieb also seems to be indulging another fellow newspaperman, Staff Writer John Cichowski, whose Road Warrior columns are paved with inaccuracies.

On Friday, the Road Warrior's annual pothole column appeared on the Local front -- symbolizing the deep whole he continues to dig for the paper's credibility.

Local yokels

Five pages of Friday's Local was devoted to higher-education news, but head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes still needed a photo of a non-fatal accident to fill the local-news section (L-7).

Her deputy, Dan Sforza, spent the day out of the office, measuring potholes for Cichowski.

Rutgers brouhaha

Today, for the third day in a row, Gottlieb presents more screaming Page 1 headlines and blanket coverage of Rutgers University and its abusive basketball coach, Mike Rice.

Meanwhile, readers have had to listen to WBGO-FM radio news or search for stories on Trenton budget hearings to find out how Governor Christie intends to screw the middle and working classes again by short-changing mass transit and affordable housing. 

Crossing readers

Today's story on a Fort Lee crosswalk ticket blitz took readers by surprise -- coming after a March 22 Road Warrior column that warned about the use of plainclothes officers in a similar Teaneck crackdown this month (L-1).

But so far, drivers haven't seen any such blitz on Cedar Lane.

Sykes and Sforza couldn't find room for Hackensack news today, but did find space for the Dean's List; photos of a minor SUV and car fire, and a motorboat being pulled from a river; and for a story on road repairs in Edgewater (L-2, L-3 and L-6).

New to My Blog List 

(on the right of this page):

Hackensack Scoop
The County Watchers 
  

Who got fired, Governor Christie?

Many students walk to the Dunkin' Donuts on Passaic Street or to the Starbucks on Essex Street rather than eat what passes for lunch at Hackensack High School. Was there any discussion of food quality at this week's public forum for Board of Education candidates?

A big, black banner headline in The Record, multiple stories and columns, and a swarm of reporters and editors usually mean earth-shattering news.

Was Governor Christie fired by tax payers fed up with his mismanagement of state finances, mass transit and road repairs (A-3 and A-4)? Did he lose weight?

No. All of this overblown coverage piles on what readers already knew from the electronic media on Wednesday: 

Rutgers fired the sorry ass of basketball coach Mike Rice "for physically and verbally abusing players and making homophobic comments and anti-gay slurs during practices" (A-1).

Only one other story appears on Page 1, along with four briefs.

Men need sports

In the 14 months Editor Marty Gottlieb has been running the Woodland Park newsroom, he's played sports on the front page even more than his ass-slapping, jock-itching predecessor.

The sad fact is that men like Gottlieb and many of his male reporters and editors can't relate to other men without sports as the medium.

But why he is making light of so many other issues by constantly running crappy, poorly written sports columns and other nonsense on Page 1? 

Dissing the elderly

For example, one of today's A-1 briefs reports Alzheimer's "is the most expensive malady in the U.S.," so why is the full story buried on A-11 and why does autism get so much more attention in The Record? 

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' boycott of Hackensack news continues today, but readers will find two Englewood stories and a Teaneck story on the Local front, and another Englewood story on L-3.

Still, Sykes needs another photo of a non-fatal accident to fill her section (L-3). 

Where was her deputy, Dan Sforza? Did he spend the day in the crapper, reading the sports pages?  

Hackensack school board censors public

What appears to be a former church and lodge building on State Street, above, will become a new recreation and cultural center in Hackensack. A 222-unit luxury apartment building has been proposed nearby, and despite opposition from some residents whose property tax bills continue to climb, the city has given the developer a 30-year tax break.

The Hackensack Board of Education has delivered another lesson in the sad state of democracy in a city known derisively as "Zisaville."

At a forum for school board candidates on Monday night, the public was asked to submit questions on index cards.

Then, the questions were screened before being submitted to board hopefuls, and some of the queries never saw the light of day, resident Steven V. Gelber of Hackensack Scoop.com reports.

Click on the following link: Another perspective on Hackensack.

Appropriately, this occurred on April Fools' Day, and school trustees basically told parents and other members of the public to go to hell.

The Record of Woodland Park didn't cover the meeting.

One of those board members is Jason Nunnermacker, a lawyer who is running for City Council on an "open government" platform.

I guess Nunnermacker doesn't think "open government" applies to him or other members of the imperious school board.  

He is part of a well-financed slate of insiders vying for council seats in the May 14 election, claiming they have a 10-point plan "to make government honest, open and community friendly."

What a joke on the poor, abused voter, who falls for these kind of promises every time.   

Today's paper

Five reporters and an unknown number of editors worked on the story about the moron who is Rutgers' basketball coach (A-1).

But on Page 1 and in an A-6 sidebar today, readers can't find any clear statement of when a video of his revolting behavior was made.

TV news reported the video is from 2010, raising obvious questions: 

Why has it taken so long to come to light, and is the glorification of sports by The Record and other media hiding all of the homophobes, women haters and child molesters involved in the games?

Hackensack? Huh?

Editor Marty Gottlieb runs a front-page story on the unprecedented number of property tax appeals for a second day, but again, there is no discussion of Hackensack, one of the largest communities in North Jersey (A-1).

The big Hackensack news in Local is on L-2, the indictment of a coin dealer who lives in the city.

On L-3, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes presents another special photo of an SUV on its side, this time on Summit Avenue in Hackensack.

Despite the name of the vehicle, Ford Escape, the occupant or occupants needed the help of firefighters to get out.  

Vomit-inducing column

Many readers cursed when they saw a Road Warrior column on the Local front today. 

Staff Writer John Cichowski's excuse for a commuting column was missing last Wednesday and last Friday, making some readers think he was being limited to once a week to cut down on his errors and unsafe advice.

Today, he hangs the entire column on the complaint of a driver about an exit on the Garden State Parkway (L-1).

Where does that leave thousands of readers and commuters who have to deal with hundreds of other road and mass-transit problems he has been too lazy to report on since he took over the job at the end of 2003?

  

Hackensack doesn't need another lawyer

The Landmark Building at 27 Warren St. in Hackensack.

Jason Nunnermacker is identified as a "local attorney" in campaign literature for the Hackensack Coalition for Open Government, one of the slates in the May 14 City Council election.

If there is one thing Hackensack tax payers don't need after being bled dry by lawyers who swarmed around the legal problems of former Police Chief Ken Zisa, it's another attorney running things.

By one candidate's estimate, the city has paid $6 million in legal bills in the past three years, and not all of that was covered by insurance.

Nunnermacker also is on the Hackensack Board of Education.

A year ago, board members battled over the firing of three administrators allegedly allied with Zisa and Lynne Hurwitz, the powerful Democratic municipal chairwoman.

Hurwitz is said to back Nunnermacker's slate. 

So far, the so-called Coalition for Open Government hasn't been very open about Hurwitz or the special interests backing its campaign.

Victor E. Sasson, editor of Eye on The Record, is an independent candidate in the City Council election.

He is financing his own grass-roots campaign, and has pledged that if he is elected, he will give back to the city or a charity one-quarter of his $10,400 annual salary.  

Today's paper

Columnist Charles Stile -- The Record's chief apologist for Governor Christie's abysmal treatment of minorities -- claims the GOP bully's policies are "a lot more ... nuanced than that" (A-1).

Why does Stile sound less and less like an independent journalist and more and more like someone who is or wants to be on the governor's payroll?

More baseball on Page 1 today, for the second day in a row? Hey, Editor Marty Gottlieb, go back to New York, and never return.

In Local, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, could muster only 3 pages of local news -- and six of the stories are from Passaic County.

The huge photo on L-3 -- one in a series of utility pole news -- was snapped just down the street from the Woodland Park newsroom.

Now, that's enterprising journalism. 

Hail to the news biz

Broadway, Hollywood and the electronic media continue to shy away from exposing some of the nation's lousiest newspapers, including The Record.

The Better Living cover today reports on a new play, Nora Ephron's "Lucky Guy," starring Tom Hanks, about New York tabloid journalism in the 1980s and 199os.

What about the trash that passes for New York tabloid journalism today?

What about the story of an ambitious young North Jersey marketing executive who pushes his aging, overweight father aside; grabs a $3.65 million company mortgage to buy a bigger house; and, several months later, orders the biggest downsizing in the local paper's history?

Monday's paper

Why give a big slice of Page 1 to one of the paper's least exciting writers, Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson (Monday's NJ/DC column)?

Check out his lead paragraph on "the latest fodder in an ongoing debate in Washington over finding new ways to fund recovery from the worst natural disasters."

Did you nod off? I did.

Gottlieb ran Jackson's drivel as one of two pieces on Superstorm Sandy -- the editors' continuing excuse for not covering local news.

Another misfire

Sunday's column on the front of Local was an April Fools' joke on readers from the Road Warrior.

Let's hope no reader was foolish enough to take any of his idiotic advice.

For example, why hide a business card in your car door, which would require taking apart the door, instead of taping it behind a license plate or putting it inside the owner's manual?

Here's a concerned reader's take:
  

"The Road Warrior's April Fools driving tips in his March 31 column were a real hoot since they appear to try and fool people into thinking that none of these tips are really April Fools gags.

"Road Warrior's foolish and frequently unsafe advice -- like backing into parking-lot spaces, keeping hands too low on the steering wheel, not unbuckling after a crash, and hoping against all hope that a business card hidden in your car's door is the only hope you have of your stolen car being returned to you -- fly in the face of saner, safer advice from transportation experts and those with common sense who know better.

"Congratulations to the Road Warrior and The Record for their April Fools pranks that will increase the likelihood of costly car damage, unrecovered stolen cars, injuries and death!"

Read the full e-mail to management on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Desperate columnist pranks readers