For North Jersey readers, another dull front page

The 24 Hour Fitness gym off Route 4 east in Paramus was closed this morning. Firefighters said they were investigating a natural gas or electrical "odor."

Ex-New York Timesman Marty Gottlieb, editor of The Record, roamed all over the world to bring North Jersey readers an exciting front page today, but he falls flat on his face again.

And what is this, the fourth or fifth day in a row, with a Page 1 story about a new athletics brouhaha at Rutgers University? Give us a break, Marty.

It doesn't get much better inside.

A Star-Ledger story about what Governor Christie does or does not eat equates enjoying many kinds of vegetables to being "a health nut" (A-7).

Utility pole news

Every page in head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section is filled with Law & Order or minor accident news.

Sykes advances utility pole and DWI news with an L-2 photo.

Another driver who rented a patch of front lawn in Ridgewood as a parking space failed a sobriety test, according to the photo caption on L-6.

Wrong-way John

Now, readers don't have to read several Road Warrior columns to find contradictions from Staff Writer John Cichowski, who can't seem to remember what he reported a few days or weeks ago. 

He contradicted himself in his May 26 column, according to a concerned reader, who sent another e-mail to management: 

"The Road Warrior is unable to make coherent, mistake-free statements in his May 26 column about traffic enforcement and road fatalities.

"The Road Warrior continues to pull his made-up conclusions and figures out of thin air, even though they contradict well-known facts or what he reported in the very same column.

 
"He indicated that New Jersey State Police reported LESS traffic enforcement this year since they were still focused on Sandy recovery efforts. I am sure the same was true for local police.

"He then indicated that the reduction in road fatalities this year was due to MORE traffic enforcement. 

"He continues to make up fictional numbers based on fictional calculations that he expects will NOT be checked by anyone at The Record. 

"He continues to be unable to read reports and provide any sensible analysis or correct data.

"North Jersey readers are not content with the Road Warrior scourge, which continues unabated,  to mislead them and waste their time."

To read the full, bad-news e-mail, go to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers at The Record:

What did I just say?

Christie will never measure up to President Obama

Hackensack attorney Frank P. Lucianna, left, marching in the Memorial Day Parade in Englewood. In a letter The Record published on Monday, the Army Air Forces veteran paid tribute to fellow members of the Dwight Morrow High School Class of 1941 who were killed during World War II. He listed more than a dozen friends he "will never forget."

If you swallow Columnist Charles Stile's amateurish promotion of Governor Christie on the front page of The Record today, you might think the GOP bully was "auditioning" for the White House during a joint appearance on Tuesday with President Obama. 

What a joke.

Whether at the Jersey shore or as a leader, Christie will never measure up to Obama, a champion of the same middle class the governor has savaged since he took office in 2010.

Christie's massive public relations campaign to win a second term has hoodwinked Stiles and the rest of state media.

But voters won't forget how he's catered almost exclusively to his wealthy supporters, and broken his campaign promise to lower property taxes.

More corrections

Four embarrassing corrections on A-2 today are further evidence of how little fact-checking is performed by Production Editor Liz Houlton, her sleepy copy editors or the assignment editors who sign off on stories.

On A-3, a story on The Record winning statewide journalism awards doesn't explore whether the stories served readers or were written merely to impress fellow journalists.

A photo on A-3 -- showing Michelle Obama with  Jersey shore students in the backyard garden at the White House -- again demonstrates how little Christie or first lady Mary Pat Christie have done to promote healthy eating during the child obesity epidemic.

Readers brace

On the front of Local, a big photo showing the Franklin Lakes homecoming of disgraced former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik can mean only one thing (L-1).

Soon, burned-out Staff Writer Mike Kelly will land an exclusive interview with his pal "Bernie," and write an overlong column to rehabilitate Kerik's dishonest image. 

Litigiously speaking

What was the point of The Record's Page 1 story on Tuesday "on the propensity" of local police officers "to sue their employers over promotions and other work conditions"?

The takeout by star reporter Stephanie Akin seemed mean-spirited, especially in view of how often North Jersey Media Group sues or is sued by its employees and former employees.

None of those lawsuits are ever reported in The Record, but NJMG has started a blog to document its high-profile Freedom of Information cases:

http://blog.northjersey.com/legallyspeaking/

Despite declining revenue from classified and other advertising, NJMG's legal expenses have soared in recent years from the use of outside counsel who command $400 to $500 an hour.

Clueless Kelly should visit Englewood real soon

A week ago, in a column on the front page of The Record, burned-out Staff Writer Mike Kelly compared downtown Hackensack unfavorably to Englewood and other towns, which reportedly "bustled with new businesses." But the reality is far different, as these empty storefronts on Englewood's Palisade Avenue show, above and below. 

This empty retail space is on the ground floor of a luxury apartment building.

All of the empty storefronts are on Palisade Avenue or on a side street, and all are within one block of each other. And there are others on both side of the railroad tracks that divide Englewood economically and racially.

In recent years, The Record has virtually ignored downtown Hackensack, Englewood and Teaneck, in favor of stories about Ridgewood, Tenafly and other wealthier towns. And the newspaper has never explored the impact it had on Hackensack's Main Street when it abandoned the city where it had prospered for 110 years. Kelly, of course, never mentioned The Record's departure in his Hackensack column.

In  today's Memorial Day Parade, the Englewood Police Department Honor Guard marched past a Palisade Avenue storefront that remains empty more than a year after Victoria's Secret closed (not shown).

Take a break from The Record of Woodland Park

A new public garden opposite the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack.

The Record today calls on burned-out Columnist Mike Kelly to report on a Jersey shore that still has a long way to go on the road to recovery (Page 1).

Of course, this piece was sorely needed as a counterpoint to the wildly exaggerated front-page coverage on Saturday that was orchestrated by Governor Christie and the "Today" show.

Now, it amounts to furious backpedaling by Editor Marty Gottlieb, a New Yorker who is so enamored of the GOP bully and so solidly behind his bid for a second term.

Superstorm Sandy damage on Palisade Avenue in Englewood.

This Memorial Day edition is a good time to take a break from all of this amateurish journalism.

As usual, readers' letters today tell you more about North Jersey than news and opinion editors do.

Edith and Gordon Wallace of Glen Rock bemoan the wrong-headed decision by Tenafly officials to reject light-rail service, and by some residents to oppose an education building at the nature center (A-11).

The Record's support for light rail and mass transit in recent years has been lukewarm at best.