Ali's battles against racism, war deserve a banner headline

Appropriately, the family that owned Harley's Irish Pub on River Street in Hackensack, above and below, chose Friday the 13th last November to close after 37 years in business. The pub was the scene of many boozy going-away parties before The Record newsroom moved out of the city in 2009. MyBergen.com published a tribute to Harley's.

On Saturday, worked continued to replace the pub building at 366 River St. with the second location of Chicken Supreme, a fast-food restaurant in Paterson.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

One glance at The Record's front page today shows how the once-great local newspaper continues to allow advertising revenue to shape news coverage.

The legacy of Muhammad Ali -- who spent most of his life fighting racism and an unjust war in Vietnam -- is denied a banner headline to make room for another piece on the greedy real estate industry (A-1).

Starting a highly promotional Sunday Real Estate section to boost advertising revenue, and folding the award-winning Food section, were among Publisher Stephen A. Borg's major moves when he took over a decade ago.

Editor Deirdre Sykes wasted more space on A-1 today by running an awful Tara Sullivan column on Ali's "magnificent boxing form."

You'll have to turn to an inside page to see President Obama's tribute:

"Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it" (A-8).

House Warrior

Readers wondered whether Staff Writer John Cichowski -- the so-called Road Warrior commuting columnist -- was offered a real estate commission in return for two front-page pieces last week that tried to sell a house without a driveway in Midland Park, where overnight parking supposedly is "banned."

Sykes and six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton didn't bother publishing an A-2 correction after Cichowski screwed-up and inflated the size of the property on Friday to 12,000 square feet from Tuesday's 3,000 square feet.

Today, Cichowski devotes his entire column to an incorrect street sign and other trivia (L-1).

Two of the many vacant storefronts on Palisade Avenue in Englewood once housed a Wendy's fast-food restaurant and Victoria's Secret. The Record has largely ignored the struggles of downtown merchants in favor of heavy coverage of shopping centers that advertise in the Woodland Park daily.

Downtown news? 

For many years, the business editors have directed the paper's retailing reporter to devote her time exclusively to covering North Jersey malls and luxury stores, which are among the biggest advertisers.

Today, the Business front carries a rare story on Main Street in downtown Hackensack, where a half-dozen wireless stores are competing for customers (B-1).

Staff Writer Joan Verdon describes Hackensack's Main Street as a "downtown retail street with strong traffic, from cars and pedestrians."

Really? The street has struggled since the publisher of the Woodland Park daily closed the landmark building at 150 River St. nearly seven years ago, and pulled out more than a thousand employees.

Governor Christie

In Opinion today, readers find an idiotic Mike Kelly column on the killing of that zoo gorilla in Ohio (O-1).

Has Kelly really run out of ideas for his New Jersey column?

Readers find the strongest disapproval of Governor Christie -- New Jersey's worst governor ever -- in Margulies' Sunday cartoon (O-2), not in opinion columns or editorials.

That's a sad commentary on the paper's Editorial Board, the only one attached to a major New Jersey daily that didn't call for Christie's resignation after the GOP bully endorsed racist Donald Trump.

To sell house without driveway, reporter exaggerates its size

Paterson's South Paterson neighborhood of Middle Eastern restaurants, bakeries and coffee houses continues to show signs of renewal, including a mobile telephone store and a three-story commercial building under construction at Main and Gould streets. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A Page 1 story in The Record today raises troubling questions about an error-prone reporter who has blurred the lines between journalism and real estate promotion.

And in Local, the Woodland Park daily reports for the first time that a Hackensack University Medical Center doctor played a key role in landing a Fox News interview with the mother of the first New Jersey-born baby affected by the Zika virus.

After the interview was aired and The Record's reckless editors published a Page 1 photo of the deformed baby, the woman is asking for privacy (L-2).

Property grows

In today's follow-up to his first front-page column, error-prone reporter John Cichowski grossly inflates the size of a Midland Park property that has proven to be a hard sell, because it has no driveway and overnight parking is supposedly "banned."

On A-8 today, Cichowski, also known as the Road Warrior, reports town officials "appeared unmoved when [owner Ken] Klabouch noted his 12,000-square-foot property was the only lot in the borough too small to accommodate a driveway" (italics added).

That's four times the size Chichowski cited in his original column on Tuesday, when he reported Klabouch's lot "measures slightly less than 3,000 feet."

The house itself is "1,200 square feet," he said on Tuesday.

Six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton completely missed today's wild exaggeration, as did all of the news, layout and copy editors under her supervision.

The embarrassing "12,000-square-foot" screw-up also appears on North Jersey.com, The Record's Web site.

Provide plate number

More troubling is that Cichowski has ignored the custom and practice in most towns, where residents and renters can call police with the license-plate number of a guest, and get permission for overnight street parking.

I called Midland Park police on Wednesday and confirmed this also is the practice in the borough -- for guests as well as homeowners who park on the street overnight.

Zika baby

On L-2 today, The Record reports Dr. Manny Alvarez played a pivotal role in landing an interview at the bedside of a Honduran woman who contracted the Zika virus and gave birth to a deformed girl on Wednesday at Hackensack University Medical Center.

But for the first time, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn reports the woman is Alvarez' patient. 

The doctor is "chairman of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive health" at the medical center, as well as "senior managing editor" at Fox Health News.

In today's story, Editor Deirdre Sykes appears to justify why The Record invaded the unnamed baby's privacy by publishing her photo on Thursday's front page.

"Labeled an 'exclusive,' it [the Fox News interview] included a video of the baby in a hospital bassinet" (L-2).

Heart-attack food

Readers are wondering why Elisa Ung's review of American Cut Bar and Grill is far more subdued than two elaborately promotional articles The Record published in the months before the expensive steakhouse opened in Englewood Cliffs.

Today, Ung says the service reminds her of  "a family chain," not "a fine-dining restaurant" (BL-14).

She gives the steakhouse -- which advertises in Friday's Better Living tabloid -- 2.5 stars out of a possible 4 stars.

Photos with her review show only heart-attack inducing food -- a steak burger, biscuits with cream cheese, hanger steak and a sundae -- but none of the fish and salads promised "for the ladies" by the celebrity chef owner in a December interview with Food Editor Esther Davidowitz.

Ung sampled the "prime dry-aged porterhouse for two" ($115), but doesn't tell readers whether the beef was naturally raised on grass.

"Prime" only tells readers its the fattiest cut of beef among USDA grades: Prime, Choice and Select.

After noting entrees cost up to $54, Ung says American Cut isn't appropriate for "anyone on a budget."

She must think her readers are dolts.

Publicity hungry medical center scars a Zika baby for life

Zika Fever Virus from a mosquito is linked to the microcephaly birth defect -- an abnormal smallness of the head -- mostly in South America.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

As I stared at the photo of a newborn girl with an unusually small, deformed head and her eyes shut tight, I wondered why The Record is running the image on the front page today.

By releasing the photo, publicity hungry Hackensack University Medical Center is invading the privacy of the baby and her mother, who was infected with the Zika virus in Honduras (A-1).

Is this the baby photo the mother dreamed about? 

Or, will the image haunt the girl for the rest of her life as "the first baby born in the continental United States with microcephaly traceable to the Zika virus," according to The Record. 

Does her birth in Hackensack make her a U.S. citizen, and expose her to sensational media coverage for years to come?

Bad neighbor

Residents of Hackensack have long regarded HUMC as a bad neighbor, because the non-profit pays no taxes on property worth $257 million -- shifting the burden onto long-suffering homeowners.

Of course, the sprawling medical center can do no wrong, according to the editors of The Record.

North Jersey Media Group -- publisher of the Woodland Park daily -- saw no conflict when Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg sat on the hospital board, HUMC advertising appeared regularly on North Jersey.com and the local news staff covered one unpopular expansion after another in Hackensack.

Today's Page 1 story on the Honduran mother and baby carries the bylines of two medical writers, Mary Jo Layton and Lindy Washburn.

Assisting them was Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado, one of the few Hispanics in the newsroom.

Hackensack news?

One look at today's local-news section tells Hackensack residents they apparently no longer live in the circulation area.

Looks like Editor Deirdre Sykes ran out of room for Hackensack news after running three major Silk City stories from Joe Malinconio of the Paterson Press (L-1 and L-3).

She also ran the long obituary of a vaudeville comedian know one has heard of, and devoted a quarter of a newspaper page to dozens of rescued cats (L-6).

Hysterical N.J. gas-tax opponents don't deserve equal time

In Hackensack, the exterior of the Bergen County Justice Center is nearing completion as work continues on the covered pedestrian bridge to the courthouse, below, near the medieval ramparts of the old county jail. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Koch brothers -- oil billionaires who back right-wing candidates in a war against the middle class -- are financing a campaign to stop a gas-tax increase in New Jersey.

The crackpot New Jersey chapter of Americans for Prosperity, which is backed by the evil brothers, urges drivers to say "no to a crazy new gas tax," a Page 1 story in The Record reports.

Staff Writer Christopher Maag actually devotes his second paragraph to the group's ridiculous ad showing "a father stealing things from his kids, including the family dog Sparky to pay for a gas-tax increase" (A-1).

The story is the latest to reflect how The Record allows wealthy special-interest groups, polls and politics to shape its reporting on important public issues.

Maag gives undue weight to hysterical anti-tax opponents without ever citing the logic of drivers paying a higher gas tax to fix roads and bridges, and to improve mass transit.  

Solar farms

The first paragraph of today's solar farm story claims "the projects could depress the price of solar credits that some homeowners rely on to pay off their rooftop ... arrays" (A-1).

But nowhere does Staff Writer James M. O'Neill mention that PSE&G has placed a floor of $400 under each credit a homeowner uses to repay the utility under its solar-loan program.

That compares to the average of $220 the reporter cites in his story. In 2010 and 2011, a so-called SREC fetched as much as $650.

Ruben Enukashvili

There are few details in the story about driver Christine Ko, 20, and how she killed pedestrian Ruben Enukashvili on Sunday night, allegedly while drunk (A-1).

Was the 86-year-old Georgian native in a Fort Lee crosswalk when he was struck by Ko's car? Is she a liquor store clerk in Fort Lee or her hometown of Ewing? Was she working that night?

Ko, who is charged with vehicular homicide, a first-degree crime, also received motor vehicle summonses.

John Walton

A story on another fatality -- the death of a 101-year-old driver who grazed a firetruck and crashed into a Paterson firehouse -- doesn't say whether former firefighter and Pearl Harbor survivor John Walton suffered a medical emergency (L-1).

Walton, who crashed on Sunday, died in the hospital on Tuesday. 

A photo of the accident and a seven-paragraph story appeared on L-6 in Monday's paper.

But for some reason, the reporter didn't identify the driver or give his age, reporting only that he was "elderly."

The man was taken to a hospital after receiving "emergency medical treatment" from firefighters, according to the story.

Staff Writer Linda Moss even interviewed Deputy Fire Chief William Henderson, who witnessed the accident but apparently didn't know or didn't tell her who Walton was.

Today's obituary reports Walton was Paterson's oldest living war veteran.