Paper's obese editors long ignored our obese governor

A front-page "ANALYSIS" in The Record today credits four officials and declares that NJ Transit bus commuters no longer face long lines and delays in returning home from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan, above. Now, will the Woodland Park daily finally take notice of the shortage of rush-hour seats on NJ Transit trains?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In The Record's front-page story on Governor Christie's weight loss, experts note a candidate needs "to look like the part they are running for."

But the story never explains why Record reporters covering Christie's campaign in 2009 and his inauguration completely ignored his weight and whether he was fit to serve.

That may be because after working side-by-side with at least two obese editors in the newsroom, the reporters covering Christie didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

And that continued for years as only the national media tried to find out how much Christie weighed, and late-night comedian David Letterman guessed the GOP bully had ballooned to 400 pounds.

See this Eye on The Record post from 2011:

Guess how much Christie weighs 

Better or not?

A front-page story last Wednesday and another one today declare an end to long lines and afternoon rush-hour delays for NJ Transit bus riders leaving the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan (A-1).

But Jay Holahan of Teaneck says in a letter to the editor today:

"As a 25-year commuter, I don't recognize any immediate improvements ...." (A-13).

News or snooze?

Residents of Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and many other Bergen towns won't find anything about them in Local today.

The lead story in the section is a controversial proposal to replace Memorial Field in far-off Washington Township with artificial turf (L-1).

The local editors needed another Dean's List to fill their pages (L-2).

Poor food choices

Free-lancer Kate Morgan Jackson's list of a dozen "great food stores" for home cooks omits Whole Foods Market, Costco Wholesale and two of the best, Jerry's Gourmet & More and Balthazar Bakery, both in Englewood (BL-1).

Jackson appears unwilling to stray too far from her Upper Saddle River home.

On Wednesdays, the food blogger also supplies Better Living with unhealthy recipes, many filled with artery clogging cream and butter.

Borgs embrace a downtown they abandoned in 2009

Plans for apartments on North Jersey Media Group's River Street property in Hackensack, once home to The Record, will likely involve an elaborate marketing campaign to attract tenants to a notorious flood zone with a view of a cement plant and, beyond that, the elevated roadway of the New Jersey Turnpike.

The major story in today's Sunday edition ignores why there are so many failed businesses in Englewood, above. The Record cites the small city as one of the Bergen towns that "believe ... adding rental apartments in their downtowns is the key to revitalizing their Main Streets." Rental  and condo buildings on Palisade Avenue in Englewood have done no such thing. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In the years after North Jersey Media Group pulled out of Hackensack in 2009, The Record carefully avoided reporting the impact on the city's already struggling downtown only two blocks from the old newsroom.

Today, readers will find more reporting on Hackensack and other Bergen downtowns than they've seen in years, but Teaneck's depressed Cedar Lane isn't covered (A-1).

The story is by Staff Writer Joan Verdon, the longtime retail reporter who has spent more than a decade promoting mall retailers and highway businesses.

Her premise is that officials in Hackensack and other downtowns believe adding rental apartments will translate into more shoppers and restaurant patrons, revitalizing their Main Streets.

That strategy has already failed in Englewood, where hundreds of units downtown and along Route 4 haven't completely revitalized Palisade Avenue, Engle and other downtown streets.

One issue Verdon doesn't address is high downtown rents, which a pharmacist cites as one reason he is closing his Ridgewood business after 32 years (L-2).

In 2009, Publisher Stephen A. Borg completed a major downsizing and the pullout of The Record from Hackensack, where the paper had prospered for more than 110 years.

The Borg family was responsible for the first wave of apartments in Hackensack when they sold a Prospect Avenue mansion to a high-rise developer.

The Whitehall at 280 Prospect Ave. was completed in 1960.

Another Marty Gottlieb front page that doesn't affect us

In Manhattan, workers are trimming the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, above. The tree-lighting ceremony is scheduled for Dec. 3.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A sensational child-abuse trial in federal court involving an Army couple from Mount Holly. 

Rewrites of two other newspapers -- on sports wagering in America, and the resignation of Governor Christie's chief of staff, who lost hope of ever becoming New Jersey's attorney general.

And a real fluke: A Morris County homeowner who was awarded his house after the creditors missed a legal deadline.

This last story carries an inaccurate headline: The house isn't "free" since Gordon A. Washington paid $131,000 of the mortgage before defaulting, as noted in the A-1 data box.

This is another front page that is irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of North Jersey readers -- straight from the mind of Marty Gottlieb, the sophisticated New Yorker who is editor of The Record.

Where is the tree?

I guess the staff photographer sent to cover a "living memorial" to Waldwick Police Officer Christopher Goodell was in a rush to get to his next assignment.

The photo appears on Page 1 and the Local front, but doesn't show the copper beech tree planted to honor the cop who died when a truck driver plowed into his radar patrol car in July (A-1 and L-1).

HUMC profits

An L-1 story says nearly 200 Hackensack University Medical Center employees have accepted early retirement packages, but adds the non-profit "will hire far more people in the next 90 days than the number who are leaving."

The story also notes "two credit reporting agencies said that Hackensack -- a 775-bed medical center with $1.4 billion in annual revenue -- was doing very well financially."

As written, this story belongs on the Business page, not the Local news front, filled as it is with financial jargon.

The story also is missing any explanation of why anyone but the affected employees should care.

Nature center

The Record has done a terrible job of explaining the opposition to expansion of the Tenafly Nature Center (L-1).

Residents voted against the proposal in a Nov. 4 referendum, but today's story notes local officials had called a larger center "a boon to Tenafly."

The story also says "both sides traded accusations of misinformation," but I cannot recall the paper making any attempt to separate fact from fiction before the election.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives in Tenafly.

The Woodland Park daily also didn't do much to separate fact from fiction when hysterical Tenafly officials turned thumbs down on extension of NJ Transit's electrified light-rail line to the wealthy borough.  

Second looks

November is Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month, but the first story that mentioned the disease likely was the obituary of former Rep. Marge Roukema on Thursday's front page.

Roukema, who was elected to the House of Representatives 11 time, was one of those "socially moderate, fiscally conservative Northeastern Republicans [who] became increasingly rare in the years after she cast her last House vote in 2002."

The obituary by Staff Writer Herb Jackson includes praise from Democrats and Republicans alike, but Christie's name is conspicuously absent.

Roukema retired in November 2001 after narrow victories in primaries "in which challenger Scott Garrett of Sussex County said she was too liberal."

Hollywood reporters

Did you see Thursday's Better Living cover story on "a new spate of movies on journalists"?

Do any of the new or old movies from La La Land even acknowledge the mediocrity of so many local daily newspapers like The Record that are struggling to stay relevant in our digital age?

And where is the analysis of unchallenged "sound bites" that have now migrated to print journalism?

In a brief on Thursday's front page, The Record quoted House Speaker John Boehner, who called the climate deal between the U.S. and China "the latest example of the president's crusade against affordable, reliable energy," an apparent reference to coal.

A longer Boehner quote appeared in The Washington Post story on Thursday's A-10, but that paper never reported whether the ultraconservative Republican is referring to coal generating plants, which are the direct cause of mercury in fish and air pollution.

The latter probably has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. 

More errors

As he has shown so many times before, Road Warrior John Cichowski is unable to accurately report data from the annual state police report on road deaths (Friday's L-1).

Here is a summary from the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his Friday column, the Road Warrior goes down his mistake-filled wormhole of reporting about another New Jersey State Police annual report (this time for 2013) on roadway fatalities.

"The Road Warrior indicated that the increase in fatalities for Bergen County pedestrians and truck drivers was part of a 'trend.'

"They are not part of any trend.

"Bergen pedestrian deaths have gone down in 3 of the last 6 years. Tractor-trailer deaths have gone down in 2 of the last 4 years and are on pace to go down this year.

"Road Warrior indicated that the 2010 law requiring drivers to stop for to pedestrians in marked crosswalks has 'driven down' fatalities.

"Unfortunately, pedestrian deaths have gone up every year since 2010, except for last year, and are on pace to greatly exceed last year’s record low number of fatalities."

See: Road Warrior reporting mistakes climb

Bergen's executive-elect can't get any respect from editors

I had an uneventful trip into the city on Veterans Day, boarding NJ Transit's No. 165 Local in Hackensack, above, and arriving at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan in under an hour.

The return trip on the 165 Turnpike Express to Hackensack and Westwood also went smoothly, but about 50 people lined up to board the bus, which left at 3:05 p.m., well before the rush hour started. The Record reported on Wednesday that lines at the antiquated terminal appear to be shorter.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's readers are witnessing a near-total breakdown in the checks and balances that produce an accurate and credible newspaper.

Today, Page A-2 carries the same correction it did on Tuesday -- a photo of Bergen County Democratic Chairman Lou Stellato was incorrectly identified as James Tedesco, the county's executive-elect.

This time, the photo of Stellato was a small thumbnail showing only his head -- apparently taken from the larger photo of the powerful pol that ran on Sunday -- but the double chin and glasses clearly set him apart from Tedesco.

The error likely was made by a lowly layout editor who was completely oblivious of the earlier embarrassing error with the larger Stellato photo in Sunday's Opinion section.

If you add these errors to the hundreds of uncorrected screw-ups in the Road Warrior column in recent years, it's a sad commentary on the editors' seeming inability to produce a reliable newspaper.

Forced busing

For example, on Wednesday, the front page carried a long story from transportation reporter Christopher Maag, heralding small changes that have eased afternoon rush-hour delays at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan.

For years, The Record's lazy transportation editor and reporters ignored those delays, but they were finally roused by angry letters from bus commuters at the end of last year.

Maag chose to observe at 5:30 p.m. Monday -- "the height of the rush hour" -- when, he says, "a few short lines formed and disappeared almost immediately into waiting buses."

Later in the story, he concedes "this week was an anomaly," given that some commuters may have stayed home for a four-day weekend that included Veterans Day on Tuesday.

So, can we rely on the story as an accurate reflection of improving bus terminal conditions?

The line for an express bus I took back to Hackensack on Tuesday at 3:05 p.m. had at least 50 people on it -- more passengers than seats. That's hardly "short."

Protecting Christie

In a front-page story today on the federal health insurance marketplace, there is absolutely no mention of how Governor Christie tried to sabotage the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act (A-1).

Instead of reporting Christie refused to set up a state exchange, as New York and Connecticut did, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn makes a vague reference to the "few state resources" that "are spent to encourage Obamacare signups" in New Jersey.

The GOP bully joined conservative governors in 35 other states in refusing to set up their own exchanges, overwhelming the federal exchange with millions of unanticipated applicants.

Genesis Rincon

A story on Paterson narcotics detectives confiscating 4,500 packets of heroin from two drug dealers reports they "were operating less than 200 feet from where 12-year-old Genesis Rincon was fatally shot riding her scooter last summer" (L-3).

Is there a connection?

Or is Police Director Jerry Speziale saying city police are doing a far better job confiscating heroin packets than they are preventing the murder of innocent young girls?

Why bother?

How many readers are going to try and get a reservation at Sergio's Missione, a shrine to Italian-American food in Lodi?

Today's lukewarm, 2-star review makes you wonder why The Record and Staff Writer Elisa Ung don't just cut their losses, and publish a few cautionary paragraphs?

The data box mentions a three-course early bird special for $15.95 that might be worth the detour, but there is nothing about it on the restaurant's Web site.

Ung, the paper's chief restaurant reviewer, doesn't say she sampled the meal, likely because the restaurant refused to serve her three dessert courses.

Second look

Last Sunday, Road Warrior John Cichowski tried to write a column correcting a previous report on the Graduated Driving License law (GDL), which requires red decals on the license plates of drivers 21 and younger.

But the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers says the befuddled reporter just made more mistakes:

"The Road Warrior continues to misreport that the estimated reductions in crashes were mainly due to red decal provisions.

"The study repeatedly indicated that while red decals could be an important component, the reductions were mainly due to multiple provisions in the 2010 GDL law, which also included the red decals.

"The Road Warrior reported the study indicated that the red decals yielded more safety advantages than disadvantages. This implies that the study mentioned a number of disadvantages.

"However, the study indicated there were no reported disadvantages due to the red decals."

See: Road Warrior's IQ continues to drop