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The Record of Woodland Park is careful not to embarrass Governor Christie, who has shown time and again he is a friend of wealthy families like the Borgs and an enemy of just about everyone else, so it makes sense the editors downplayed a story contradicting the slash-and-burn Republican. 


Editor Francis "Frank The Castrato" Scandale gave Christie a nice piece of Page 1 on Thursday to condemn the inflexibility of federal bureaucrats, who denied New Jersey an education grant of up to $400 million. 


But the truth came out today on A-3. It was the governor's education chief who screwed up by not being able to provide the correct budget data at an Aug. 11 presentation, putting the state 3 points below what it needed to finish in the money. Why wasn't this on Page 1, Frank?

Doblin shoots from the hip

But that didn't stop Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin from writing a column defending Christie from Democratic attacks (A-21) -- a column written before the otherwise fastidious Doblin learned the real culprits were the state's education commissioner and his unprepared aides. Doblin's bias is clear. 


What will Doblin say now that Christie fired Bret Schundler, his education czar, for misinforming him about why the state's application failed? 



Where is the editorial demanding that NJ Transit do more to safeguard pedestrians around its railroad stations -- a position taken forcefully by Jerry DeMarco on Cliffview Pilot.com? The Fair Lawn woman killed on Thursday was the fourth person to die on the tracks in recent weeks. Here is the link to DeMarco's editorial: Blood on the tracks




New Jersey gets the short end

The A-1 story today on a deal that would rebuild the Word Trade Center and raise the Bayonne Bridge omits the long history of the Garden State being thrown scraps by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. I guess the state still has an inferiority complex in the shadow of New York, and steamroller Christie has done little to change that.

Back to the Zisa case 

Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado is back to reporting every hiccup and fart of suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa's legal problems (L-1 today). Is this all head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes allows Alvarado to write about?  Let's hope the court hearing isn't postponed or readers will have to slog through a long story saying so on Saturday. 

Hear the sizzle?

A major redesign of the weekly centerfold restaurant review in Better Living today is the triumph of sizzle over substance, and is a disservice to readers. Now, a great deal more room is devoted to photos and headlines, and far less room is devoted to the review itself.

Former Food Editor Bill Pitcher, whose reviews outlived his job, and Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung, just back from maternity leave, rarely discussed the origin of the food they ate. 

It mattered little to them whether the salmon was wild-caught or artificially colored at a fish farm, or whether the beef was grass-fed or raised conventionally on antibiotics, growth hormones and feed containing bits of dead animals. But these gluttons didn't stint on describing in great detail all the wonderful, high-calorie, artery-clogging desserts they stuffed repeatedly into their gaping maws.

Now, Ung will have much less room than before for her reviews, even if she wants to address the concerns of a growing number of readers about how restaurant food is raised or grown.