 Image by derek7272 via Flickr |
| Ground Zero at an earlier stage of reconstruction in April 2008. |
When the powerful Port Authority of New York and New Jersey calls, reporters jump at the opportunity to get up close and personal at the agency's latest dog and pony show. That's what Staff Writer Tom Davis did to produce today's breathless Page 1 account of construction at Ground Zero, and the reporter made sure he passed along a dig at backers of a nearby mosque.
The upbeat account, with six photos by Staff Photographer Chris Pedota, appears orchestrated to silence critics who complain none of the buildings will be finished by Sept. 11, 2011 -- the 10-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. The reporter played right into the hands of the bistate agency.
A clueless news copy editor -- looking for a quote to place above the big, A-1 photo of the site -- finds the dullest one in the story: "More than a construction site." But why ignore this quote? "A passion and a mission."
The reporter tells us, "Workers scurried around, " and notes some wore stickers on their hard hats opposing the mosque. A Port Authority official is quoted saying, "These guys work around the clock." Wow. What dedication. And great public relations, too.
The anti-mosque reference is in keeping with the paper's smear tactics this past Sunday against the imam backing the proposal. And Editors Francis "Frank The Castrato" Scandale and Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes apparently oppose assigning stories on mosques in Paterson, Teaneck and Hackensack, which co-exist peacefully in their communities.
'Liar, liar, pants on fire'
The Governor Christie-Bret Schundler privileged white male pissing match is back on A-1 today, and each man pretty much says the other lied about who did what to whom in the state's failed application for a $400 million federal education grant.
No matter who you side with, you as taxpayers and your kids are the ones who really got screwed -- but since Christie took office, you have gotten used to that -- while the Borgs and other millionaires count all the money they don't have to send to the tax office in Trenton.
No matter who you side with, you as taxpayers and your kids are the ones who really got screwed -- but since Christie took office, you have gotten used to that -- while the Borgs and other millionaires count all the money they don't have to send to the tax office in Trenton.
Playing catch-up
On the front of Local, the paper catches up with a story it missed -- the lawsuit to stop the expansion of The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood -- a controversy readers both inside and outside of the village are thoroughly sick of reading about, especially in the absence of news from Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck and other important towns.
Road Worrier
Road Warrior John Cichowski, who routinely turns his back on the commuting problems of bus and rail riders, has an L-1 column about highway rest stops. Boring. He's the one who really needs a rest. Why not take Christie to task for refusing to raise the low gasoline tax to help repair infrastructure and boost mass transit?
Cichowski's boss is Sykes, the head assignment editor, who spends hours in the office looking busy, micromanaging, laughing loudly and sipping delicately on her water bottle, but accomplishes nothing in the way of improving local news coverage.
There's not a word in Local today about a plan to remake Main Street in Hackensack -- two weeks after a public meeting in the Johnson Public Library. Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado is missing in inaction.
New food editor on board
Food Editor Susan Sherrill's name appears on Page F-2 of Better Living for the first time today, but the section's food coverage remains as lackluster as ever.
You have to love Schundler, the career politician with the lawyer wife is insisting he be fired so he can obtain unemployemnt benefits. Maybe The Record can do a story about how unemployed people in North Jersey who make a fraction of what Schundler and his wife make have to pay over a grand a month for Cobra benefits.
ReplyDeleteSchundler told reporters he has only $5,000 in the bank. That's a lot more than the vast majority of people, but he wasn't questioned at all about his finances.
ReplyDeleteUntil the Cobra eligibility expires, and then their unemployment insurance expires a few months later. But the Record isn't likely to do such a story because it's part of the problem. In a way, it's refreshing to see Schundler bring the unemployment factor into view, heck, maybe he could even apply for food stamps when the unemployment runs out.
ReplyDeleteI think he forgot to add a zero to that figure, perhaps even two.
ReplyDeleteThat's certainly possible.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that Mister Road Warrior, of all the rest stops in New Jersey, should criticize that one on Route 78. Several winters ago while driving home from Pennsylvania I got caught in a snowstorm and was damn glad to find that little rest stop.
ReplyDeleteLittle is the key word here. As I recall it's flush up against a rock face and there's probably civilization on the other side, and there wouldn't be anyplace there to expand it or put in a gas station even if it were allowed. Plus -- and I've driven past that rest area many times without stopping -- it's almost always filled entry to exit with trucks, which would be clogging exit ramps if they didn't have a place to log their required rest time.
Ironically, if the state put in "facilities," the rest area would become jammed with a mixture of trucks and cars, and there's no place to separate them as is done at most rest stops and service plazas. Encouraging its use by more cars would create a dangerous situation.
So there, Mister Cichowski, if you're going to write about something, at least show some insight into what you're writing about.
Thanks.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, John Cichowski does most of his work from his chair in the newsroom, where he reads all the e-mails he gets from readers, most of whom are drivers. I guess mass transit users realize he is their enemy, not their friend. He rarely leaves the office to see, touch and feel what he is writing about, and that results in the situation you have commented on.
He has to turn out too many columns each week, and he's been doing it for close to seven years. He's tired and we're really tired of him.
Incidentally, I just read Cichowski's column on the web site, and he points out that the lady who complained about the Third World rest area was driving home from a function in the Outer Banks. The most direct route from the Outer Banks to Bergen County is up Route 95, so she would have no need to be on Route 78 unless she was taking a detour for the sole purpose of avoiding the tolls on the NJ Turnpike, in which case she should be ashamed of herself cheating the state out of highway money and then complaining about its rest area. Not only that, but there are great facilities, albeit commercial ones, on the Pa. side of the border, and a truck stop shortly after entering NJ on 78.
ReplyDeleteThat's cheap of the woman and cheap of the reporter. All of us once marveled at how dedicated the Road Worrier was, spending hours at the office, late into the night. What we didn't know at the time was that all that time in the office robbed him of any sense of reality concerning the woes of commuting. He's just about stopped writing about commuting -- in cars or in mass transit -- and now concentrates on getting out his three columns each week, no matter how trivial the subject. He fancies himself a great writer, too, crafting his sentences to make up for the lack of substance. And, God forbid, he should challenge an entity such as NJ Transit for not making its railroad stations as safe as they could be. He is so insensitive, he literally blames the victims who die on the tracks. This is journalism?
ReplyDelete