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| Our tax dollars at work. Hackensack Fire Department equipment producing these geysers were parked between Costco Wholesale and Pep Boys on Monday, near the Hackensack River, above and below. |
By Victor E. Sasson
Editor
The Record and other media love conflict, as today's lead Page 1 story on Tea Party crackpots demonstrates.
Why don't newspaper, radio and TV reporters challenge Republican claims that the Affordable Care Act is a "train wreck" and a "job killer," instead of merely quoting such nonesense?
And contradicting such prominent play is an editorial condemning Friday's vote in the GOP-led House of Representatives:
Withhold funding for health-care reform while keeping the federal government up and running, temporarily, is called "one of the most irresponsible votes in recent memory" (A-13).
Where is the reporting that Governor Christie's refusal to set up the law's health-care exchanges will lead to less competition among insurance providers and reduce the savings of New Jerseyans who buy coverage starting on Oct. 1?
Sandy and Chris
Isn't it strange that state Sen. Barbara Buono -- not the media -- managed to find Sandy victims who haven't gotten a penny of federal aid nearly a year after the superstorm (A-3)?
Editor Marty Gottlieb should have put the Buono campaign story and a story on the $25 million state-revenue shortfall (A-4) outside -- replacing Tea Party antics and another crappy sports column.
OK. That wouldn't square with Gottlieb's effort to put Christie's bid for a second term in the best light, even if that means bending the facts.
Miguel Perez
A story on L-3 today rehabilitates the image of former Record reporter Miguel Perez, a Cuban exile who was stripped of his column when then-editor Francis "Frank" Scandale decided the newsroom was too diverse.
Scandale also ended the columns of Lawrence Aaron, who is black, and Elaine D'Aurizio, the only female news columnist at the time.
Spanish conflict
Today's story also inadvertently reveals how little diversity exists in Woodland Park when reporter Monsy Alvarado blurts out:
"I am one of two reporters who speak Spanish at The Record. There is a need for more people like me, who speak Spanish...."
Perez also was one of the few Spanish-speaking staffers, leading Scandale to create a real conflict of interest by assigning the rabidly anti-Castro reporter to cover Cuba and the large exile community in North Jersey.
About Hackensack
In Hackensack news today, Police Director Michael Mordaga is barring officers from being paid to do residency fraud investigations for the school district (L-1).
Also, see Regina DiPasqua's letter to the editor on the Hackensack school district's refusal to pay the city about $1 million for a school resource officer (A-13).
On Friday, another letter to the editor, from Howard Vogel of Fair Lawn, urges voters "to fire" Christie in November "and let him campaign for president on his own time and with his own money" (Friday's A-18). Amen.
Friday's Local section continues the blow-by-blow coverage of two multimillionaires' legal battle over the Hudson News empire (Friday's Local front).
Get me rewrite
John Cichowski's Road Warrior column on Friday rehashed an earlier column, according to an e-mail from a concerned reader:
"In his Friday column, the Road Warrior takes the exact same information from his Wednesday column and shuffles it around to report the exact same information about less transportation funding for urban counties v. rural counties in New Jersey.
"Either The Record management and Road Warrior are totally clueless about what they previously reported or they think and do not care that their readers might actually remember what they read in the Road Warrior columns.
"What is even stranger is that all of the surprising news in his two columns took place seven months ago.
"The Road Warrior actually did report some new information. He was stunned that 70 per cent of New Jerseyans live in only 50 per cent of its counties, as if that is newsworthy."
Read the full e-mail on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:
Road Warrior should get out more
Drive, she said
See Friday's Better Living tab for a lukewarm, 2-star review of 15 Grand American Bistro in far-off Montvale (BL-18).
It appears as if Vincent Giambona, co-owner of a popular Fort Lee restaurant, opened this "updated, upscale diner" to shorten his commute from his home in River Vale.
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