Editors deliver a new low in State House journalism

Murals decorate a playground at Union and Myer streets in Hackensack, above and below. A sign indicates the playground was built under the state Green Acres program.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Readers of The Record are cursed.

As with today's Page 1 Political Stile column, it look like all we are going to be reading about Governor Christie is how his every action or inaction affects his White House ambitions.

Staff Writer Charles Stile delivers yet another column about the September closing of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, describing Democratic state Senate President Stephen Sweeney this way:

"His expletive-laced tirade over Christie's line-item budget cuts in 2011 set a new low point for State House discourse."

Under marching orders from Publisher Stephen A. Borg and Editor Marty Gottlieb, Stile is another Record staffer who doesn't dare directly criticize the GOP bully.

Instead, he politicizes any attacks by putting them in the mouths of Christie opponents:

Thus, Sweeney "mocked Christie's 'Jersey Comeback' as shallow sloganeering" and "openly accused him of exploiting Superstorm Sandy for political gain."

Of course, it's Stile, Staff Writer Melissa Hayes and other Trenton staffers who have set a new low in State House journalism by remaining blind to Christie's mean-spirited policies and vetoes.

House of sex

Two lawsuits dominate the Local front today, but the one filed by the Ramapough Mountain Indians against a Hollywood movie studio is overshadowed by another alleging two real estate agents used a vacant Wayne home for sexual trysts (L-1).

Thumbnail photos of Robert Lindsay, a former president of the Passaic County Board of Realtors, and Jeannemarie Phelan show they make a nice couple, but the story doesn't say whether they are married to others.

Security cameras installed in the home "captured 11 sexual encounters between Lindsay and Phelan from December 2011 to January 2012," the suit states.

Are they rabbits or real estate agents?

Fort Lee fiasco

Just about every male news columnist has commented on the brouhaha over a Christie crony closing Fort Lee access lanes to GWB tollbooths, but Road Warrior John Cichowski tops them all in the number of errors in his reporting.

In his Sunday column, Cichowski erred on the age of the bridge, tolls paid by truckers and even what the bridge is made of, according to a concerned reader:

"The Road Warrior brings Christmas jeer with his menacing, confusing and senseless report about three recent George Washington Bridge traffic tie-ups due to emergency problems from new replacement panels and ongoing repair work.

 "The Road Warrior stupidly and cluelessly asked if Port Authority was keeping up with maintenance of the bridge, if this was another case of political mismanagement -- the kind that led two of Christie’s cronies to resign in the wake of four days of similar gridlock on the Fort Lee side -- or if this giant landmark finally was coming to the end of its useful life?

 "All news reports from multiple reliable sources, including The Record, have overwhelmingly indicated just the opposite, with the GWB  is easily good for another 75 years with all of the ongoing maintenance work, including current replacement road panels on the upper level of the bridge.

 "The three emergency repairs, which unexpectedly occurred as part of the current maintenance work, caused widespread gridlock on all major highways on either sides of the Hudson River. It was not similar to the four days of gridlock on Fort Lee streets."

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers for an expanded version:

Bridging the Hudson with error after error