Editor blesses Road Warrior, dismisses critics

In late 2007, Publisher Stephen A. Borg paid $3.65 million for this McMansion on the East Hill of Tenafly, using a mortgage from North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, Herald News and (201) magazine. Several months later, Borg implemented the biggest downsizing in NJMG history. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When I was a news copy editor at The Record, Staff Writer John Cichowski, who began writing the Road Warrior column in late 2003, was among the reporters who couldn't be relied on to be accurate or complete.

More than a decade later, the Road Warrior column continues to peddle misinformation -- whether its about driving regulations and laws or North Jersey's troubled mass transit.

His workload -- three columns a week -- might have been to blame, and recently, he appears to have been cut back to only two, and most of those are based on inane questions and comments from readers who love seeing their names in print.

In the last two years or so, a retired engineer in Hackensack has been fact-checking Cichowski, something the editors of The Record don't do, and e-mailing critiques to Vice President Jennifer A. Borg, Editor Martin Gottlieb, Production Editor Liz Houlton and others, including the reporter himself.

Circles the wagons

Now, Gottlieb has come out swinging in defense of Cichowski and dismissed all criticism of his inaccuracies and faulty reporting over the last decade.

The e-mail is an example of the fortress mentality at The Record and many other newspapers, where editors and reporters regularly express contempt for complaining readers and refuse to appoint an ombudsman to deal with sloppy, inaccurate reporting and editing. 

Still, Gottlieb's e-mail only addresses a recent Road Warrior column about the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, which is across the street from The New York Times, where Gottlieb reported and edited for many years under much higher standards than he enforces at the Woodland Park daily.

Here is Gottlieb's e-mail to the Hackensack critic, who began the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

You have sent, by your count, more than 160 e-mails with complaints about the Road Warrior in less than two years. They have been filled with ad hominem attacks, inaccuracies, and nitpicks magnified to gargantuan proportions, all of which stand in complete contrast to the praise you heaped on the column after you asked for - and received - Mr. Cichowski's help several years ago. Quite frankly, I'm tired of this, and I have no interest in hearing from you or reading these defamations anymore.

Your first "clueless false statement" contends that the bus terminal, which opened in 1950, is not 64 years old because it opened in December and is therefore only 63 years old.... Please, by any fair standard, 1950 plus 64 is 2014, which is the year we're in now. Only someone with an irrational animus would make the point you do, much less at the head of a laundry list of supposedly serious errors.

Your second point is that there is a study going on about what to do with the bus terminal, and that this shows that Cichowski is wrong in saying "there is no relief in sight" for the run-down terminal. There is no relief in sight. The Port's recently passed $27.6-billion capital budget includes no CONSTRUCTION money for bus-station improvements. Port officials have told us there are no plans in place. A Port commissioner has argued against providing more assistance to a proposed office tower at Ground Zero when nothing is being done to meet the challenge at the bus terminal. John is right. You are wrong. You are reading an awful lot into a study months from completion that, at best, won't beget a remedy for years and years - in other words, for any time in sight.

Your points are not fair-minded. They are driven by an irrational hatred of the Road Warrior, despite your earlier solicitation of his help. I've stopped reading.

Sincerely,
Martin Gottlieb

In response to Gottlieb's e-mail, the Hackensack critic noted, referring to himself:

- The only things the critic hates is clearly false, misleading, or unsafe reports, and information that contradicts N.J. statutes. The Road Warrior columns continually contain some portions of these irresponsible items.

- Gottlieb seems to be in total denial about the extensive inaccuracies in around 80% (165) of the total Road Warrior columns over the past two years.

- The Road Warrior has regularly provided information and advice that has proven to be unhelpful, unsafe, or conflicting with New Jersey statutes, published studies that are the focus of his columns, transportation experts, New Jersey transportation and Motor Vehicle Commission websites, scientific evidence and facts from reliable sources.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Ex-Times journalist OKs fuzzy reporting