Marty's 'balanced' front page is all wrong for North Jersey

You can't argue with the license plate of a Smart car I saw on East 77th Street in Manhattan on Thursday, but its gas mileage is laughable -- much less than in a hybrid.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You can almost see Editor Martin Gottlieb picking out stories to balance the front page of The Record today -- the shelling of a school in Gaza, a sensational Bergen County trial and an even more sensational lawsuit against Hackensack police, and a local "Loch Ness" teaser.

Most, if not all, of the stories are irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of North Jersey residents, who live under a broken home-rule system of government that penalizes them with high property taxes.

Waste of space

Putting international news on Page 1 is a true waste of space, given the hours of TV coverage with the same focus the night before.

The Associated Press reports on the fighting in Gaza that Gottlieb has been running on Page 1 are the kind of body count journalism that seems prejudicial.

Is the media making any attempt to document Hamas' use of Palestinians as "human shields" by placing rocket launchers in residential neighborhoods, as Israel charges?

Instead of photos of the launchers, most of the stories are merely Hamas said/Israel said -- another case where the media shirk their responsibility and settle for sound bites.

Sloppy local section

Gottlieb may be putting a lot of care into balancing the front page today and every day, but that contrasts with the local staff's inability to completely report and intelligently edit even basic stories.

The major element on the Local front today doesn't even say whether passenger Miles Reme, 20, was wearing a seat belt before the crash in Ridgefield that killed the former high school athlete and seriously injured two other 20-year-olds, including driver Tamer Ammar (L-1).

The driver's DWI conviction, his being charged with reckless driving, and arrests for allegedly distributing Xanax and marijuana don't appear until deep on the continuation page (L-6).

Second look

In his July 13 column, Staff Writer John Cichowski made at least two big errors in discussing a plan to repave Paterson's pockmarked streets, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers.

Cichowski wrote the mayor proposed to borrow $37 million, but on July 10, a story in The Record reported the mayor wants to spend $37 million and borrow $35 million of that.

The befuddled reporter also misspelled the name of Councilman Andre Sayegh, calling him "Andrew."

See:

More errors from Road Warrior Joan Cichowski