Editors testing readers' patience for unlimited holiday cheer

"Refugees" is from cartoonist John Cole. The Record and many other news outlets continue to ignore the carnage of the Syrian civil war, which began in March 2011; the role of Russia in keeping the regime in power and whether Russian President Vladimir Putin helped Donald J. Trump win the U.S. presidential election.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

We have much to celebrate during Christmas and Hanukkah, but the holidays aren't easing our nationwide anxiety with a Trump presidency just 26 days away.

Meanwhile, the Sunday edition of The Record is laying on the holiday cheer with upbeat columns and stories on nearly every section front, even though many of them are flawed.

For example, on Page 1, the enormous amount of space devoted to Nora Renzulli, a Wayne woman who volunteers to serve meals at Eva's Village in Paterson, ignores thousands of others who are just as dedicated (1A).

On the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski so-called Wish List for Santa is so heavily focused on drivers that he becomes a Road Scrooge for the tens of thousands who commute by train or bus (1L).

His lone reference to the midtown Manhattan Port Authority Bus Terminal as "a sardine-can relic" is inaccurate.

Nor does he know enough to call for more exclusive bus lanes to the Lincoln Tunnel as a way of providing immediate relief until a new terminal is built.

2016 election

An Associated Press story reports that polling after the November election found that "nearly two-thirds of voters described the [strong] economy as 'not so good' or 'poor' (16A).

But the AP ignores whether racism and misogyny were among the real reasons they voted for Trump.

On the Opinion front, a long piece by Merrill Brown, director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University, argues a Trump administration will test news organizations as never before (1O).

However, Brown doesn't discuss how the news media's intense focus on state and national politics -- as opposed to policies, issues and what's good for the state or country -- is the biggest possible disservice to voters.  

News taking a back seat to politics, restaurant promotions

The front page of the Daily News. Philip Affuso of Ridgewood wrote a letter to the editor of The Record today, predicting the Republican Party, with Donald Trump at the head of the ticket, will meet "a crushing defeat in the general election" and may also lose control of the Senate and House (A-10).

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The front page of The Record today reflects the media's obsession with politics and sensationalism instead of news.

The idiotic Associated Press story splashed all over Page 1 describes Donald Trump as "a political outsider," not the hate monger who has rallied millions of racists to his cause (A-1).

Now that the two parties' presidential nominations appear to have been decided, what will The Record and other news media write about until the November election?

When Governor Christie dropped out of the GOP race and threw his support to Trump, every major New Jersey daily except The Record called on him to resign.

Should we expect an avalanche of boring columns from Staff Writer Charles Stile -- one of the governor's biggest boosters -- analyzing Christie's chances of becoming Trump's running mate for hate?

Newark murder

The headline over a follow-up to the murder of a white college student, who lived in off-campus Newark housing, uses two words from Christie's reaction, calling the death an "extraordinary tragedy" (A-1).

Editor Deirdre Sykes assigned four reporters to work on the story, as if minority Newark residents don't die in robberies or drive-by shootings nearly every day thanks to a police force that is unable or unwilling to protect them.

The story never explains why Joseph Micalizzi's life is worth any more than those unnamed victims.

Sykes and her gullible reporters also swallow Christie's B.S. that the slaying is "an extraordinary tragedy, not only for this university's community but also for us as a state and for me as a father" (A-6).

His son is graduating from Princeton, so how is the Micalizzi murder a "tragedy" for Christie? 

Local news?

After weeks of coverage, the big local news today is the suspension of Wyckoff Police Chief Benjamin Fox, who allegedly condoned racial profiling in a 2014 email (L-1).

North Jersey's home-rule communities seem to have their fair share of bad police chiefs, led by Hackensack's Ken Zisa.

Yet, The Record took no interest in the Zisa family's new political initiative, Team Hackensack, which backed two of the winning candidates in the April 19 school election.

'Hamilton' and Paterson

The Broadway musical "Hamilton" may have been nominated for 16 Tonys, but does the show touch on Alexander Hamilton's role in setting up the nation's first planned industrial city that later became Paterson, known as "Silk City" for all of the mills that were powered by the Great Falls?

Readers have no clue from today's coverage on the Better Living front (BL-1).

The editors also knock themselves out promoting the return of Park & Orchard, an Italian-American restaurant in East Rutherford (BL-1).

But readers might be experiencing sticker shock, with pasta dishes priced at $22 to $29 -- more than at many restaurants in Manhattan. 

Chef is out

And why should readers care about the employment problems of Adam Weiss, who left as executive chef of Due, an Italian-American restaurant in Ridgewood (BL-2)?

Weiss is best remembered for advice that sent many readers' blood pressures soaring, even if they weren't watching their intake of sodium as recommended by American Heart Association:

When he was working at Due, an overweight Weiss mocked using only one teaspoon of salt per gallon of pasta water.

"No," he insisted in a September 2014 interview with The Record. "It has to be salted like the ocean, because when you drain it you want the salt to adhere to the pasta."

What nonsense. Many home cooks don't even salt pasta water, knowing the sauce they use already has plenty of sodium.

Evidence mounts of Christie's pivotal role in Bridgegate

Traffic on Center Street in Fort Lee crawling toward Main Street on Monday, when construction on Main made driving in the borough an ordeal, as it has been on so many days in the past two years.

A digital sign on Main Street warned motorists of similar disruptions through Friday.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I'm betting the 1.5 million pages of evidence federal prosecutors won't make public show Governor Christie had a pivotal role in the George Washington Bridge political-retribution scandal.

Indeed, the GOP bully could be one of the unindicted -- and as yet unidentified -- co-conspirators mentioned in today's Page 1 story in The Record.

There is a lot more negative news on Christie in today's paper, but you won't find it on A-1, where it belongs.

Joke's on us

Editor Martin Gottlieb used precious front-page space to recap the stupid jokes that closed out David Letterman's late-night TV career (A-1).

Letterman's 6,028th and last show on Wednesday night upsets only insomniacs and workers stuck in crappy night jobs, like the luckless copy editors in the old Hackensack newsroom.

On A-4 today, readers can find stories on an attempt to stop Christie from developing the Liberty State Park waterfront in Jersey City, and on a favorable legal opinion from his appointee on disclosing gifts from Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones and other friends.

Mass transit

More on Christie can be found on A-20 today, where an editorial finally calls on the worst governor in New Jersey history to "make mass transit a priority," noting in an understatement that he hasn't done so since taking office in 2010.

For years, The Record has reported negatively on the extension of light rail to Bergen County, and ignored the need to expand both bus service to Manhattan and the PATH commuter rail system (A-3).

The editors also allowed Road Warrior John Cichowski to stray far from his role as a commuting columnist, and almost exclusively cover problems associated with driving and drivers.

Now, the editorial declares, "Mass transit needs public subsidies; there isn't anyway around that fact.

"Taking commuters off highways is a boon for  commuters in cars as well as for commercial truckers."

Correction

On A-2 today, Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza acknowledge that after decades of covering similar local stories, they don't have a clue which Ho-Ho-Kus board will hear a large-scale housing plan on June 4.

In Local -- the section edited by Sykes and Sforza --the death of that vicious German shepherd at the hands of a Wyckoff cop three weeks ago gets better play on L-1 than the L-6 obituary of jazz music executive Bruce Lundvall, 79, also of Wyckoff.

Low gas prices

An Associated Press story reports low gas prices in early 2015 didn't boost the economy, as the media predicted they would (L-9).

Of course, the clueless wire-service reporter, Christopher S. Rugaber, doesn't bother exploring whether low gas prices encouraged people to drive more.

That would have worsened air pollution, increased traffic congestion and discouraged owners of gas-guzzlng SUVs from switching to more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Slanting the news to please a wealthy publisher

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The Record's story on the Wal-Mart sex-bias case reads the minds of U.S. Supreme Court justices.

Did State House Bureau staffer John Reitmeyer cover the same legislative hearing on Governor Christie's new budget as other reporters?

One news outlet quoted state Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff as saying Christie won't sign a budget that contains a tax surcharge on millionaires.

But you have to plow through Reitmeyer's Page 1 piece in The Record today and turn to the jump page (A-8) before he even mentions such a tax, and he does so only in paraphrasing one of the Democrat lawmakers who have been battling the governor.

Selling out to Wal-Mart

I watched two major TV news reports Tuesday night on the sex-bias suit against Wal-Mart, a Record advertiser -- CBS and PBS -- and neither predicted how the Supreme Court will rule on the plaintiffs' request for class-action status.

But in an A-1 brief , L-1 refer and the major piece on the first Business page (L-7), Editor Francis Scandale chose a slanted Associated Press story sure to please Wal-Mart, other wealthy business owners and his multimillionaire boss, Publisher Stephen A. Borg.

The AP reports the high court "appears ready to block" the lawsuit. Compare that to The New York Times, which reports the court "appeared closely divided" during legal arguments Tuesday.

As if The Record's slant isn't bad enough, the sub-headline is totally inaccurate, saying the justices are expected to "block claim of sex discrimination," even though that issue is not before the court.

Newsroom sex-bias

The spin on the Wal-Mart suit is no surprise coming from Scandale, who, with Features Director Barbara Jaeger, paid $70,000 a year to a new, 30-something male food editor in 2006, thousands of dollars more than the woman he replaced -- a respected food journalist who had 10 times his experience. 

Shouldn't the Port Authority spend $1.8 billion no longer needed for a new rail tunnel on improving mass transit -- not on the road and bridge repairs demanded by Christie (A-3)?

Huh?

Can reporter Karen Rouse, who covers transportation meetings and surveys, balance her checkbook? On A-8 today, she reports turnpike toll collectors "average about $65,000 a year ... but that could be cut to $10 to $12 an hour if the agency goes private." 

An editorial dismissing some residents' aesthetic objections to solar panels on utility poles doesn't mention these are the same people who have buried relatives with cancer and other diseases linked to North Jersey's notorious air pollution (A-20).

On L-6, in head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, Staff Writer Nick Clunn reports on a debate over building apartments next to "a 10,000-mile-long [gas] pipeline" between New York City and the Gulf Coast.

Surrounded by wolves

Don't miss the touching tribute to readers, editors, even his wife at the end of the Your Money's Worth column, which Staff Writer Kevin DeMarrais started 17 years ago March 27 (L-8).

I'll give him a pass -- in view of how he's a lone voice for the consumer among too many reporters and editors at the Borgs' Woodland Park daily who have long ago sold out to Christie, wealthy advertisers and other special interests.

The elephant in the newsroom

Image by afagen via Flickr

The White House vegetable garden.

Editors of The Record probably will tell you they strive to remain objective, but readers aren't the fools the paper thinks they are. 

The editors can't hide how much they like Governor Christie and his divisive budget and tax policies. And they can't hide how much they go out of their way to avoid tackling the obesity epidemic or discussing the governor's weight problem.

But now, more than a year after he took office, Christie himself is talking about his size, first in a Star-Ledger story that appeared in The Record on Feb. 20, reporting the governor is trying to lose weight, and again today in a report on his appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" (A-2).

On the Sunday TV broadcast, Christie defended first lady Michelle Obama's efforts to encourage children to be more active and eat healthy food, an initiative some other conservatives have criticized. He said:

"I think it's a really good goal to encourage kids to eat better. I've struggled with my weight for 30 years. And it's a struggle."

Only half the story

Of course, I didn't see any mention in the story by Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson that Christie cut school breakfast programs for low-income children or that his wife, Mary Pat, is working with food pantries, not addressing the childhood obesity problem.

Some Record editors also have struggled with their weight for years or decades, but they are not about to acknowledge it or launch a project on the obesity epidemic -- the elephant in the Woodland Park newsroom, as it was for many years in the abandoned Hackensack newsroom.

At one time, three editors were obese or verging on obese -- head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, Project Editor Tim Nostrand and Food Editor Bill Pitcher -- but the paper kept on printing stories or restaurant reviews promoting desserts, chocolate and other sweets.

Pitcher began free lancing for the Food section when he was a layout editor on the news desk, then left the paper for a year or so before returning as food editor in mid-2006. 

His daughter was a 2-year-old of normal weight when I met her, but a few years later, in 2006 or 2007, she appeared in the newsroom as a grossly overweight little girl.

Pitcher has left the paper, but the restaurant reviewer he hired in 2007, Elisa Ung, continues to indulge her mindless obsession with dessert in her weekly columns.

Well-reported burg

Sykes' Local section doesn't have any Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood news today, but don't miss the story on the ambulance corps in Harrington Park, the editor's hometown (L-2).

Unscripted, unhinged

In Better Living, the Associated Press coverage of the Academy Awards broadcast mentions Best Supporting Actress Melissa Leo's use of the F-word, but not what a blithering idiot she was during her acceptance speech -- one in a long lime of such speeches from actors who seem to fall apart when they don't have a script to work from.

Scattershot approach to news

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How many stories are followed up by the newshounds at The Record of Woodland Park? And how many stories are dropped after one day?

It's bewildering to see what Editors Francis "Castrato" Scandale and Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes think is worthy of a follow and which stories appear for a single day, then disappear, despite all the unanswered questions from poor reporting and even poorer writing.

The front page today has a heart-warming story about a dog surviving a horrific Route 80 accident Sunday -- and being found and reunited with the victim's family -- but does this really belong on A-1? Even the original story, involving the death of a human, wasn't on the front page.

And there has been no follow on whether the 1996 Ford Explorer involved had been recalled for safety problems, so I guess readers are supposed to believe the driver lost control on a curve simply because it was raining.

When a 23-year-old Glen Rock woman was killed by a train recently, there was no follow, not even any comment from the family, and no attempt to find out if it was an accident or suicide.

The Route 80 dog story jumps to the animal news page, A-6, where we learn a bull ran amok in Spain and rampaged through the stands. Unfortunately, no one was killed, so the bull's revenge was incomplete and he not only died for his troubles, but will be eaten by grateful Spaniards. When are the food pages going to run a recipe for rabo de toro (tail of the bull)?

Today's weird Page 1 leads with the indictment of a baseball player on perjury charges -- who cares, except him and Scandale? -- while the middle of the page is taken up by photos of minor incidents at airports in Dallas and San Francisco that wouldn't be front-page news even if they happened at Newark Liberty International. 

But Scandale and Sykes are desperately trying to sell the paper, and distract readers in Hackensack and other important towns that are withering on the news vine.


For example, the Hackensack and Englewood reporters never asked officials if a plan to combine Teaneck's Police and Fire Departments would work in their cities, which also have professional firefighters and are similar demographically. It would save taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Thursday, on Page A-8, a sharp wire editor ran a "FACT CHECK" on the controversy over building a mosque "roughly a half-dozen normal Lower Manhattan blocks" from Ground Zero (not the two blocks you hear repeated on TV news), but the newspaper hasn't interviewed Muslims living in Teaneck and Hackensack, despite the peaceful establishment of mosques in both towns.

By the way, the FACT CHECK by the Associated Press reported that opponents lied or distorted information about the backers of the mosque in Lower Manhattan, where Muslims are already praying in the building that would be replaced by an Islamic cultural center. Two other mosques are five and 12 blocks from Ground Zero.

A great Page 1 story is Governor Christie making New Jersey a potential leader in offshore wind power (L-3), if for no other reason than to show Christie isn't just looking out for the Borgs and other millionaires. Another potential A-1 story is the resurgence of layoffs (L-7). 

Or maybe the lazy editors and their pampered staff can finally get off their rumps and profile some of the long-term unemployed, such as those people shown the door by greedy Publisher Stephen A. Borg in 2007 and 2008. Those profiles would make better A-1 stories than a dog rescue.


In Better Living, you'll find another restaurant review by Bill Pitcher, the food editor who left the paper but who repeats on readers like a bad meal. He calls the tacos Mexicanos at Chapala Grill in Bergenfield "the real deal," but doesn't know an authentic taco is garnished with cilantro and onion, not cilantro and diced tomato.


The weekly Hackensack Chronicle, another North Jersey Media Group rag, is doing a better job of covering Hackensack than the daily's Sykes and Monsy Alvarado, the reporter nominally assigned to the city. 


Today, the lead story is about residents of 310 Prospect Ave., which shared a garage with 300 Prospect, the luxury building that was evacuated July 16 after the garage collapsed. One of those quoted is David Blomquist.

Is this the same Blomquist who once worked at The Record as a reporter and pollster?

(Photo: Green aracari at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Wash.)

'Call for reform' or recession?

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You know the rich owners and their slavish editors at The Record of Woodland Park are firmly in Governor Christie's corner from the Page 1 headlines on results of statewide school elections today:

Christie sees vote

as call for reform

Says public fed up

with higher taxes

The bylines of three reporters appear on the story, but there is absolutely no mention of the recession, and how that might have affected the public mood and the vote.  

The Record has been grinding the axes of "high" salaries for police officers and teachers so long, it has simply lost any objectivity, and continues to shift attention away from the governor's concessions to wealthy families such as the Borgs. 

For example, have you seen any editorials decrying the thousands of school district layoffs because of state aid cuts? The Borgs love layoffs -- at the  paper and anywhere else. They're still living high on the hog.

I agree the closing of Paterson Catholic Regional High School in Paterson deserves to be on the front page, but not to be the biggest element, as it is in the Herald News today. This is especially the case when you realize only the color photo earned the story such prominent play.

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Three corrections on A-2 today, one in the form of an Associated Press story on A-4 admitting "multiple errors" in the Tuesday story on the governor's payroll.

It was good to see detailed follow-ups on the results of the school election in Teaneck (photo) and Englewood -- where the mayor and superintendent clashed -- but where are the details on  Hackensack's vote to support the budget and tax levy, and oust two incumbents from the school board?

Christie and the Borgs -- perfect together

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Isn't this rich? Governor Christie (photo)  has cut aid to towns, schools and mass transit, but is paying his staff hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Jon Corzine did when he was in office, according to a front-page story in The Record of Woodland Park today.

Doesn't that remind you of how Publisher Stephen Borg ordered his editors to create many new jobs with lower salaries or simply to slash veteran workers' pay by as much as $10,000 just months after getting a $3.65 million mortgage from North Jersey Media Group, headed by his father?

Doesn't that remind you of Stephen Borg's stated goal -- a newsroom where no one makes more than $40,000?

Even if you put Christie's explanation in the best light, his staff is being paid $600,000 more than Corzine's, the story says. The Associated Press figure is nearly $2 million more. Would that $600,000 save an after-school program in Englewood or cuts in train service slated for May 1?

Six days after the volcano erupted in Iceland and paralyzed air traffic, the story on stranded North Jerseyans shows up on the front page today. But there is nothing about the disruption of air shipments of food, fish and flowers from Europe.


In Local, there is a photo and a few words about Hackensack's recreation program, which is not being cut, unlike those in other municipalities, but that's it for residents of the former home of The Record and NJMG .I guess clueless head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions must be spending weeks at a retreat on how to cover local news.

There are six crime, court or accident pieces inside Local, including a photo and six paragraphs about a car chase and downed light pole in Paterson. Did editor Jim McGarvey, head of Passaic-Morris coverage, have to shout at a reporter to turn out that stellar piece of work?

This is McGarvey's second period of employment at The Record, and he has failed in every job he has had. Yet he seems to have found his calling -- terrorizing his staff.