Check out Governor Christie's official house organ

Welcome to the lower level of the George Washington Bridge, where closure of a single lane on Monday made an 11 a.m. trip to Manhattan feel like the rush hour. Many native New Jerseyans refer to the lower level as Martha Washington.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Saying to hell with their pretense of objectivity, The Record's editors today kicked off Governor Christie's unofficial campaign for the White House.

Close to half of today's front-page is devoted to mini profiles of "Team Christie" -- a lawyer, public relations and campaign strategists, and others who helped him get elected in New Jersey.

The story is by Staff Writer Melissa Hayes, whose unabashed affection for the GOP bully during his recent campaign for a second term has many readers thinking of her as the Bride of Frankenstein (A-1).

Hayes claims these Christie loyalists won't talk about anything -- "even their success in helping him win twice in a blue state."

That's probably because Christie's campaign, and especially his TV ads, were filled with half-truths, omissions and lies, and The Record and other media winked at what a lousy job he has done since he took office in January 2010.

Fiscal disaster

That can be seen is another story on Page 1 today, reporting New Jersey may be able to collect $200 million in annual sales tax revenue from Amazon.com and other online retailers (A-1).

But given Chirstie's voodoo economics, $200 million is chump change that will do nothing to lift the state out of its fiscal mess.

The only glimmer of hope for Democrats is that Michael DeHaime, Maria Comella and other Christie loyalists once worked for such GOP turkeys as John McCain, Sarah Palin and Rudolph Giuliani.

More space is wasted on A-1 today for a sports column by Tara "The Vagina Monologue" Sullivan.

Not Pat Nixon

On A-2, the editors acknowledge another major screw-up, this time in the photo caption on Sunday's Better Living front.

Chef Claude Baills is shown with former President Richard Nixon and the chef's wife, children and mother, but the caption identified the mother, Therese, as "Pat Nixon."

You'd think six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton would have caught the error.

Dysfunctional Dems

On A-3 today, Christie has a point that Democrats in the Legislature, including John Wisniewski and Loretta Weinberg, seem to "have nothing to do" except complain about the closure of Fort Lee toll lanes on the upper level of the GWB in early September.

The story reports Fort Lee has three toll lanes to the bridge, but there is a fourth to the lower level, which was unaffected by the September closures.

I'd like to see Weinberg and Wisniewski and other Democrats get their act together, especially after their shameless lack of support for state Sen. Barbara Buono, D-Middlesex, in the gubernatorial election.

Bitch about this

Democrats shouldn't be bitching about the closure of a few toll lanes. 

They should be slamming Christie for rubber stamping exorbitant toll hikes, killing the Hudson River rail tunnels and failing to push the Port Authority to expand mass transit.

Local yokels

Readers only have to take one look at the enormous photo of Ridgewood's Christmas tree on L-1 today to know they'll find little local news in the section.

I guess Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza didn't have much left after giving Editor Marty Gottlieb a story on huge payments to municipal workers in Hackensack and other towns for unused sick and vacation time (A-1).

The Record's Local section has ignored Main Street in favor of lavish coverage of mall retailers on Page 1 and in the Business pages.

Second looks

In the adoring Sunday profile of Claude and Dolores Baills of The Chef's Table in Franklin Lakes, Staff Writer Elisa Ung notes North Jersey's "dwindling supply of classic French restaurants run by old-school chefs."

What she doesn't explain is that classic French cooking --  with its reliance on butter, heavy cream and other unhealthy animal fats -- has been largely repudiated by the majority of restaurant goers seeking healthier food.

Does anybody feel sorry for Kevin and Cheri Smith, who squandered $3.8 million of a $5 million windfall to build a home in Franklin Lakes, only to lose it to foreclosure (Sunday Real Estate cover)?

With so many other New Jersey foreclosures to choose from, why pick this couple?

The Road Warrior column on finding a Black Friday parking space at the mall said nothing about the opening of a new, high-tech garage at Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus.

Signs and green lights tell drivers where to find vacant spaces in the four-deck structure, according to a Dec. 11 story in The Record.

Staff Writer John Cichowski not only re-used anecdotes, quotes and advice from a similar column in 2012, he quoted drivers saying the stupidest things.

Conrad Macina of Mount Arlington is quoted as saying he "won't even go to the malls to buy gum during the Thanksgiving holidays." Who would?

Teaneck's Jane Abraham prefers to spend, what, $25, $30 or $40, even with discounts, to park and shop in Manhattan? 

Is she out of her mind? Does she also prefer to pay sales tax on clothing in Manhattan?

What these and other readers who pepper Cichowski with e-mails have in common is that they love to see their names in print.

For that, other readers have to suffer their insufferable advice, because Cichowski refuses to do the legwork he should be doing for his silly column.

Page 1 story on police spying raises questions

Teaneck residents can only guess what two cops were discussing on Nov. 2, four days after Sandy closed many streets and darkened hundreds of homes and traffic lights.

Today's Page 1 story on the role of local police departments in a federal anti-terrorism program raises a lot of questions.

For decades, The Record's editors have been humoring the many small departments in North Jersey, fearing that any tough reporting would cut off the paper from crime and other Law & Order news.

This is especially the case with head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, who have been relying more and more on crime, court and accident news and photos to fill local-news pages.

The A-1 story mentions four departments in Bergen County that have car-mounted night-vision technology and recording equipment, including tiny Harrington Park, where Sykes lives.

Residents of those and many other towns likely want their police to store the spy gear and pay more attention to stopping house burglaries, updating the driving skills of senior citizens and justifying the bloated salaries of police chiefs, many of whom earn north of $200,000.

Why haven't readers seen any stories exploring how many home-rule police departments come up short or why Governor Christie hasn't capped the salaries of small-town police chiefs, as he did for school superintendents?

What a sport 

In an A-1 photo today, the Barclays Center in Brooklyn resembles a beached Noah's Ark, an appropriate image given how many sports fans are overweight, beer-guzzling animals.

Editor Marty Gottlieb should know the majority of North Jersey readers' only interest in that sports venue is to keep as far away as possible from the surrounding, gridlocked downtown Brooklyn traffic at rush hour.

Sandy victims

The major element on Page 1 today is a story and photos on Sandy victims in Little Ferry and Moonachie enjoying traditional Thanksgiving meals (A-1).

A small photo and refer with that story sends readers to a pre-Black Friday shopping story on the Local front, not an L-2 story about Salvation Army Thanksgiving dinners for storm victims in Hackensack. 

Why separate Thanksgiving stories on victims in the three towns?

Black mark

Doesn't all this attention to Black Friday and naked capitalism -- including the recycling challenge of numerous sales inserts in the paper -- seem inappropriate only weeks after one of the worst storms ever to hit New Jersey? 

Notable locals

The Local front also carries an obituary for Phillip Varisco, 89, the former Hillsdale police chief -- the fourth local obit in a row from the prolific Jay Levin.

This week, Levin's death profiles included:

Singer and retired schoolteacher Benjamin W. Harris, 83, of Hawthorne, who died in a fall down a dark flight of stairs four days after Sandy hit; Mike "Jersey Mike" Van Jura, a colorful music promoter from Hasbrouck Heights who died of a heart attack at 36;  and Catholic girls high school teacher and coach Toni-Marie Hals, who died of ovarian cancer at 41.

The lives of these and other locals are far more interesting to North Jersey readers than all of the other stuff Gottlieb apparently obsesses over for Page 1, including the Rutgers football team, the Barlcays Center and all  of the other sports crap that runs outside day after day. 

Mass what?

Even though Sandy exacerbated the crisis in mass transit, Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to ignore commuters and again mindlessly explores  funeral processions today (L-1).

He also addresses "today's complaints," including one on "estrogen," an apparent reference to women drivers.

Rare corrections

Cichowski also publishes a rare correction in the last paragraph of his column (L-10):

"The column that inspired this question [on women] noted that licensed women drivers now outnumber males by 0.8 percent in New Jersey.

"But  sharp-eyed Hackensack critic Jeff Ross was good enough to correct my poor math. Let the record show that the margin favors women by a full 1.8 percent." 

On Thursday, The Record published another Road Warrior correction on A-2, leaving scores of errors in past columns that have never been acknowledged or corrected.

The assignment editor who handles Cichowski's column before it is sent over to the legally blind copy editors apparently knows less about any subject than the Road Warrior himself, and is a totally ineffective backstop.

Rolling over on reader

Cichowski also answers a reader's question on why Sykes and Sforza run so many photos of rollover accidents (L-10).

Instead of telling the reader, Dan Browne of Montvale, that local editors are desperately trying to fill the space of local-news story they're too lazy to gather, Cichowski claims most of the photos showed "SUVs whose high center of gravity makes them easier to tip."

Of course, what about the cars that rolled over, despite their lower center of gravity? 

Readers should be told about Sykes' low center of gravity, which keeps her planted in her chair in the Woodland Park newsroom and totally uninterested in covering Hackensack and many other communities.

GOP follies 
 
An editorial today mildly criticizes conservative scumbag Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, the only member of the state's congressional delegation who is against seeking additional federal aid in the wake of Sandy (A-22).

Readers, of course, clearly remember how Sykes and Sforza, the top assignment editors, wrote off Teaneck Deputy Mayor Adam Gussen, Garrett's Democratic challenger in the Nov. 6 election, and knocked themselves out to slant coverage against Gussen.

Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson wrote a long, flattering profile of Garrett, one of the most regressive forces in Congress; and Signature Editor Alan Finder made sure to run three large photos of the arch-conservative with it. 

Gussen was never profiled, none of his campaign stops were covered and his photo didn't run in the paper until a couple of weeks before the election.

'Quality' lies

In Better Living, a review of La Bottega, a fancy takeout shop with tables, notes "prices are on the high side, though most ingredients are high-quality" (BL-16-17).

But as usual, Staff Writer Elisa Ung leaves readers guessing as she stuffs a couple of sugary desserts down her gaping mouth.

Is the salmon wild-caught or artificially colored farmed fish? What about the prime rib? Is it free of harmful animal antibiotics, growth hormones and animal byproducts?

You'll have to call the Ridgewood restaurant to find out. Ung throws around the word "quality," but rarely backs it up.

That is a continuing disservice to readers, and leaves profit-hungry restaurant owners and chefs off the hook.
 

Sending mixed messages on Wayne thugs

U.S. Census Bureau map of Hackensack.

For the third day in a row, Interim Editor Doug Clancy continues to devote precious Page 1 space to those nine thuggish Wayne football players -- directly contradicting an editorial blasting the Board of Education and the coach for ignoring the victims (A-11):

"In Wayne, nine criminally charged high school students took the field, their football coach took control of the Board of Education, and residents, so far, have taken it on the chin.

"All the while, the two assaulted students are forgotten...."

Putting aside the editorial's awkward language, readers also are getting the shaft, with more A-1 space devoted to Wayne football than to the deficit-reduction talks in Congress -- an issue that affects just about everyone in North Jersey.


Doesn't Clancy live in Wayne? What kind of news judgment is that?


And why did Clancy think a training exercise for police is worthy of the front page, unless he didn't have anything better from head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes?


Blinded by editor


The biggest news on the front of Sykes' Local section is the installation of solar panels on the roof of the Ice House in Hackensack -- as the assignment desk tries to chronicle every solar project in North Jersey with its own story and photo.


Of course, residents still are in the dark on the progress of the city's solar-panel installations, potential savings and whether they will help trim property taxes.


In utility pole news, a large photo on L-3 documents how a truck demolished one in Teaneck.


Selling out


Even though the space devoted to news has shrunk in recent years, Better Living continues to run stories promoting a wide variety of businesses, including today's shameless piece on Black Friday sales, complete with 13 store or mall logos (F-1).


Food writer Joyce Venezia Suss apparently doesn't know the difference between mostly organic food and a crappy McDonald's hamburger (F-1).


In a Starters column on Nanoosh, a new restaurant at Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, she says of the salads, organic chickpeas and other healthy items: "The proprietors insist that it's not fast food."


Does Features Director Stephanie Rivers really expect readers to take Suss seriously? "Shush" would be more like it.

Selling out for Thanksgiving

Image via Wikipedia

Route 4 west in Paramus will look like this when Black Friday shopping starts.

The major story on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park seems to have commercial tie-ins that put advertisers first over readers.

Are the opening hours of Paramus stores on Black Friday really A-1 news or is the former Hackensack daily hoping to cash in big on retail ads?


Far more people will benefit from the tough anti-bullying bill passed by the Legislature (bottom of A-1) or the extension of the No. 7 subway line, which was endorsed by Governor Christie (A-8), but those stories are downplayed by Editor Francis Scandale, who surrenders once again to the business side of journalism.

Sports betting leads head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section.

Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado filed two police stories from there and a third from Wayne. There is no Englewood or Teaneck news today. 

In the Better Living story on what Pilgrims might have eaten at their first harvest meal, let's hope "venison courtesy of D'Artagnan Inc." doesn't mean the meat was supplied free in return for a plug.