Zisa story: From hysteria to an A-1 brief

If head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes believes in reincarnation, she will come back as a Sykes Yellow Wagtail in Kazakhstan, and weigh only a few ounces.

An anticlimactic court ruling -- ordering the disgraced Hackensack police chief to immediately forfeit his office -- isn't worth more than a brief on the front page of The Record today.

This from the same editors who splashed the city's affairs all over Page 1 on more than a half-dozen occasions before and after suspended Police Chief Charles "Ken I Am The Law" Zisa was convicted on May 16.

"Havoc," "chaos," "limbo" and "upheaval" were among the words used to describe the paper's former home in a frenzy of exaggerated, the sky-is-falling coverage from assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza.

Zisaville intrigue

Despite thousands of words, Sykes and Sforza have ignored the grip another Zisa has on a city the family has ruled for decades.

The Record's editors have obscured the potential conflict posed by City Attorney Joseph Zisa, the ex-chief's cousin, who is defending Ken Zisa against more than 20 lawsuits (L-1). 

Even Joseph Zisa's role in those lawsuits is unclear. At first, The Record and the Hackensack Chronicle quoted him as saying it is cheaper for the city to fight the suits than to settle.

In a more recent story, The Record's Stephanie Akin said Joseph Zisa has recused himself. Who should we believe?

Another dual role

Today's story also identifies Richard Malagiere as "an attorney hired by the city" to defend convicted felon Ken Zisa against suits in federal court, noting Malagiere has received legal fees of $754,000 in the past two years. 

Why doesn't The Record tell readers Malagiere also is the attorney for the Hackensack Zoning Board?

If Zisaville news is all Hackensack readers can expect, the editors should make sure it is as accurate and complete as possible.

Tugging at the heart 

Two more stories about Tenafly appear in the paper today, but all Englewood readers get is the rededication of the public safety complex (L-3).

Readers will find a bright spot buried on L-6, one of the obituary pages, where Staff Writer Jay Levin tells the life story of John Duffy, a tugboat captain who opened a player piano store in Palisades Park.

Levin has readers chuckling moments after they cursed another inane column from Road Worrier John Cichowski, the seat-belt and pothole reporter who should be barking up the commuting-problem tree (L-1).

Jailhouse rock

The tiresome Dharun Ravi is back on the front page today.

Would anyone shed a tear if he becomes a victim of repeated jailhouse rapes at the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center (A-1)?

 

Burying the lede on Hackensack

The once-powerful Zisa family commiserated at White Manna after Ken Zisa was found guilty. The hamburger joint on River Street named a special after Zisa: The B.S. Burger. The connection is clear: Pink slime in the burgers, more slime in City Hall.

The Record today again insists that Ken Zisa is "still chief" of police in Hackensack, according to a headline on Page 1.

Inside, deep on A-8, the story mentions "Zisa's continued position at the head of the Police Department ...."

But Editor Marty Gottlieb and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes are just burying the lede (newspaper jargon for a story's lead or first paragraph, which is supposed to capsulize what happened).

And what happened at an unusual Monday night meeting of the City Council was the appointment of Capt. Tomas Padilla as interim police chief -- two years after Zisa was suspended without pay and Padilla took over the department (A-8).

Out of the picture

Zisa, 58, has been a non-entity for two, long years as his case moved slowly through the criminal courts, and he was found guilty by a jury nearly a week ago.

Still, the editors, Columnist Mike Kelly and other reporters maintain the fiction that Zisa is head of the Police Deparment -- contradicting the facts -- because controversy sells papers.

They continue to manufacture controversy where none exists, and ignore the real crime in Hackensack.

Family conflicts

Zisa will forfeit his so-called position -- and his pensions -- on the day he is sentenced. But his cousin, Joseph Zisa, remains city attorney. That's the real problem for residents.

It would be natural for The Record to ask the city attorney to explain the legal process of cutting ties to Ken Zisa, but, of course, the city's lawyer is involved in a clear conflict.

Turd-filled Ravi-oli 

Many readers were disappointed by the 30-day jail term for homophobe Dharun Ravi, who maintained his superior airs through his sentencing and refused to apologize for hounding Tyler Clementi to his death (A-1).

Let's hope that after he serves his time and performs 300 hours of community service, Ravi gets deported to his native India, where privileged people like him keep millions underfoot, living in abject poverty.

A famous travel writer coined the phrase "Turd World" to describe the country after he saw an Indian man squat down and defecate on a train platform.

Avatar news

On the front of Local, the Port Authority's plan to install customer-service avatars at the three metropolitan area airports may give Gottlieb an idea on how to improve municipal coverage.

He can replace head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her cast of lazy, incompetent minions with a single assignment avatar in the Woodland Park newsroom.

Just imagine. The avatar won't overeat or fart or fill the newsroom with insane laughter, which I used to hear no matter how bad the news was that day.

Today's Local news section is so short on stories about Hackensack and other towns, every page carries police, court or accident news as filler.

 

Columnist bashes Hackensack, gays

The Record of Woodland Park continues to dump on Hackensack, its former home.

Here comes Chicken Kelly to tell us on Page 1 of The Record that the sky is falling in Hackensack after its once-powerful police chief was convicted of official misconduct and insurance fraud in Superior Court.

In keeping with the local-news policy under head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, Mike "Chicken" Kelly doesn't lower himself and actually interview any ordinary residents of the most populous community in Bergen County.

In fact, much of Kelly's front-page column today describes the Police Department as it was years ago, when Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa -- a member of the family that ruled the city for decades -- was at the height of his power as police chief. 

Fie on Hackensack

Since The Record and North Jersey Media Group moved out of Hackensack in 2009, Sykes and the other editors have covered the county seat as if it were a foreign country.

Why is Kelly's column the first in decades to  describe the Zisas' political power and the retribution visited on disloyal employees in Zisaville? 

Can he be trusted? This is a journalist whose work cries out for editing. See how he pushes around words without any regard for facts (A-1 and A-8):

" ... the crooks that plague the City of Hackensack."

" ... a roller-coaster trial that lasted six weeks."

" ... the verdict seemed to unlock an emotional Pandora's box of accusations."

The trial was a "roller-coaster" for whom? Those "emotional" Pandora's boxes are the worst, as we all know.

More errors

Kelly says the next City Council meeting is Monday night, but my city-supplied calendar lists it on Tuesday night.

I moved to Hackensack in August 2007, and the city appears to be as safe and well-run now as it was before and after Zisa's arrest in 2010 and his conviction on Wednesday.

On two occasions, I went to police headquarters as a complainant, and have nothing but compliments for the police officers and detectives I dealt with. 

I have noticed changes on Main Street since The Record abandoned its nearby headquarters and pulled out hundreds of employees, but the Woodland Park daily has never reported them. 

Suicide linked to Zisa case

The A-1 story below Kelly's column links the suicide of a suspect in a holding cell at Hackensack police headquarters to the "tumultuous" aftermath of the Zisa conviction, but incorrectly reports the suspended chief was convicted on "criminal misconduct charges." 

Editor Marty Gottlieb publishes three more articles in a long series about Democratic opponents in the 9th Congressional District primary (A-1, A-3 and O-2). 

But readers in Fair Lawn, Hackensack, Teaneck and many other towns continue to be in the dark about the contests in the 5th Congressional District.

Gay bashing

Kelly returns with a second column on today's Opinion front, this time weighing in on the upcoming sentencing of Dharun Ravi, who was found guilty of bullying Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood.

Does anyone but Kelly doubt that's why Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge?

Why did Editor Marty Gottlieb and Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin publish homophobe Kelly's  appeal for a non-custodial sentence in the bias intimidation of Clementi, who was gay?

On Thursday, Doblin's editorial said Ravi is no scapegoat -- he's a convicted felon who deserves prison and deportation to India.

Kelly so abhors homosexuals his three-page Sunday Record story in 2000 completely ignored their role in the revival of Asbury Park.

On the same exact day Kelly's story appeared, an upbeat cover story in The New York Times' New Jersey section reported that urban homosexual men and women were leading the way in reviving the run-down resort, drawn by affordable, stylish homes and gay clubs. One photo showed two women on the beach with their arms around each other.

Seeing red

Road Warrior John Cichowski -- another columnist whose replacement is long overdue -- again gives voice today to speeders and other bad drivers upset by the number of red-light and other cameras (L-1).

Gottlieb found room for Kelly's semi-fictional account of Hackensack on A-1, but banished a story on "unprecedented" poverty in New Jersey to the front of Local (L-1). 

Money to burn

The Better Living cover story today is about building an outdoor earth oven for cooking food -- an article aimed at the half-dozen readers crazy enough to try such a thing (BL-1).

In another highly relevant food piece, Staff Writer Elisa Ung's The Corner Table column promotes two caterers instead of exploring restaurant issues facing readers (BL-1). 

In Friday's Better Living section, Ung gave a lukewarm 2 stars to a Greek restaurant, Opa in Wayne.

That amounts to the kiss of death from the restaurant reviewer, who also bestowed 2 stars on a faux-Caribbean chain restaurant on Route 23 in the sprawling township.

 

Hackensack is front-page news again

Next week, a jury is expected to begin weighing official misconduct and other charges against suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa and his ex-girlfriend.

Looking at The Record's front page today and on Friday, readers in Hackensack were greeted by something they rarely see -- news of their city.

On Friday, a large A-1 photo showed high school students leaving early to protest the school board's decision to block contract renewal for three administrators.

Today, Editor Marty Gottlieb presents another A-1 story, this one on closing arguments in the official misconduct trial of suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa.

What is remarkable about today's Zisa story is that it is the most even-handed account of the prosecution and defense cases since the trial began in Superior Court.

Zisa family rule

City residents, who have been chafing under Zisa family rule for decades, hope the chief and former assemblyman and his former girlfriend will be convicted on the charges, which include witness tampering, insurance fraud and conspiracy.

Also today, a story on the Local front reports what happened at an emergency meeting of the school board on Thursday night -- early deadlines or laziness kept this story out of Friday's paper.

Two trustees explained they blocked the rehiring of the three administrators in an attempt to end "what they called a network of cronyism and patronage."

Sudden news spurt

Indeed, all this A-1 news about Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa and alleged school patronage makes readers think:

Editor Deirdre Sykes and all of the other heavyweights running the assignment desk suddenly awoke from their collective diabetic coma, looked out their Woodland Park windows and realized they weren't covering Hackensack anymore.

Back to India

The lead A-1 stories today and Friday are about the sentencing of homophobe Dharun Ravi, the Rutgers student who drove poor Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood to suicide.

Let's hope he gets deported, even if he escapes prison, and takes his superior ways back to India, where there are millions of unfortunates he can mock and scorn.

Millionaires' pal

Was anyone surprised by Governor Christie's veto of affordable health insurance for those without it (A-1 on Friday)?

If it doesn't involve millionaires and multimillionaires, Christie can't be bothered. That's why Publisher Stephen A. Borg's editors praise the GOP bully so highly.

Page 1 Ravi round-up is more pure hype

Syke's warbler suggests the parents of Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood might ask the judge to show leniency when he sentences Dharun Ravi on May 21. See Page 1.

Editor Marty Gottlieb of The Record continues to test the patience of readers with the 15th story on the Darhun Ravi trial since the verdict was reported a week ago today.


Gottlieb's voice has been clear since he took over in late January: Today, the lead paragraph of the Ravi round-up claims the gay-bias case has "captivated the nation."


Recently, a long A-1 story on a homeless man who nearly blew himself up in Hackensack supposedly "captivated the region." The tortured tale of seven Wayne high school athletes "gripped" the township. 


Polishing a turd


Many readers just want to see Ravi deported to the turd world he came from. The jury has spoken. He was found guilty on multiple counts for spying on his gay Rutgers roommate, Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide. 


Ravi declined to testify in his own defense, so why are the media knocking themselves out to publish or air his patently false statements? 


Today's round-up, written by the reporter who covered the trial, is pure hype. It says nothing new, but merely rehashes the last few days of front-page stories, calling them "revelations as surprising and insightful as the trial's outcome."


In the last paragraph on A-1, the story poses a bizarre rhetorical question: whether the Clementis will ask the judge to show leniency to Ravi when he is sentenced May 21. 


Is Gottlieb, with the aid of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, just trying to keep the Ravi story alive to sell more papers or has the lazy, incompetent assignment desk run out of any other compelling local news?


Christie setback


For the second day in a row, Governor Christie has suffered another embarrassing defeat, as reported in the lead A-1 story today on Port Authority retirees, who have won back free tolls and parking the GOP bully cut in January 2011.


Can anyone find the sentence in the slanted story with the number of retired electrical workers affected? Does the alleged savings of $1.5 million sound credible?


Why does Sykes report, in her typically lazy fashion, "the benefit would be worth more than $2,000 annually for a daily, weekday commuter traveling at peak hours" (A-3)? 


These are retirees; they don't commute daily at peak hours, for crying out loud.


Local news diet


Hackensack readers searching Sykes' Local section for news find only a brief on the arrest of a prostitute on L-3.


Teaneck news leads the section, and there are three items from Englewood (L-2 and L-6). The Dean's List fills out the section (L-2).


Another great job by Sykes and her dysfunctional assignment desk.

Democrats answer Christie's racism

The New Jersey Constitution requires the state Supreme Court to provide parking.

When Governor Christie dumped the only African-American on the state Supreme Court in 2010, he claimed the respected judge didn't fit his "ideology," Columnist Charles Stile reports today.


The Record and other media not only didn't question Christie's motives, they also didn't explore whether racism played a part in the unprecedented move against Associate Justice John Wallace. Most of the stories that followed even omitted any mention of Wallace's color.


Kimchi chronicles


Now, Democrats have denied Christie's nominee, Phillip Kwon, the chance to become the first Asian-American on the high court, and let's hope they do the same for his second nominee, Bruce A. Harris, a gay black lawyer who is an abomination to most of the state's church-going African-American community.


Today, Editor Marty Gottlieb delivers two news stories and Stile's column to explore a major political defeat for the GOP bully, who usually gets his way through bluster and a veto pen (A-1 and A-8).


Winding up Ravi


Also on Page 1 today, Gottlieb runs two more stories about Dharun Ravi, the homophobe who was convicted of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation against his gay Rutgers University roommate, Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood.


These are the third and fourth A-1 stories about Ravi in the past three days, but the first to tell readers the former student is on a "media tour." How easily he has manipulated Gottlieb, despite all the years the editor spent at The New York Times.


I guess even a veteran newsman like Gottlieb can't resist the urge to sell newspapers for Publisher Stephen A. Borg.


Prison mentality


Road Warrior John Cichowksi continues to be the laughing stock of the Woodland Park newsroom, ringing his hands today over license plates instead of writing about commuting problems (L-1).


Hackensack reporter Stephanie Akin reports yet another development in the lawsuits police officers have filed against Police Chief Ken Zisa, who has been suspended pending a criminal trial (L-1).


Small-town news


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes has been responsible for better coverage of her hometown, Harrington Park, and other small communities than for Hackensack, the county seat and onetime home of The Record for more than 110 years.


When Sykes sends out Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi to chase ambulances and come back with images of fender benders and non-fatal rollover accidents, she runs the blown-up photos on L-1, L-2 or L-3 to fill the space of local news she doesn't have. 


Today, his artistic shot of the GWB shrouded in fog gets buried on L-8.


Raw deal for readers


Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung and her two guests were crammed into a table for two; charged $65 for 25 pieces of sushi with "chewy, stringy toro," the expensive belly meat of the endangered giant blue-fin tuna; and treated brusquely by the manager -- yet she gives Yamagata in Fort Lee two and a half stars (Good to Excellent).


Maybe it's because her grandmother was Japanese. But her abysmal lack of knowledge about raw fish continues to grate.


Women of child-bearing age like her are warned about consuming regular cuts of raw tuna, as well as toro, because of the fish's high mercury content. And nowhere does she mention whether Yamagata freezes or uses frozen fish for sushi and sashimi, as the law requires, to kill parasites in the raw flesh.


The cramped, noisy Yamagata isn't the only high-end Japanese sushi restaurant in Fort Lee, and Ung doesn't convince readers it is the best (Better Living centerfold).

The Jets that matter played the Sharks

The only Jets who really interest readers of The Record of Woodland Park once roamed the West Side of Manhattan and rumbled with the Sharks.

Hey, Editor Marty Gottlieb, readers of The Record don't care much for the Jets, another football team from New York that offends us by refusing to adopt New Jersey in its name.


In fact, the Jets we love sang a West Side story:


When you're a Jet, 
You're a Jet all the way 
From your first cigarette 
To your last dyin' day. 

When you're a Jet, 
If the spit hits the fan, 
You got brothers around, 
You're a family man! 

You're never alone, 
You're never disconnected! 
You're home with your own: 
When company's expected, 
You're well protected! 

Then you are set 
With a capital J, 
Which you'll never forget 
Till they cart you away. 
When you're a Jet, 
You stay a Jet! 


Most of the front page is taken up today with another silly column by Staff Writer Tara Sullivan. Who can -- or cares to -- follow this tortured sports tale?


Exploiting the media


Meanwhile, the lead A-1 story continues to promote the rehabilitation of Dharun Ravi after he was found guilty of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation when he used a Web cam to spy on a tryst involving his gay Rutgers roommate, Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood.


This is the 12th story since the Ravi verdict and the second on Page 1 in two days. On Wednesday, The Record discussed Ravi's "strategy" for appealing his conviction.


Boy, Ravi's defense attorney, Steve Altman, is having such an easy time manipulating The Record and other media, but he fell flat on his face with the jurors who convicted his client.


Time to deport Ravi 

What a joke. The main headline is a quote from Ravi: "I didn't act out of hate." Does anybody but Gottlieb believe that?

What about poor Clementi, who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge, and his grief-stricken parents? Can you imagine their rage at all this attention Ravi is getting? Ravi can't get deported fast enough.



Maybe Ravi can try to make up for his crimes by doing community service in India, a turd-world country mired in poverty.

Lazy assignment desk

Don't bother turning to head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, if you're interested in municipal news, whether from Hackensack, Teaneck or many other towns.


Today's 8-page Business section is unusual. Business pages usually appear inside Local, except on Sunday, when a standalone section is published.


Want a good laugh? Check out the B-2 photo of an ancient Datsun 210. Nissan is reviving the brand, so where is a photo of the new car?


The Business section also contains legal notices with local school budgets, as did pages in Wednesday's paper. Take a good look. You'll never see that kind of detail in the news columns from Sykes and her lazy, incompetent minions.

How to bore readers to death

The Record is recommending a slice of banoffee pie in place of a balanced breakfast.

When editors elevate the "process" to the front page, they are delivering some of the most eye-glazing, mind-numbing stories imaginable.

Today, Editor Marty Gottlieb of The Record turns off readers with at least three process stories on his premier page -- A-1. 

His Eminence, who came to the Woodland Park daily from The New York Times, doesn't seem to know or care that the outcome is Page 1 news -- not the process leading up to it.

Police gun play

The lead story focuses on Garfield police station "protocol" and not whether two officers were justified in using deadly force when they killed Malik Williams, 19, on Dec. 10, 2011.

The big photo on Page 1 has nothing to do with North Jersey. It's yet another primary result in the excruciatingly slow process of selecting a wealthy Republican to be the party's presidential nominee.


Only lawyers and judges will read more than a few sentences about Dharun Ravi's "strategy" in appealing his conviction for bias intimidation, which led to the death of Ridgewood's Tyler Clementi.


Quoting experts


Process stories have another thing in common, besides being boring: 


They often are based on quotes from "experts," such as Eugene O'Donnell, whose affiliation consumes nearly four sentences in the second paragraph of the lead A-1 story on Williams, the black teen from Garfield.


On the front of Local, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes signed off on another Road Warrior column based entirely on readers' e-mails about MVC lines and other minutiae (L-1).


How many of the e-mails are real and how many are fabricated by a columnist desperate to fill space three times a week -- under Sykes' wet-noodle lashes?


Where is Stanley?


The Record was responsible for getting Stanley Kowalski, an 82-year-old homeless man who almost blew himself up, evicted from a motel last week. 


Today, an L-3 story reports Kowalski has been moved to a nursing home from a hospital.


A follow-up story on Thursday will discuss whether he is having regular bowel movements.


Another crash photo


Sykes needed another non-fatal accident photo to fill out L-3 today after her lazy, incompetent minions failed to produce any news from Hackensack and many other towns.


Cardiac-surgery units at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, and other hospitals, are preparing beds after Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill published a pie recipe that calls for two sticks of butter and one cup of heavy cream (F-1 and F-2).


Related articles

• Breaking news: Dead patients don't pay
• Deirdre disses Hackensack again
• The GOP's Laurel-and-Hardy campaign

Why seven stories on one verdict?

TYLER CLEMENTI

If Editor Marty Gottlieb argues he is justified in running six news stories and a column on the Dharun Ravi verdict because the trial gripped North Jersey, why did he bounce the testimony and jury deliberations onto and off of Page 1 in the past few weeks?

And even if six news stories are justified, what's the point of the Mike Kelly column on Tyler Clementi's reasons for committing suicide in September 2010, if the reporter  merely rehashes a lot of unanswered questions and uses trial testimony as filler?

You'd expect this kind of coverage from Gottlieb, who spent many years at The New York Times, but you don't expect shaky headlines and reporting.

Basically, the Ravi verdict headline, over line or kicker and drop headline all say the same thing: he may not go to prison.

Appeal awaits sentence

But the reporting is wrong that "Ravi's attorneys plan to appeal the verdict." They would appeal the verdict and the sentence, so it's unclear if the judge will grant a stay of the sentence until the appeal is decided.

A sidebar that would have been far more useful than Kelly's wordy column is the view of legal experts on the potential success of an appeal. 

To me, Ravi's defense -- that he set up a Web cam in the dorm room he shared with Clementi because he was afraid his iPad would be stolen -- is preposterous. Obviously, the jurors saw through him as well as rejecting Ravi's seven so-called character witnesses. 

Gay roommate

An editorial on A-13 says Ravi was not comfortable with his gay roommate. "It was a despicable invasion of privacy, one motivated by Clementi's sexual orientation."

Today's front page has another weighty story: the newspaper's court action to obtain police station videos and a "use of force" report in the fatal shooting of Malik Williams, 19, on Dec. 10, 2011, in Garfield.

The A-1 sports column by Bob Klapisch must have been intended as comic relief.

The correction at the bottom of A-2 today brings this week's total to six corrections or clarifications.

Another crash photo

In mass-transit news, a large photo on the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section documents the forceful removal from the road of a gas-guzzling, global-warming SUV.

Sykes has a staff of talented staff photographers at her beck and call, so readers continue to wonder why non-fatal accident photos are used as filler in the local news section, especially on the front. 

Abandoning Hackensack

Staff Writer Stephanie Akin was so exhausted from three straight days of covering an 82-year-old homeless man and his rescuer she didn't manage to come up with any Hackensack municipal news today.

Where was Sykes and the other assignment editors -- on a three-day weekend?

What's the explanation for the awful photo with the obituary of Terence Pellegrino, a retired Paterson fireman (L-6)?

Below that, there is a brief on a ground-shaking procedural change in Moonachie, where the DPW will join two other departments in inspecting "grease traps in restaurants" (L-6).

(201) magazine

The March 2012 Spring Fashion Issue of (201) magazine continues to pile up corrections from the sleepy editors of Publisher Stephen A. Borg's favorite publication. See Pages 16, 18 and 20.

On Page 20, an "update" on Harry Carson, the former football player, quotes him as "considering a run for Congress," but the issue came out after Carson was quoted in The Record and other media saying he won't be a candidate.

Englewood whitewash

On Page 44, a full-page feature on Englewood -- which is a classic two-sides-of-the-tracks community -- appears under this headline: "City chic with suburban living."

Only five of Englewood's "popular eateries" are listed, but the editors made sure to include Grand Cru, a wine bar in which Borg and his big sister, Jennifer, have or had a financial interest.

Bitch, bitch, bitch

On Page 153, Bob Probert reviews Biddy O'Malley's, an Irish pub in Northvale that serves enough artery clogging food to fill the cardiac wing of a major hospital.

No prices appear in the review. His strongest criticism is that the baked macaroni and cheese with three cheeses, sausage and green apples didn't have enough "sauce."

Borg puts on tie

Stephen Borg pulled himself together for a photo at the bottom of Page 128, which reports on the Best of Bergen Party, Feb. 2, 2012.

Photo No. 3 on that page shows six people, but only five names appear in the caption, including "Alex Joanne Parlamis."

No end to hard-luck stories on Page 1

With the garbage dumps filling up, much of Bergen County's refuse is ending up in The Record of Woodland Park.

The reluctant savior

That line over a photo on Page 1 of The Record today looked inviting.

But long-suffering readers muttered, "Oh, shit!" when they realized it was the third straight day of blanket coverage in the hard-luck saga of Stanley Kowalski, the 82-year-old homeless man who almost blew himself up on Feb. 28.

Now, it is Kowalski's rescuer, Bill Smith, whose life is laid bare by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes in another desperate attempt to sell newspapers.

Staff Writer Stephanie Akin, who has neglected her Hackensack and Maywood beat, calls Smith "the second character in a real-life drama that captivated the region." 

The "nether regions" would be more like it.

Only one of many victims

With all due respect to Smith, who takes care of the fish at Reef Encounter in Hackensack, thousands of other North Jerseyans who struggle economically have been ignored by Sykes and her lazy, incompetent assignment-desk minions.

Sykes continues to victimize readers in Hackensack and elsewhere who search the paper in vain for meaningful news of their communities -- while burdening them with sensationalism and hype that insults their intelligence.

Shoddy reporting

The lead A-1 story today -- about a potential $200 million hole in Governor Christie's budget -- comes only 11 days after Sykes hoodwinked Editor Marty Gottlieb into running a rosy story on affordable housing in Bergen County.

The story, which also ran in the lead position, didn't even report that Christie might have overstepped his authority when he dismantled the Council on Affordable housing and that he could be reversed by an appeals court, which is what happened.

Rare mass-transit column

On the front of Local, Road Warrior John Cichowski has awakened from his slumber, stupor, early Alzheimer's, coma -- or whatever you want to call his endless repetition about drivers and driving -- and written about a new mass-transit option in Bergen County.

Law & Order stories appear on every page of Local today, and readers who were put to sleep by Page 1 were jolted awake by the L-6 story on jury deliberations in the Dharun Ravi trial in New Brunswick.

Why didn't production Editor Liz Houlton package the jury deliberations story with the A-1 story on a possible update of the bias law under which Ravi is being tried and run it on A-10, the continuation page?

You can't get much sloppier than that.

NPR reported at noon today that Ravi was convicted of bias intimidation against Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood, his college roommate, who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge.

Shitting bricks

In Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung tells us a lot about Brick Lane Curry House in Ridgewood except whether the chicken and lamb served at the pricey Indian place are naturally raised.

Just a week ago, in the review 0f Rosario's Trattoria in Midland Park , she took her mind off dessert long enough to note the chicken was antibiotic-free and also quote the owner as saying he served naturally raised veal.

You can't get much sloppier than that.