Editors boring us with same old stories week in, week out

Paramus police and the borough's emergency medical technicians responded this morning to CityMD, a walk-in urgent-care center on Route 4 east. A woman was taken out of the building on a gurney, above. Paramedics from Hackensack University Medical Center rolled up after the Paramus units.

It's not known how many patients walk over after eating too much Louisiana-style spicy fried chicken at the Popeyes next door. One spicy chicken breast contains 45% of the recommended daily intake of saturated fat and 34% of the recommended amount of sodium.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Manhattan-bound commuters continue to scramble for rush-hour seats on NJ Transit trains and buses that cost more to ride because of Governor Christie's deep cuts in state subsidies.

But Editor Deirdre Sykes is ignoring all of that to bring us a boring "analysis" on why rail unions are looking for a better deal than in a contract proposed in March (A-1).

And a sub-headline saying a strike is unlikely is an instant turnoff to commuters, and the vast majority of readers, who don't take mass transit.

Dwight Morrow

Today, the only break in the heavy coverage of national and state politics, and the future of Atlantic City is another story about Englewood's failing public high school (A-1).

The photos on Page 1 and A-10 seem to suggest a tutoring program at Dwight Morrow High School was aimed only at Latina students who were at risk of not graduating.

For a decade or more, Sykes hasn't assigned any stories on Englewood's elementary and middle schools, where 99% of the students are black or Hispanic.

Hackensack police refused to say whether any of the drivers were charged after this two-car collision on Tuesday morning at Prospect Avenue and Clinton Place in the city's Fairmount section.

Police news

Sykes and Managing Editor Dan Sforza couldn't put out a local-news section without plugging holes with lots of police and court news, and news about the police.

Today, Staff Writer John Seasly has yet another story about who is running the Hackenack Police Department, while ignoring the rest of Tuesday night's City Council meeting (L-2).

Editors want you to fret over $219,000 conference table

The Empire State Building in Manhattan as seen through the window of NJ Transit's 165 Local on Boulevard East.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Boy, I would have loved to hear the Sunday night newsroom discussion on what to put on the front page of The Record today.

One of the poor schmucks who gets stuck working Sundays probably had Editor Marty Gottlieb, a veteran of The New York Times, on the phone.

OK. We know Sundays are slow-news days, and there is only a skeleton staff on hand.

Still, why should readers of The Record care about what Kean University in Union spent on a custom-made conference table?

I just don't get it.

The story might belong somewhere in the paper, but not on the premium page of a North Jersey daily.

And the other stories on the front page seem to be there only to provide "the balance" of soft and hard news Gottlieb has insisted on since he took over nearly three years ago, turning The Record into a suburban edition of The Times.

Wild turkeys

The three wild turkeys shown on the front of Local today -- "IN A FOUL MOOD BEFORE THE HOLIDAY" -- have nothing in common with the millions of domestic birds that have been slaughtered for Thanksgiving (L-1).

Wild turkeys can fly over trees, and their flesh is probably a lot tougher and gamier than the bland white breast meat so many Americans seem to prefer.

So, there is no danger anyone would want to kill them. 

Pisses away $4M

The lead story on the Local-news front is about a new science building on the Dwight-Englewood campus, an expensive private school on the city's East Hill.

A urologist is donating $4 million of the $20 million cost, and will get his name on the building.

Dwight-Englewood has nothing in common with Dwight Morrow, the public high school that has been desegregated in recent years. 

But the smaller Dwight-Englewood gets far more ink in The Record than the public schools, including the city's still-segregated elementary and middle schools.

News blinders

In a Sunday story about a gift of books to the Englewood public school district, there is no mention of the schools' dramatic racial imbalance.

Another Sunday story about Englewood -- this one on the expansion of free Wi-Fi downtown -- continues to ignore the large number of empty storefronts and failed businesses.

Defense attorney, U.S. senator in Englewood parade

Famed criminal defense attorney Frank P. Lucianna (with white hair, center) marching today in Englewood's Memorial Day Parade arm in arm with U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (hidden). The Englewood-born Lucianna is 91. See Page 1 of The Record today for a lame Herb Jackson column on Booker that suggests voters should decide whether to reelect the Democrat based on his record as Newark mayor, not what he's done since he succeeded the late Frank R. Lautenberg in the Senate.

The annual parade along Palisade Avenue passed City Hall, above. Participants included members of churches in the city, public and charter school students, Civil War and Revolutionary War reenactors firing their rifles or muskets, and overweight middle-age men riding and revving their loud motorcycles.  

The Englewood Corps of the Salvation Army.

Students from Dwight Morrow High School, above and two photos below.

A supercharged Auburn boat-tail speedster.

On the first day of 2014, lots of boring old news

At Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus on Tuesday, a security guard dressed in black refused to discuss how many security personnel have been hired since a gunman invaded the mall on Nov. 4 and fired random shots before committing suicide. This guard, who was helping shoppers cross a road, didn't appear to be armed with a gun. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The Record's first edition of the new year offers lots of stale old news.

Editor Marty Gottlieb leads the paper with yet another story about The Traffic Jam That Ate Fort Lee after Governor Christie's flunkies at the Port Authority closed access lanes to the George Washington  Bridge (A-1).

And there is yet another column from Staff Writer Charles Stile scrutinizing the impact of Christie's every action or inaction, every bite of food and every bowel movement on his White House aspirations (A-1).

Gottlieb sent a photographer to Times Square for the routine New Year's Eve image, but he couldn't find anyone from New Jersey in the crowd (A-1).

On A-4, a man from North Carolina -- not the Garden State -- is shown with a story about the Affordable Care Act.

Laughing out loud

On the Editorial Page, readers get their first belly laughs of the year from the Woodland Park daily's "editorial credo," which runs every Jan. 1.

The credo is signed by Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, the chairman of North Jersey Media Group, and son Stephen A. Borg, the president and publisher, who pushed his father aside several years ago; Editor Martin Gottlieb and Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin.

In the first paragraph, they renew their pledge to support policies on the Editorial Page that will improve life "in our region," not to mention the lives of the Borgs and their wealthy friends.

Ads dictate news

They also claim the newspaper's "cash register will not dictate the content of its news articles," despite volumes of evidence to the contrary that the editors lavish coverage on large mall retailers and stiff Main Street merchants. 

At least the Borgs acknowledge they guide the paper's "editorial policy," though they don't acknowledge steering news coverage to their rich friends, including real estate mogul Jon F. Hanson.

First dump of year

Road Warrior John Cichowski long ago ran out of his own ideas and opinions -- as well as any responsibility to report accurately on commuting issues.

So, it's no surprise he starts the new year pedaling more complaints from every crackpot driver who sends him an e-mail in hopes of seeing their names in print (L-1).

The Addled Commuter just doesn't understand that a long overdue expansion of mass transit -- not wider roads -- is the only viable solution to increasing traffic congestion.

Private school news

The huge spread on the Local front about a 9-year-old from Orange who attends an expensive private school in Englewood continues the Borgs' embargo on news of the city's public schools, including Dwight Morrow High School (L-1).

The elder Borg has lived on Englewood's East Hill for decades, but his newspaper and its "editorial credo" have had little impact on improving the city's largely segregated schools or its struggling downtown.

Same old news

Today, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza started the new year scrambling to fill pages with local news he didn't have, just as he did in 2013.

So, he ran another gee-whiz photo of a car, whose unidentified driver tried to climb a home's retaining wall just off Route 17 south in Waldwick (L-3).

Sforza leads Local today with a follow-up to the anticlimactic arrest of Joey Bariso of Lodi on charges he used a handgun to shoot his 85-year-old grandmother "several times as she slept on a couch."

Tuesday's story on the arrest of Bariso appeared two days after the fact, and ran on Page 1 over a second story on Christie failing to defend the state's stringent concealed gun law, which was upheld by an appeals court.

More brain fade

A major screw-up in another front page story on Tuesday wasn't corrected today -- more evidence of brain fade on the copy desk, which continues to labor under six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, the Queen of Errors.

The story on a shared services agreement between Montvale and River Vale reported incorrectly in the seventh paragraph that Montvale and "River Edge entered into the agreement over the summer" (Tuesday's A-6).

Tuesday's Local front carried a heartbreaking report on the funeral for Teia Gallo of Washington Township -- one of three African-Americans adopted by a white family -- who was stabbed to death, allegedly by her younger brother, Travis Gallo.

Van Lenten case

As of Dec. 16, lawyers for North Jersey Media Group and the estate of Peter Van Lenten Jr., as well as other defendants, filed 184 more pages of amended answers, motions, requests for default, certifications, affidavits of service and other legal mumbo jumbo.

Van Lenten, 47, of Pompton Lakes, former vice president of information technology for The Record and NJMG, died on April 28, 2010.

So, NJMG's litigious general counsel, Jennifer A. Borg, is going after Van Lenten's widow, Lauren, and son, also named Peter, though it's not clear how they can be held liable for what Van Lenten may or may have not done.

Enriching lawyers

The case is proceeding at the same snail's pace of most other civil litigation, serving only to enrich the lawyers involved.

NJMG is again using outside counsel, Pashman Stein, the Hackensack law firm that has been the subject of at least one favorable story in The Record's Business pages.

The suit, filed in April 2013, alleges Van Lenten conspired with outside computer and networking vendors and former employees to defraud NJMG.

Other named defendants include IC Systems Solutions and Computer Network Solutions. 

On June 14, the court entered defaults against defendants Philip Nolan and Nancy Nolan, who were identified as principals of one or both firms.

Lack of oversight

"Between 2001 and 2009, over $2 million was paid to [defendants] ICSS and CNS on false or inflated invoices," according to the suit.

But in the very next paragraph, the complaint acknowledges "shortly after [Van Lenten's employment was terminated in April 2009], NJMG began a review of the IT Department's purchasing practices under Mr. Van Lenten's leadership."

"That review lead [sic] to the discovery of the false and inflated invoices submitted by [defendants] ICSS and CNS," the suit alleges.

Is the lack of review during Van Lenten's tenure a major flaw in the suit, and if so, who at NJMG was responsible for failing to do that oversight?

The suit also alleges that from 2001 to 2009, NJMG paid [defendant] ICSS in excess of $1 million for temporary workers, many of whom were retired company employees, "at rates far in excess" of what they were making before they retired.

Porn allegations

In late 2011 -- in a footnote to the suit -- NJMG and the elder Borg settled a sexual harassment complaint filed by Tracey McCain, an Englewood woman who worked for Van Lenten.

McCain alleged that Malcolm A. Borg used company computers to disseminate pornography to Van Lenten and other managers and supervisors, knowing she would see them, because one of her jobs was to read and review her boss' e-mails.

The settlement was sealed by order of a Superior Court judge in Hackensack on Sept. 26, 2011, but likely involved the payment of money.

Exhausted editors take a break

Image by PeaceCouple via Flickr

The Record's editors don't care whether this woman or any of
the other Wall Street protesters live in North Jersey.

Editor Francis Scandale and the assignment desk must have run out of steam after producing a strong North Jersey front page in The Record on Friday.


Page 1 today looks like most of the editors took a three-day weekend and Scandale ran off to the golf course, only to get soaked by Friday afternoon storms.


Scandale made no effort to localize the two main A-1 stories today -- a great week for the S&P 500 and the occupy Wall Street protesters.


Borg calls shots


Since the protest started in mid-September, The Record has ignored it, running wire service stories and photos. 


Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes just don't care if there are North Jersey residents taking part in the occupation of Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan.


That's understandable. The editors get paychecks signed by Publisher Stephen A. Borg, a fake journalist whose greed and executive perks are the kind of excesses being exposed by the protesters.


Even The Record's caption for today's AP photo is clunky. A protester is shown with his hands up as a police officer grabs his shirt with one hand and holds a baton with the other. 


The caption says "protesters marched through the streets ... Friday after the cleanup of their park was postponed." 


News from Twitter


The third A-1 story is about the New Milford High School principal, who uses Twitter to keep in touch with educators around the country. That's mildly interesting, but is it really Page 1 news?


When is The Record going to tackle a more important education story, exploring the social and political forces that have left Englewood's elementary and middle schools with hardly any white students or updating readers on desegregation efforts at Dwight Morrow High?


More old news


As usual, I leafed through pages of international news I saw the night before on the CBS national news and PBS. I didn't even read the headlines. What a waste of space. 


If you doubt Steve Jobs was a master manipulator of the media before he died, look at the thinly disguised, million-dollar advertisement for the new Apple smart phone masquerading as a news story on A-12.


Unfortunately, the success of the iPhone has never translated into jobs for Americans because it is made in China -- in a naked grab for bigger profits.


The boring Local front today is notable only for the rare appearance of Staff Writer Jean Rimbach's byline.


Page L-3 is devoted to police and court news, and L-5 carries two, long wire-service obituaries of people you have never heard of.


Sour notes


In Better Living, a cover story reports a jazz-and-blues vocalist from Bloomingdale is hosting a vegan cooking show on National Public Television called "Jazzy Vegetarian" (F-1).


Stranger than that is the awkward lead paragraph from Staff Writer Jim Beckerman, who is also a musician, containing the phrase "Skeep-Beep De Bop-Bop Beep Bop." Beep Bop? It should be bebop, if it's needed at all.

Rare sighting in Hackensack

Image by romulusnr via Flickr

I pulled into a parking space at my polling place Tuesday afternoon and rubbed my eyes. Could that be Monsy Alvarado, the reporter assigned to cover Hackensack for The Record of Woodland Park? Judging by how little she writes about the city, could be this one of those rare times she was actually covering a story in the paper's former home?

I waved to her, then went inside to cast my vote for the school budget and three candidates for the school board. When I came out, I interrupted her conversation with a man and asked why she hasn't been covering Hackensack. She said she couldn't talk to me because she was speaking with or interviewing the man. But she said I could call her.

Today's paper carries her bare-bones, seven-paragraph story with election results, and Hackensack residents are quoted elsewhere in the paper. But there is no explanation for why two incumbents were bounced off the board.

On the front of Local, Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano's story provides absolutely no context for readers on the defeat of the budget in that city, except for reporting the mayor's last-minute campaign against the tax levy. (Last week, the Teaneck schools superintendent was ordered to withdraw a letter asking for residents' votes in support of the budget there. Go figure.)

Fabiano has done her best to ignore segregated elementary and middle schools in Englewood. Has she even updated readers on integration efforts at the high school? (A black student in the Academies@ Englewood in Dwight Morrow High School told me the other day she cannot use copiers at the school unless she brings in her own paper.)

What about the role of the many Orthodox Jews and other white residents -- who send their children to private schools, as former Publisher Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg did with Jennifer and Stephen -- in the defeat of the budget? Is Fabiano going to report the vote by ward in a follow, and get to the bottom of what happened?

Our tax-cutter is finally here

The Record of Woodland Park today is asking us to believe we finally have a governor who will cut property taxes, which are largely controlled by county and municipal governments. On Page 1 and two inside pages, the paper provides flattering coverage of Chris Christie, who couldn't stop using the magic word "change" during his inauguration yesterday.

I've lived in New Jersey for more than 30 years, and I cannot recall any governor who was able to lower  property taxes, now the highest in the nation. You've got to wonder how Christie is going to do it, especially in view of his vow to cut aid to municipalities. Are we to believe all these towns are suddenly going to merge services with their neighbors to save money and cut property taxes?

Of course, as the editorial on Page A-10 notes, Christie provided few details on how he would bring about the changes he promises. In the news coverage, I question how inaugural guests were served "Jersey blueberries" in January. Is this the first lie from the new administration?

On Page A-7, a grand total of 10 North Jersey residents -- one an actor from the "The Sopranos" -- are interviewed, and most give Christie the benefit of the doubt. Does this seem comprehensive?

Image via Wikipedia

But eight days after the quake hit, The Record still cannot muster any editorial outrage for the shameful performance of the U.S. and other wealthy nations in helping victims in Haiti. TV is doing a far better job of covering the disaster. Last night, a Dominican doctor across the road from the airport told a reporter for PBS he was running out of medicine and other supplies, and could not get any of the stuff he needs from the tons piling up on the tarmac.

On the front of the Local section, take a look at another ridiculous column, based on e-mails, from Road Warrior John Cichowski, who apparently only leaves the office to go home. Also on the front, in what country do people speak Urdu, the language of the Paramus convenience store owner being targeted by vandals? Is it in the story? Let's see, his name is Syad Ahmed. Could he be from .....?

Haiti relief efforts in North Jersey, court and crime news are all local readers in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood get today.

Englewood reporter Givoanna Fabiano gives us another story on the Acadamies@Englewood -- the attempt to integrate Dwight Morrow High School -- while continuing to ignore segregated elementary and middle schools. On Page L-3, you'll search in vain for the address of a pizzeria at the center of a lawsuit against Hackensack Police Chief Charles Zisa, as if this was a story about Chicago.

Hackensack readers will have to drive up and down River Street to see if they can find the building "controlled by the chief," and while they are it, they can wonder when The Record's Monsy Alvarado will report the status of luxury apartments that were under construction behind the old Hackensack Ford dealer or the town houses that were approved for a parcel near Route 80. But I was relieved to learn Greenwood Lake boat owners will start paying fees in 2011 to maintain water quality.

In the well-edited and well-proofed Better Living section, the address and telephone number of a tea parlor in Leonia was omitted.