Editors turn every Christie move into a political stunt

Leonia is one of those Bergen County towns that doesn't get much coverage in The Record of Woodland Park. Dressing up the small business district along Broad Avenue is a sculpture garden, above and below.

Most of the businesses along Broad Avenue are owned and operated by Korean-Americans. Leonia borders Palisades Park and Fort Lee, both of which have even stronger Korean presences.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I've learned to ignore the lame political column Charles Stile has been writing since Governor Christie took office way back in January 2010.

But his Page 1 column in The Record today is hard to miss, especially because Editor Marty Gottlieb is using it in place of a news story on the special session of the state Legislature the governor called to fix the bail system (A-1).

This boring Stile column reads like all the rest:

The special session, Stile claims, could "polish up his resume for a likely run for president in 2016" (A-1).

"Some say the timing is good for Christie, who is trying to rebuild his image in the wake of the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal" (A-7).

Voter apathy

But on A-7, readers also find a news story on the special session that repeats much of Stile's column -- a real waste of space.

Stile and The Record avoid discussing how politics divide the nation and New Jersey, and how reporting like this simply turns off voters.

Christie was reelected last November in the lowest turnout of any previous gubernatorial election, but The Record always refers to it as a "landslide" and doesn't even mention the legions of disaffected voters.

Worst governor ever

Below the fold today, Staff Writer Scott Fallon reports that funding of open-space preservation is endangered by the poor state economy under the GOP bully.

But you have to read the entire story to get that message.

Today's editorial on anti-violence efforts by three North Jersey cities also is edited in a way to avoid placing blame on Christie for cutting state aid to poor cities like Paterson, resulting in the layoff of 125 police officers in 2011.

"Indeed," the editorial writer declares, "during the recent tenure of Mayor Jeffrey Jones in Paterson there was the feeling that, for whatever reason, the city's needs were not being heard by the powers that be in Trenton."

"For whatever reason"? What crap.

The quaint Borough Hall in Leonia.

New suicides? 

Another Page 1 story may cause more suicides on the George Washington Bridge among readers who learn a plan to build a 9-foot fence might take eight years -- twice as long as did construction of the span (A-1).

Imagine how many lives could have been saved if this fence was built during the years the Port Authority was diverting toll money to construction of One World Trade Center, with all of its delays and cost overruns.

It's hard to believe the fence won't be finished until 2022.

The story is by Staff Writer Christopher Maag, who has been neglecting his Hackensack beat.

Maag is thorough, but the story goes on and on like something you'd see in The New York Times, Gottlieb's old paper.

Hackensack news

With Maag writing about bridge suicides, the only Hackensack news today is another reporter's story on a lawsuit filed against the city by Patrolman Moise Flanagan (L-1).

Hackensack Scoop, a local blog, reported the lawsuit five days ago.

Lying to readers

If a recipe isn't healthy, The Record's editors don't see anything wrong with lying to their readers.

Clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson's recipe for Chilled Fennel Soup calls for 4 tablespoons of butter filled with artery clogging saturated fat (BL-2).

Yet, Jackson writes of the soup, "with no cream whatsoever, it's as healthy as healthy can be."

OK. With no brains whatsoever, Jackson is as stupid as stupid can be.

On Broad Avenue in Leonia, retail space is being renovated behind a colorful barrier, above and below.

Investigative team plays catch-up

Image via Wikipedia

Last November, a team of reporters published the results of a nearly three-year investigation of Michael Mordaga, former chief of detectives in the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. But the findings were so weak -- despite the stewardship of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes -- Mordaga's name didn't appear in the lead paragraph.

And despite what I'd imagine was pleading, begging and cajoling, Sykes couldn't get the story on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park to justify the expenditure of an estimated $500,000 in staff salaries. To make matters worse, the story described an alleged conflict that had ended nearly two years before.


Now, these same reporters -- Jean Rimbach, Shawn Boburg and Monsy Alvarado, who has severely neglected her coverage of Hackensack -- are playing catch-up, but they have to rely on raw, untested allegations in a civil lawsuit, as detailed in a Page 1 story today that claims Mordaga had a "personal and business relationship" with a reputed mobster more than three years ago.


This story is part of a pattern that exposes the paper's inability to uncover wrongdoing while it is going on. The reputed mobster died in 2007.


The front page is dominated by second-day coverage of a Ridgewood teen's suicide, with some powerful comments by Governor Christie. The two dorm mates accused of goading their fellow Rutgers student into jumping off the George Washington Bridge continue to hide behind the "no comments" of their lawyers. 


Today's story also quietly corrects the lead paragraph of Thursday's A-1 story, which misquoted Tyler Clementi's Facebook message about jumping off the bridge Sept 22. The suicides of Clementi and, two days later, of Chef Joseph Cerniglia call into question whether the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey should immediately release information about jumpers.


Sykes has a terrific Local news section for readers today, though you won't find any municipal news from Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck. nor any discussion of whether the first two should follow Teaneck's example and merge Police and Fire Departments, at a projected annual savings of $250,000.


The major story on the front of the section is about a former cop who used a "wooden board" to prevent his girlfriend from leaving his apartment in South Hackensack. There is a lot more crime and court news inside the section, too.

Has cost-cutting by Features Director Barbara Jaeger started to effect the restaurant reviews? In today's review of La'Ziza in Clifton, Elisa Ung appears to have sampled only three or four entrees in two visits to the Lebanese restaurant, and somehow missed one of the best -- fried whole whiting (ask them to hold the fried pocket bread that comes with it). 

Most newspapers allow the reviewer to invite three others to visit a restaurant twice, so as many dishes as possible can be sampled. It looks like Ung was accompanied by only one other person, a co-worker who is part Lebanese. Was that Charles Saydah, the letters editor?


Ung also appears to be unfamiliar with Middle Eastern food and nomenclature. "Pita" is the Israeli word for the pocket bread eaten by Syrians, Lebanese and so forth. The word "kibbeh" and "balls" should never appear together, as they do in her review. It's just kibbeh, which are meatballs in various sizes and shapes, made of varying ingredients, such as meat and bulgur (wheat).

Did you see the lavishly promotional Star-Ledger story carried on the front of The Record's Business section on Wednesday about the Tata conglomerate from India? Reporter Joseph R. Perone quotes one of Tata's mucky mucks as saying, "We see ourselves as servants of society."


What a joke. Perone, who once covered the automobile industry, knows full well that Tata sells tens of thousands of Land Rover and Jaguar motor vehicles -- some of the worst gas-guzzlers around.

(Photo: Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack)