Editors downplay Russian influence on election of Trump

The Port Authority Bus Terminal on Eighth Avenue in midtown Manhattan is the end of the ride for tens of thousands of commuters who board NJ Transit's No. 165 and other buses in northern New Jersey, below. 

Those commuters were ill-served on Friday by another in a series of Page 1 stories in The Record on the political battle over building a new bus terminal in Manhattan. Staff Writer Paul Berger should stop wasting their time and find out why the bi-state agency isn't adding more exclusive bus lanes at the Lincoln Tunnel to expand service in the decade or so before another terminal could be completed.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Gannett editors in a Neptune design center, where The Record and six other company owned dailies are put out every day, have a pretty weird idea of news.

Today, for example, a feature story on Manhattan carriage horses and a shrill column on carbon-monoxide poisoning dominate the Woodland Park daily's front page (1A).

At the bottom of the page, readers learn President Obama has asked intelligence agencies to review all cyber attacks in the last three presidential campaigns and elections, including the Nov. 8 Electoral College victory of President-elect Donald J. Trump.

U.S. intelligence officials are quoted saying they believe "Russia actively  attempted to interfere with this year's U.S. presidential election, including a hack of the Democratic National Committee's email system" (9A).

If Columnist John Cichowski is so concerned about carbon-monoxide poisoning, he could rail against the 53,000 deaths every year from auto emissions, but that might upset the auto dealers and automakers whose advertising keeps the paper afloat.

As it is, a photo with his Road Warrior column today suggests the carbon-monoxide deaths of a woman and two children last January in Passaic could have been prevented, if municipal crews did a better job of clearing the snow around their car.

Syrian refugees

On Friday's front page, the Newark Archdicocese welcoming 51 Syrian refugees against the wishes of Trump and Governor Christie was the only story of real interest in North Jersey. 

Inside the paper, another "food crawl" article in Better Living focused on Turkish restaurants, kebab houses and bakeries -- all relative newcomers to Paterson's South Paterson neighborhood (Better Living). 

Syrian families, including the Fattals and the Nouris, opened bakeries in the late 1960s that still flourish today, along with Syrian restaurants and markets.

Was 2016 presidential election the 'closest' in half-century? Hillary Clinton said to win popular vote by 2 million-plus

The New York Times front page on Saturday reported President-elect Donald J. Trump "cast aside" Governor Christie as the head of his transition team. On this rack at Starbucks Coffee on the Hamburg Turnpike in Wayne, below, The Record of Woodland Park is displayed at the bottom.

Editor's note: This post has been expanded to discuss the departure of the restaurant reviewer as part of the biggest downsizing in The Record's history.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's front page today declares the presidential election was "America's closest ... in more than half a century."

But on Friday, The New York Times reported Hillary Clinton won the popular vote "by a substantial margin."

"By the time all the ballots are counted, she seems likely to be ahead by more than 2 million votes and more than 1.5 percentage points ...," Op-Ed Columnist David Leonhardt reported.

"She will have won by a wider percentage margin than not only Al Gore in 2000, but also Richard Nixon in 1968 and John F. Kennedy in 1960."

Clearly, America's electoral system is broken, contributing to Clinton's defeat in the antiquated Electoral College.

As unprecedented protests continue in Manhattan and around the country (A-1), you won't find any discussion of the broken electoral system or voter apathy in The Record.

Instead, the paper has been filled since Thursday with story after story trying to explain why people voted the way the did, and speculating on what President-elect Donald J. Trump will do once he takes office on Jan. 20.

Today's paper

The editors ran not one but two columns by the insufferable Mike Kelly, who goes on and on about "my own journey to listen to ordinary voters" (A-1), and how in March, "I set out to interview ordinary voters who had been out of work for more than a year" (O-1).

In his Page 1 column, Kelly says last Tuesday's election was "America's closest ... in more than half a century."

But how can anyone call an election close when 4 of 10 voters or more stayed home?

CNN reports working-class whites gave Trump the White House, but that voter turnout hit a 20-year low. 

In fact, the wacko racist billionaire -- who has inspired more than 200 hate incidents since the election (A-1 and A-10) -- got fewer Republican votes than Mitt Romney, John McCain and George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, according to CNN.

Voter apathy also affected Clinton, who got fewer Democratic votes than the party's previous presidential nominees going back to 2000, but did just barely beat her husband's turnout in 1996.

CNN says its vote totals were valid as of Thursday, but will be higher by the time all vote counting is completed in mid-December.

Governor Christie

As The Record has done since Governor Christie took office in early 2010, Staff Writer Dustin Racioppi tries to put a positive spin on the latest setback for the GOP thug -- his being demoted to one of Trump's vice chairmen for the transition (A-1).

Racioppi, who is assigned to cover the governor, once did a story on how many vetoes the GOP bully used to thwart the Democratic majority in the state Legislature.

At the time, it was more than 300. But he never did a follow-up, even after Christie passed 500 vetoes. 

Fat lady sings?

Staff Writer Elisa Ung tells readers today she is "moving on" after reviewing 400 restaurants in the last nine years, as well as writing a Sunday column and an unknown number of items that promoted -- not dissected -- restaurants (BL-1).

Her Corner Table column today confirms Ung wrote about restaurants superficially, and rarely bothered to find out whether the food she sampled and recommended to readers was naturally raised and free of antibiotics, growth hormones and other harmful additives.

Her last review on Friday was a rare exception. She reported Viaggio Chef Robbie Felice serves pork from Berkshire pigs and free-range chickens.

Squid with butter

She claimed she was giving Wayne's "new Italian spot" the highest rating for a Passaic County restaurant in her nine years at The Record (3.5 stars out of 4 stars), because it presents food "as it's cooked in Italy."

But she puzzled readers when she praised the seemingly inauthentic fried calamari served "with a lemon-butter sauce."

And as in nearly every one of her 400 reviews, she raved about a few of Viaggio's desserts, though in her column today she tells readers, "Don't order dessert," which she noted "is almost always underwhelming and, too often, gross."

The biggest laugh line in that last review was her complaint about "hard metal chairs that dig into your sides."

After eating so many high-calorie desserts, many the problem is Ung's sides, not the chairs.

Ung is one of The Record staffers affected by the biggest downsizing in the 121-year-old paper's history, put into motion by the Gannett Co.

Editor's column

In his first message to readers, The Record's new editor, Rick Green, discusses changes that will take place next week (O-2).

But he doesn't confirm Gannett Co. is following through on a Sept. 15 layoff announcement affecting half of the 426 employees at North Jersey Media Group -- publisher of The Record, Herald News, (201) magazine, weekly papers and NorthJersey.com. 

A notice on the front page of the weekly Hackensack Chronicle told readers the paper will continue to be published, but Gannett is folding the Teaneck Suburbanite.

Green also disclosed he has "settled into a great apartment in Nutley" instead of one in Bergen County, the heart of The Record's circulation area.

Death of bear that walked upright upstages local historian

"Trump in the Toilet" is from political cartoonist Darly Cagle (Cagel.com). 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You have to feel sorry for Kevin Wright, who is described in a Page 1 headline today as the "passionate defender of Bergen's history."

Not only did the River Edge historian die prematurely at 64, according to Staff Writer Jay Levin of The Record, but he got upstaged by a goddamn bear, which was killed in a state-sanctioned bow hunt.

Jeez, what does a prominent North Jersey resident have to do to get his obituary above the fold on the front page of the Woodland Park daily?

The bear's photo and obituary get much better play than those for Wright, who is described as "a quintessential and indefatigable champion and protector of New Bridge Landing, Bergen County's cherished Revolutionary War site" (A-1).

To add insult to injury, animal lovers gave a name to the "tall-walking bear," and started a Facebook page, making the animal "an Internet sensation" (A-1).

Pedals -- that's the bear -- gets the same play as a big photo of We Mcdonald (a local minority student who is a contestant on "The Voice"), and Governor Christie signing into law an unpopular 23-cents-per-gallon hike in the gasoline tax.

Poor focus, editing

More than three months after Gannett Co. bought North Jersey Media Group from the Borg family, The Record remains one of the most poorly focused and edited newspapers in the state.

Stories about dogs, cats, bears, geese and other animals often get far better play than those about the mistreatment of humans.

NJ Transit decline

The fatal Sept. 29 crash of an NJ Transit train in Hoboken unleashed a flurry of analytical stories and columns in The Record.

But none focused as relentlessly on Christie's anti-mass transit policies as did a New York Times story that ran on Thursday under this headline:

"New Jersey Transit, 
a Cautionary Tale of Neglect"

According to the story, "Under the administration of Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, the state subsidy for the railroad [NJ Transit] has plunged by more than 90 percent.

"Gaping holes in the agency's past two budgets were filled by fare increases and service reductions or other cuts.

"Plans for a new tunnel under the Hudson River -- one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the country -- were torpedoed by Mr. Christie, who pushed for some of the money to be diverted to road-building projects."

In fact, Christie's name doesn't even appear in today's story on the state Legislature launching a wide-ranging investigation into NJ Transit operations (A-4).

Bad journalism

Christie's hostility toward mass transit was reflected years earlier in the pages of The Record, which published takeouts listing the so-called negatives of extending electrified light-rail passenger service to Bergen County.

A Page 1 story also questioned why NJ Transit doesn't make a profit.

And in the past 13 years, Staff Writer John Cichowski's Road Warrior column has virtually ignored the declining quality of NJ Transit bus and rail service.

Same story twice

The news and business editors apparently don't talk to each other, judging from identical A-9 and A-10 stories on the U.S. lifting a $100 limit on Cuban cigars and rum.

Reader abuse

Today's Local front carries another story on "elder abuse" from Staff Writer Colleen Diskin, who continues to ignore the health and welfare of tens of thousands of well-off seniors in North Jersey.

Although heart disease is the No. 1 killer of seniors in the United States, The Record's food writers can't help but promoting some of the unhealthiest food available.

Get a load of the photo of artery clogging "Sharkfin pie" ($5.99 or $8.99 to share), one of the highly recommended dishes in Staff Writer Elisa Ung's review of Mitchell's Fish Market, an expensive seafood restaurant in Edgewater (Friday's BL-14).

Seniors might fare better in a swimming contest with a real shark than eating this heart-attack on a plate (peanut butter, chocolate and ice cream).

White Maple Cafe

A week earlier, Ung praised "the enormous ice cream sandwich" ($7) at the White Maple Cafe in Ridgewood, and said a fish fillet was worth ordering because the salty skin reminded her of "pork rind."

Despite the word "cafe" in the name, Ung notes unnecessarily:

"That White Maple sees itself as a cafe, not a fine-dining restaurant, is either a selling point or a reason to avoid it, depending on your expectations."

Which might lead readers to look at Ung in a similar way: 

The so-called restaurant reviewer's dual obsessions with sugary desserts and enormous hunks of aged mystery beef are ample reasons to discount or simply ignore her appraisals.
  

Editors print all the Paterson crime, gee-whiz news that fits

From cartoonist Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

From cartoonist Dave Granlund.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Paterson or Passaic County news dominates Page 1 and the Local front today in The Record of Woodland Park.

The heart of the daily's circulation is in Bergen County, but cost cutting long before the paper was sold to Gannett left readers with a single local-news edition for all of North Jersey.

The savings in newsprint likely are substantial, though unknown.

But no one can calculate the damage to the credibility of The Record as a source of local news in Bergen County.

No one killed

Even though no one was killed, today's front page carries a gee-whiz account of a gas explosion that leveled three homes and damaged two others in Paterson on Tuesday (A-1 and L-1).

The Record's story merely repeats what readers saw reported on TV newscasts all day and into the night on Tuesday.

Today's Local front carries stories on Governor Christie pitching his doomed school-funding plan in Wayne, an environmental brouhaha in Ringwood and West Milford, and a Paterson drug suspect charged with murder.

Tuesday's Local front also carried three stories from Passaic County:

A Clifton cab company was fined $42,000 for denying service to a deaf woman; the dredging of a lake in the city of Passaic was called a mess; and Paterson officials settled a suit filed by the former community development director.

Paterson crime and court news appeared inside Tuesday's section, as did news the city is getting a federal grant to hire 15 more police officers.

Passaic v. Bergen

The Record does far more stories on Paterson's dysfunctional City Hall than on Bergen's many dysfunctional home-rule communities.

Contrast numerous stories on Paterson's schools with not a single story on Hackensack's schools or Board of Education. 

What revolution?

A brief on Page 1 today reports "several" barbecue restaurants have opened in North Jersey since the first "real BBQ" outpost was established in 1999 by Dave "Fink" Finkelstein.

But the headline oversells the phenomena as a "BBQ revolution."

On BL-1 and BL-3, a long story by Food Editor Esther Davidowitz talks about smoke, sauce and all of the trimmings, but ignores whether the pork is naturally raised or just the same old crap raised in horrific conditions on factory farms and served in most restaurants.

Gannett to lay off more than 200, go after younger readers

The moving notice of North Jersey Media Group and The Record still is visible at the public entrance of the landmark headquarters at 150 River St. -- seven years after they abandoned Hackensack. The building and nearly 20 acres of the land were not part of the sale to Gannett, the nation's biggest newspaper chain.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Gannett, the payroll-slashing newspaper publisher, is delivering bad news to about half of the 426 employees left at North Jersey Media Group and its flagship daily, The Record.

More than 200 of them "will see their jobs end in mid-November," according to a story on the first Business page today (L-7).

News of the so-called restructuring appeared on NorthJersey.com on Wednesday morning.

NJMG includes The Record, Herald News, NorthJersey.com, 50 weekly newspapers, (201) magazine and "an Events Group," Gannett says.

The New York Post, which reported Gannett paid the Borg family $40 million for NJMG, has said layout, news and copy editors would be getting pink slips by mid-October after production of The Record is moved to Neptune.

That's where Gannett has been putting out the Asbury Park Press and five other New Jersey dailies the company publishes.

Now, it seems, those layoffs have been pushed ahead to mid-November.

Digital, schmigital

Today's story also delivered bad news to The Record's older readers -- who are believed to be the majority -- especially those who don't own smart phones or text or use computers.

In fact, many believe "app" is short for "appetizer" on an early bird dinner menu.

According to Gannett, the goal of the restructuring is to make the "newsroom and sales department more responsible to the growing digital demands of readers and advertisers" (L-7).

Sure to sail over older readers' heads is Gannett's pledge to deliver "a broader array of story-telling techniques and advertising solutions" to "the sophisticated and increasingly digitally minded New Jersey audience and advertisers." 

No. 1 source?

"We are proud to be North Jersey's No. 1 local news source," one Gannett executive boasts in today's story.

But it's clear from the looming layoffs, Gannett's main goals are lower labor costs, more ad revenue and higher profits.

Readers don't see any "local news" on Page 1 today, only mindless coverage of New York baseball teams under this headline.

"BASEBALL BACK FROM THE DEAD"

Yet it's doubtful Gannett will be able to resurrect The Record, once a leader in delivering municipal news to readers.