Editors prefer to wait for a crisis to cover news

A little after noon on Monday, only one clerk was available at the Hackensack Post Office on State Street (Zip Code: 07601). Later, a second clerk came on duty, but the total wait before I got to a window was about 25 minutes. I made sure I had plenty of time on the parking meter.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The leaders of New Jersey and New York have been treating the Port Authority as their political cookie jar for decades.

But The Record has been reporting on insider deals and exorbitant payments by the Port Authority only since last September.

That's when members of Governor Christie's inner circle closed lanes on the George Washington Bridge as a form of political retribution.

Sunday's Page 1 opus on a $500,000 Port Authority payment to Santiago Calatrava for architectural plans no one asked for or used describes events dating to mid-2011.

Similarly, another front-page report on Sunday discussed the tradition of drinking at firehouses, but it took an allegedly drunk volunteer crashing a fire truck this month to get the editors' attention.

Today's lead story, reporting an $800 million New Jersey budget shortfall, can be traced to Christie's repeated vetoes of a tax surcharge on millionaires during his first term in office.

Long overdue is an examination by The Record of fiscal mismanagemt dating to the Republican admininistrations of Christine Whitman and Tom Kean.

Where life and death are highly profitable

A congressional proposal to end door-to-door mail delivery -- reported on Page 1 of The Record today -- would intensify the war over the four metered parking spaces in front of the Hackensack Post Office on State Street, above.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The owners of the for-profit Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center laughed all the way to the bank while stiffing nurses and the IRS, The Record reports today (A-1).

In less than three years, the 230-bed Secaucus hospital paid its owners $14.4 million, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn says.

Her shocking report identifies principals of investment syndicate MHA LLC as Woodcliff Lake anesthesiologist Richard Lipsky, Tamara Dunaev, Pavel Pogodin and Anastasia Burlyuk.

From the sound of their names, people entering the country illegally to compete for low-wage jobs that Americans refuse to do aren't the country's real immigration problem, as the media would have us think.

I'd also like to see Washburn report on salaries and profits at another hospital, Hackensack University Medical Center, whose tax-exempt status is a crushing burden for city homeowners and other property tax payers.

More partisanship

What is achieved by The Record and other media reporting every speech by President Obama as if he is still campaigning for a second term, as the Woodland Park daily does in today's A-1 photo caption?

By continuing to report on the partisan pissing matches paralyzing government, The Record cheats readers and neglects its responsibility to report on the issues they are most interested in.

Local schmooze

Another correction from the disoriented Local news editors appears on A-2 today. They can't get names right and don't know what town they're in.

Today's Local front is strong, for a change, but why focus on speeders on one Teaneck street when they are everywhere and enforcement is at an historic low (L-1)?

And why allow Road Warrior John Cichowski to encourage speeders, as he did in recent, negative columns about red-light cameras and so-called road hogs, who obey the speed limit?

Another copy desk screw-up appears in the photo caption with the East Cedar Lane speeding story. The caption calls speeding "reckless driving" (L-1).
 
Doing their jobs

Pages L-2 and L-3 resemble a Law & Order insert today, complete with a filler photo of a minor accident in place of legitimate news (L-3).

The copy desk came up with another stunning over line:

RESCUE WORKERS AID ACCIDENT VICTIM

It could just as well say:

RESCUE WORKERS DO THEIR JOBS

Why is this photo in the paper? 

Thanks, Bon Jovi

The Better Living cover story on the massive Buick Electra being used on Bon Jovi's concert stage only reminds some older readers of the unsafe cars produced by the Big Three in the 1950s, despite their size and weight (BL-1).

True Hackensack story

Image via Wikipedia

Unlike many post offices in North Jersey, the one in Hackensack doesn't have a parking lot for patrons. There are four parking meters in front of the building, and more metered spaces around the corner, vacant ones if you're lucky -- a source of endless frustration and conflict among residents.

And the State Street building is opposite police headquarters, so it isn't unusual for an officer to dash across the street and issue a parking summons, if you're lucky enough to get a space but don't feed the meter. It's a shame, because this post office will deliver a letter to Manhattan the next day; it's really efficient.

Residents circle the block sometimes or simply postpone their visit to the post office. They double-park and dash to the mail boxes out front, nose their cars into an empty space at odd angles, put on their flashers at expired meters. Horns blow, tires screech. 


On Friday, I approached in my car and saw all four metered spaces occupied, but a woman sat in the driver's seat of a minivan, writing on something. I motioned for her to lower the passenger side window and asked, "Are you waiting for somebody?"


"What business is that of yours?" she replied.


I said I wanted to mail a package, but she closed the window. I drove around the corner and found an empty space, with about 16-17 minutes on the meter. As I walked past her minivan, balancing a large box, I shouted, "You're a moron!" 


"So is your Momma," she shouted back.


I entered, only to find a long line and just two clerks on duty. I could see the woman's minivan through the window. I muttered under my breath and worried I'd get a ticket, but eventually got to the front of the line, mailed my package and bought stamps.


I jogged to my car, but as I passed the minivan, I shouted at the woman, "You're still a moron." I heard a quarter, my quarter, drop to the sidewalk.


She came back with the comment about my "Momma." I went back for the quarter, and said, "My mother is dead, but you're still a moron, plus you're ugly and fat."


Then, as approached my car, she got out of her minivan and started to cross the street toward police headquarters. She wasn't waiting for anybody after all, just taking up one of the limited spaces in front of the post office. I was besides myself.


"You're a piece of shit," I shouted as loud as I could, got in my car and drove home.