Page 1 focus on minorities recalls discrimination of the past

A poster on the shuttered New Jersey Naval Museum in Hackensack, above, and the beached gangway that once gave visitors access to the USS Ling, below. The World War II sub is stuck in the mud of the Hackensack River, and tied up to property owned by North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Positive images of Native Americans, Muslims and African-Americans in North Jersey appear on the front page of The Record today in a rare focus on minorities.

The stories recall past instances when the editors marginalized those groups.

Ford pollution

The Record's 2005 series -- "Toxic Legacy" -- won journalism awards, but did little to prove Ford Motor Co. waste -- first dumped in 1967 -- was sickening and killing members of the Ramapough Native American tribe in Ringwood.

And in 2010, The Record urged the Ramapoughs to settle their lawsuit against the automaker for $12.5 million, allowing the lawyers to grab the lion's share of the money, and pay 633 adults and children only $4,368 to $34,595 each.

Today, the Woodland Park daily reports borough residents want to hold a referendum to kill a plan to cap 166,000 tons of contaminated soil in favor of removing it (A-1).

Still, the first reference to the Ramapoughs on Page 1 today is a mean-spirited description of their "low-income neighborhood."

Crime stories

Less than a decade ago, an African-American would have to be charged with a serious crime to land on the front page, unless the editors were running Black History Month stories.

Today, the funeral and burial of Teaneck Mayor Lizette Parker, 44, is Page 1 news, including a moving tribute from a Muslim councilman who once was part of a coalition that spurned her (A-1).

Still, The Record continues to ignore the hard-working, God-fearing Jamaican-American community in Englewood, Teaneck and Hackensack unless one of them is involved in gun violence or drug dealing.

Silk City Syrians

After the November terrorist attacks in Paris, Governor Christie wanted to bar Syrian refugees, even children, from New Jersey.

The editors' response took more than a week, but they finally published a positive story about Syrian merchants in Paterson decrying the governor's stereotype.

Today, Muslim leaders in New Jersey are quoted as "reacting warily" to an FBI plan to "cut terrorism off at its roots," as the headline states (A-1).

Still, The Record is the only major daily in the state that failed to call for Christie's resignation after he endorsed GOP presidential front-runner, Muslim hater and racist Donald Trump.

The USS Ling in a photo taken a week ago.

Local news?

Just one look at today's Local section tells Bergen County readers they won't find much news about their towns today.

On L-1, they find an enormous weather-related photo, and another column on the test for a learner's permit.

On L-3, a "Monthly News Quiz" wastes an enormous amount of space, and four major stories in the section are from Passaic County (L-1, L-2 and L-3), further cheating Bergen readers.

Healthier eating

In today's Better Living profile, Susan Ungaro of River Vale says she want the James Beard Foundation "to help move the needle on important food policy issues" (BL-1).

Celebrity chefs "can teach America how to eat better and be healthier and be socially conscious about important issues," says Ungaro, president of the culinary arts foundation.

Sadly, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung, the reporter who wrote the profile, and Record Food Editor Esther Davidowitz don't see any part for journalists in that mission.

What else can readers conclude from Ung rarely telling them whether the food she samples is naturally raised or grown, and her obsession with meat and artery clogging desserts?

Meanwhile, Davidowtiz fills her food pages with promotions of restaurants, bakeries and other businesses that advertise in The Record. 

On Christie, black lawmaker speaks for millions

Like many local shopping districts in North Jersey, downtown Englewood continues to struggle. The Mitchell Simon hardware store at 15 S. Dean St. remains vacant a year after it closed, above. The Record basically ignores why Englewood, Hackensack, Teaneck and other downtowns have been unable to recover from the recession while devoting a lot of copy to big mall retailers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Let's hear it for Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, who calls all the newly released Bridgegate documents "disturbing."

The Mercer County Democrat also urges Governor Christie to "think about resigning" and "take all his friends [aides and Port Authority cronies] with him."

You won't find Watson Coleman quoted on Page 1 of The Record today. Instead, Editor Marty Gottlieb runs a silly, who-cares-story about one mall retailer spying on another.

Speaks for millions

Like Watson Coleman, many millions have been sickened by what she calls "the bully environment and brazen callousness and disrespect this administration has shown toward the people of our state" (A-3).

The story is quick to point out "no evidence has yet emerged showing Christie was personally involved" in early September local access lane closures that caused gridlock at the Fort Lee end of the George Washington Bridge.

But shouldn't the GOP bully take a hit for apparently encouraging his closest aides, his Port Authority appointees and his lieutenant governor to exact political revenge on Democrats who didn't endorse him for reelection last year?

Watson Coleman stepped down from the investigative panel probing the scandal, and her comments prompted a moronic Republican assemblyman to call her "the nuttiest leftist" in an upcoming congressional primary.

If Assemblyman Michael Patrick Harris, R-Morris, is truly interested in finding "nuts," all he has to do is check on who is working for Christie.

This store is going out of business across the street from the vacant hardware store and next to Englewood's parking garage, which is no longer being staffed. Visitors must pay $2.50 for a minimum of three hours of parking at a pay station. Unlike Hackesnack and Teaneck, Englewood doesn't offer any free parking downtown.

More sloppy editing

A related story on more than 20 hours of 911 and dispatch calls during four days of gridlock in Fort Lee -- "Fear, panic and anger at the GWB" -- delivers a lot less than the headline promises (L-1).

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza must have been taking a nap, and no one else edited the second paragraph, which begins:

 "One after one the calls started pouring in as several local lanes to the George Washington Bridge were intentionally shut down" (L-1).

"One after one"? Shouldn't that be, "One after another, ..."? Also, two of three local lanes were closed, not "several."

The cat's meow

Also today, the editors decided to give more space to photos of cats wearing hats (BL-1 and BL-4) than to a Teaneck program to encourage more participation of fathers in their children's education (L-1 photo and caption).

Oh, that's right. Black History Month is over, and the editors are just going back to basically ignoring all of the African-Americans, Jamaican-Americans and other black residents of North Jersey until next February.

Letting readers eat journalism cake

Curbs along Euclid Avenue, near Prospect Avenue, in Hackensack are being repaired in anticipation of what longtime residents say is the first complete repaving of the  Fairmount section street since 1979.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

In a single story on the front page of The Record today, Staff Writer Karen Rouse has managed to say more about the English sport of cricket than she has in the past few years about the rush-hour ordeal of using mass transit -- her beat.

Maybe, Editor Marty Gottlieb and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes are trying to make amends for portraying Jamaicans and other minority Paterson residents as little more than drug dealers, prostitutes and greedy public officials.

The feature story -- complete with photos and a large graphic that tries to explain cricket rules (A-1 and A-6) -- undercuts my argument that if you're a minority, the only way to get on Page 1 of The Record is to break the law.

A story about cricket appears in The Record once every 5 years or so. Most readers would be content if that was once every 50 years.

GOP failures

Also on Page 1 today is a political column about two Republicans seeking their party's nomination to run against Newark Mayor Cory Booker for the U.S. Senate.

Both Alieta Eck, a physician from Somerset, and Steve Lonegan, the conservative crackpot from tiny Bogota, oppose the federal health-care overhaul, dooming their candidacies to failure (A-1).

Meanwhile, Booker is unveiling a plan to curb childhood poverty nationally (A-3) -- countering Republicans like Lonegan and Governor Christie who cater to the elite.

The Record's editors continue to promote their love and support for Christie, leaving it to readers to cut through all of the political B.S. and expose what a miserable failure he is as governor.

Telling it like it is

In "YOUR VIEWS" on A-11, Dianne Douthat of Wayne notes "business subsidies have skyrocketed" under Christie, but "New Jersey's unemployment rate is still the sixth-highest in the nation, and we rank 47th in economic growth."

In other words, New Jersey may be "Stronger Than The Storm," but good luck finding a job here.

In another letter to the editor on A-11, Paul White of Ridgewood comments on a column by Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin:

"The column continues Doblin's willingness to overlook the governor's poor behavior and his politics favoring the elite," White says.

Crumbling reporter

Readers get a break today from Roads Scholar John Cichowski, whose Sunday column was the 84th containing reporting problems since Sept. 12, 2012, according to a concerned reader:

"In his July 7 column, the Road Warrior endangers vehicle drivers and N.J. residents with his mistaken analysis about efforts to fix road infrastructure based on the Reason Foundation report on performance of U.S. state highway systems.

"Road Warrior has become a dangerous menace to everyone with his legendary incompetence and ability to misinform readers about results and conclusions of valid studies based on his own made-up information and invalid assessments.

"Unfortunately, the overwhelming consensus of road infrastructure and safety experts is that restraint in spending is not innovative and is irresponsible governance, threatens the state economy and our safety, and will greatly exacerbate more congestion, deterioration of our roads and bridges, and damages to our vehicles."

See the full e-mail to unresponsive management and editors on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Look out for that bumbling reporter

Coverage of black community ends today

An abandoned home is framed by Overlook Avenue high-rises in Hackensack. Residents have a bird's-eye view of noisy business jets that skim rooftops on the way to Teterboro Airport. Is there any reason they can't approach at a much higher altitude? 

With the end of Black History Month today, head Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, breathe a sigh of relief, knowing they can turn their backs on North Jersey's African-American community for another year.

Now, they'll only have to run stories about black people who get in trouble with the law, sue or get sued, or die in one of those drive-by shootings in Paterson.

Sykes has consumed enormous quantities of Jamaican black-rum cake in recent years, but has completely ignored the hard-working, God-fearing Jamaican-American enclaves in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood.

If I didn't know better, I'd guess Sykes and Sforza had something to do with assigning black history to the shortest month of the year.

Even the Woodland Park newsroom mirrors the lack of coverage. There are no black editors with any authority and only a couple of black reporters.

More bad writing 

More bad news writing appears on the front page today, this time in the photo caption for Pope Benedict XVI (A-1).

We know the pope has great spiritual powers, but the caption informs readers he can travel "through" 150,000 people without harming them.

Is it too much to ask six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton to read every headline and caption that appears on the paper's premier page or at least to have them read to her?

With her proofers' eyes riveted on the TV screen during the David Letterman show, how else is she going to prevent such embarrassing errors from appearing on Page 1?

After Mike Kelly's latest flop appeared on Wednesday's A-1, the long-winded columnist was taken to the hospital with a case of bad writing.

Bad reporting 

The Record and other media continue to cover the battle to avoid the sequester as if President Obama and his policies didn't win a decisive victory over the Republicans in November (A-1, A-10, A-20). 

The big Hackensack news today appears on L-3 -- a non-fatal, two-vehicle accident near ShopRite, in another brilliant photo from chief ambulance chaser Tariq Zehawi.

The is clearly filler. As usual, no attempt is made to report the possible cause of the accident or whether any of the drivers received a summons.

And God forbid the paper actually identifies the drivers.  

Obesity is ugly

Look at the two beautiful, "plus-size" women on the Better Living cover today -- the latest attempt by The Record's editors to hide the ugly obesity epidemic in New Jersey, as epitomized by Governor Christie. 


 

Editorial tunnel vision

Image via Wikipedia

A science center official says the "Jurassic Park"  movie showed "live dinosaurs."

The Record's front page on Friday was dominated by Governor Christie's unilateral decision to stop work on the Hudson rail tunnel and an editorial backed him up. But none of the reporters or the editorial page editor questioned -- or even explained -- his authority to do so. Today, we learn the feds got Christie to agree to a two-week "hiatus," whatever that is.


Since the Republican took office in January, the Woodland Park daily has endorsed virtually every one of his decisions, including his slashing and burning of state programs for the middle and working classes, while giving him a pass on his clear favoritism for millionaires such as the Borgs and his wealthy supporters.

Sadly, the staff -- from Editor Francis Scandale to Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin to Washington, Trenton and transportation reporters -- have become nothing more than media whores catering to the governor's every whim. What a disservice to readers.

Is The Record guilty of cultural insensitivity or worse? Most of A-1 today is covered by another article about Korean-Americans in North Jersey, the latest in a series. This is a worthy subject -- focusing on survivors of Japanese sex enslavement -- but what about other immigrant groups? 


A couple of weeks ago, a former columnist wrote an op-ed piece taking the paper to task for omitting Japanese-Americans from an education story. 

I can't recall anything more than an occasional crime story about the God-fearing, hard-working Jamaican community in Englewood, Teaneck and Hackensack from any reporter in the past two decades -- yet head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes bought and ate her fair share of Jamaican black rum cakes. The Jamaican community has been here far longer than the Koreans.

Does it have to do with Jamaicans being black? We know what a shameful job Scandale and Sykes have done in diversifying the newsroom. Scandale even got rid of the paper's only Hispanic and black columnists.

Did you read that A-3 story from The Star-Ledger about the frozen woolly mammoth on display at the Liberty Science Center? Did you read this quote from a science center official: "You've seen those live dinosaurs in movies like 'Jurassic Park'...." Live? Is he kidding? Do I have to say they weren't "live dinosaurs"? More great news copy editing.

Local is another crappy section from Sykes and her staff of assistant assignment editors and municipal reporters. The first Englewood story by Giovanna Fabiano in nearly two months is about the dredging of a pond. No, that's not the same pond dredging you saw in the section the other day.

Sykes and the staff try to catch up with the sex-assault arrest of a Fox 5 news reporter from Wyckoff, allegedly with a 4-year-old girl -- a story that has been all over Jerry DeMarco's Cliffview Pilot.com. Pages L-6 and L-7 are mostly court, police and fire news.