Editors run fake and real horse races on the front page

At Newark Liberty International Airport's Terminal C this morning, this departure level was relatively calm. The airport's cellphone lot still is hard to find because there are no signs at airport entrances that direct drivers there. Follow signs for "Rental Car Returns" and "South Area," then you'll see signs directing you to the lot.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Nearly 11 months before the major party conventions and nearly 15 months before the election itself, can anyone predict how close the 2016 presidential contest will be?

Of course not, but that doesn't stop the media from engaging in endless rounds of speculation on the nominees and who worries whom, such as today's Page 1 story in The Record.

Editors and reporters are so bored they have to manufacture a horse race every four years as a way of trying to engage readers whose real interest are the issues that affect their every day life -- such as the environment, gun control, Social Security and Medicare.

The Record's editor, New York Times veteran Martin Gottlieb, and the people running most of the nation's media shy away from exploring important issues, preferring to report extensively on the political conflict that has paralyzed Congress, and given birth to the "sound bite."

More manure

For the only real horse race on the front page today, see the disappointing performance of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, whose wealthy owner lives in Teaneck.

The report from the spa town of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., was written by veteran sports reporter John Rowe, whose newsroom demeanor resembles that of a funeral director.

Gender change

A-1 is dominated today by a sensitive piece on a soldier's gender change from Staff Writer Todd South, the Hackensack reporter who is a veteran of the Afghanistan war.

In a Tweet today, South called the piece on Jennifer Long of Kearny "a story that took a lot of work but was worth it."

That may explain why Hackensack readers haven't seen any stories about the city from him recently, including in today's Local section.

The gender-change story continues on A-12 and A-13 -- totaling nearly two full newspaper pages -- making one wonder how many readers will stay with it to the end. 

Local news?

Readers' eyes continue to roll over the complete breakdown of editing and fact-checking, despite such six-figure newsroom editors as Deirdre Sykes and Liz Houlton.

A typo in the first paragraph of a local obituary for a World War II fighter pilot is so obvious readers wonder how everyone -- assignment editor, news editor, copy editor, copy desk supervisor, page proofer and Houlton or their stand ins -- could possibly have missed it.

"The Battle of the Bulge" is rendered as "The Battle of the Budge."

Opinion section?

The copy of The Record thrown onto my driveway today is missing the Opinion section, which includes the lone Margulies cartoon of the week.

Click on the following link to see the cartoon, one of the few mentions of Governor Christie in today's paper:

California's drought is getting worse ...

Gravely injured comedian rode in limo van prone to rollover

A busy crosswalk near the J.C. Penney entrance to Westfield Garden State Plaza was closed on Saturday afternoon, prompting many visitors to cross where there was no crosswalk or pedestrian signal, below. The Paramus mall, the biggest in the state, apparently couldn't find an employee to help shoppers cross the road, as it does when that crosswalk is open.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Federal auto safety officials have expressed concern about the high rollover risk of the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van similar to the one involved in a crash that left comedian Tracy Morgan in critical condition.

On A-3 today, the Record used an Associated Press story about the New Jersey Turnpike chain-reaction crash on Saturday that left a fellow comedian dead and two others seriously hurt.

The driver of the Walmart tractor-trailer that rammed Morgan's Mercedes-Benz "limo bus" has been charged with death by auto, the wire service reported.

But the story makes no mention of National Highway Transportation Safety Administration officials who rated the 2012 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 2500 Van's risk of rollover at 84.3%.

The vehicle -- on which the limo bus is based -- was given a safety rating of one star, the lowest on the 5-star safety scale, according to safecar.gov, the NHTSA Web site. 

I have spoken to drivers of the M-B Sprinter Van who say they have to be careful when turning corners because of the vehicle's high center of gravity.

Morgan's vehicle ended up on its side. The AP story also neglects to mention whether the comedian and other passengers were wearing seat belts or were protected by air bags.

Horse's asses

Today's front page carries a story on Saturday's Belmont Stakes by Staff Writer John Rowe, a lifer.

What a waste of space. Which horse's ass in the newsroom decided to give this turd of a story Page 1 play?

A-1 also brings us yet another column speculating on what Governor Christie's former chief of staff will tell investigators about the George Washington Bridge lane closures in Democratic Fort Lee.

Columnist Charles Stile could have written just one word: "Nothing."

Older drivers

On the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski wastes our time with another boring column on teen drivers (L-1).

Cichowski knows older drivers like himself are the ones who need safety retraining, but he has resisted reporting on that issue since he took over the column in 2003.

Teaneck reporter Aaron Morrison should get a bonus for being one of the few writers who profile prominent residents while they are still alive (L-1).

Today, he writes about jazz photographer Chuck Stewart.

On the Business front, a photo caption shows Taro Eizumi outside Fort Lee's BNB Hana Bank, which "caters to Korean-Americans" (B-1).

But judging from his last name, Eizumi is Japanese, not Korean.

Selling out

Staff Writer Elisa Ung today has a second column about no-show restaurant customers, as if this is such an overwhelming problem (BL-1).

If she chose to write about issues facing customers in her column, The Corner Table, she could do 52 columns a year on the slave wages restaurant owners pay servers and how they expect the customer to tip well to make up the difference.

Drew Nieporent, John Pilourias and the other wealthy restaurateurs or chefs she quotes have duped her into ignoring this conflict.

When the kitchen burns your food or serves you cheap fish instead of the red snapper listed on the menu, what are you going to do? 

If you stiff the server, you're letting the owner off of the hook, but isn't that the whole point of the corrupt tipping system?

Tipping likely tops restaurant customers' complaints, but it's been a few years since Ung even made any attempt to discuss the issue.

And we know why. Restaurant advertising is a major source of revenue for North Jersey Media Group.

Ung is not about to bite the hand that feeds her. OK. She eats enough for two or three. So, it's the hand that stuffs her face.

Haggard traveler

Travel Editor Jill Schensul likely shocked readers a week ago, when she published "selfies" of her haggard face on a bad-hair day -- a stark contrast to her column's thumbnail photo (T-1).

Today, the column photo, which was taken more than a decade ago, appears on the Travel front above one of her selfies.

Other outdated column photos appear in the paper today: Mike Kelly's shit-eating grin on O-1, and John Rowe's uncharacteristic smile on A-1.

Poor Virginia Rohan. A new, unattractive column photo of The Record's TV writer has been used for the past few months, showing her bloated face.

Saturday's paper

Lodi and Hackensack taxpayers' blood was boiling after reading stories on A-1 and L-3 of Saturday's paper.

Lodi Police Chief Vincent Caruso is one in a long line of department heads who collect hundreds of thousands of dollars for unused time off -- in his case, $342,000, according to the front-page account.

The Record has never questioned why Christie put a ceiling on the salaries of school superintendents, but not on police chiefs, or failed to reform these outrageous payouts.

In Hackensack, allies of the disgraced Zisa family, which ran the city for decades, may cost taxpayers $20,000, according to a report from Staff Writer Christopher Maag.

The $20,000 would cover legal fees in a dispute over copies of bills submitted by City Attorney Thomas Scrivo between October and Jan. 15, Maag reported.

Maag notes the new City Council "fired Richard Salkin, the city attorney with close ties to the Zisa family and to city Democratic Party Chairwoman Lynn Hurwitz, and replaced him with Scrivo."

But that is wrong. Salkin, a double dipper, was municipal prosecutor as well as Board of Education attorney.  He continues in the school board job.

I didn't see a correction in today's paper.

Masterful editing

In Saturday's lead story on Page 1, I didn't see a single reference to the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks Christie has given wealthy business owners and the pitifully few jobs created in return.

The story reported the national economy has replaced all of the jobs lost in the recession, but New Jersey "so far has recovered only half of its vanished jobs."

This kind of irresponsible editing ensured the GOP bully's reelection last November, despite one of the worst records of any New Jersey governor.

Editors ignore broken home-rule system

A relative of Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza was an editor at one of Italy's first newspapers. Here, he prays for good news.

The big front-page news today is an apparent sickout by more than 100 members of the public school staff in Englewood.

But The Record's editors don't explore the real story: the broken home-rule system of financing education.

Even the headline is inaccurate, lumping in school secretaries with teachers and professional assistants, who are called "educators."

Lazy editors

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza both covered Englewood as reporters -- Sykes for a weekly newspaper, Sforza for The Record -- but their coverage of the city's schools in the past decade couldn't be more flawed.

Despite reaping property taxes from hundreds of big homes on the East Hill -- including the mansion of Chairman and former Publisher  Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg -- and from a large industrial area, the city has allowed its public schools to limp along.

Minority schools

The elementary and middle schools are mostly black and Hispanic, and there hasn't been a story about desegregation efforts at the high school for a couple of years.

Wealthy residents on a panel advising the mayor recommended and eventually pushed through cuts in public library funding. 

And a Hebrew charter school threatens to grab hundreds of thousands of dollars in public school funds to educate rich students.

$4 million deficit

Finally, do two large private-school campuses hurt the public schools by luring away most of the white students, and just how much does their tax-exempt status cost the city? 

Sykes and Sforza don't think any of that is important.

In the past three days, The Record has reported the school district faces a $4 million deficit and hopes to save $2 million by outsourcing the jobs of teaching assistants and school secretaries, but readers remain in the dark on what caused the deficit.

Horsing around

Editor Marty Gottlieb doesn't seem to notice the holes in the Englewood coverage, preferring to devote valuable space on Page 1 today to the enormous value of a race horse's schlong.

Staff Writer John Rowe is a sports columnist who has been covering horse racing so long he appears to have been embalmed.

But his A-1 piece today doesn't answer the question in every reader's mind: Just how big is a horse's $10 million penis?

Railroading readers

The front of Sykes' Local section focuses today on pedestrians who "trespass" near railroad tracks and ignores whether NJ Transit had added any safety measures to prevent deaths and suicides (L-1).

There is so little news from Hackensack and other towns, Sykes and Sforza needed a photo of a minor minivan fire on Paterson's Eastside to fill out L-2 of the Bergen Edition.

Sforza sent out the ambulance-chasing photographer so late, the photo shows four firefighters, standing next to the vehicle and bullshiting.