Official incompetence gets a pass

Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, a city of haves and have-nots. When did The Record last publish a story on the high school's desegregation effort?

 
The Record today winks at official incompetence -- just as Editor Marty Gottlieb ignores the stubborn incompetence of all of the sub-editors he inherited at the end of January.

The front of the Business section is filled with a glowing profile of Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and her supposedly key role in Governor Christie's "business-friendly" push (A-1 and B-1).

What a joke. The state's unemployment rate is above 9% -- the highest in decades and higher than the nation's.

Maybe Guadagno should start sleeping with wealthy CEOs and small-business owners to get them to hire more workers.

Business Editor Bill Donnellon and Staff Writer Juliet Fletcher have already prostituted themselves with this ridiculous Guadagno story.

Christie's bribes -- in the form of hundreds of millions in business tax breaks and freedom from an income-tax surcharge -- have been miserable failures.

Crime on A-1

Gottlieb leads Page 1 of today's Sunday edition with a crime story, and another follow-up on a plan to "radically alter the landscape of Garret Mountain" -- The Record's home since 2009.

The third, major front-page story today only serves to remind readers of the paper's largely negative coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement a year ago (A-1).

Little local news

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, do their usual poor job with the Local news section.

The big news from Englewood is "fancy" Belgian block curbs replacing concrete -- not further strides in desegregating Dwight Morrow High School (L-3).

Sykes and Sforza couldn't find any Hackensack or Teaneck news today.

Road Warrior John Cichowski again ignores the needs of commuters with his flattering portrait of the Fort Lee Municipal Court judge (L-1).

The only mass transit news in the paper is on L-3 -- a photo and story relating how a train destroyed a gas-guzzling, polluting SUV.

The driver should get a public service award.

Back to Business

A consumer column on the Business front today quotes a trade association executive explaining the downsizing of food products as giving it to "demand ... for smaller packages."

Then, how does Food Institute President Brian Todd and Columnist Kevin DeMarrais explain the wild popularity of big sizes at Costco Wholesale, where you can still buy a 64-ounce half-gallon of Tropicana orange juice?

Despite a monthly trip "to check out prices and trends in North Jersey supermarkets," DeMarrais also continues to ignore organic food and naturally raised meat and poultry.

On a sugar high

On the Better Living front today, you'll find a rambling column from Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung, who refers to Utah and California in describing the experience of dining out in North Jersey (BL-1).

After at least three long front-page stories last week on the identification of Patricia Viola, who disappeared in 2001, couldn't Columnist Mike Kelly find anything else to write about (O-1)? 

He should disappear.

Mile High journalism

Did anybody read the cover story on Denver by klutzy Travel Editor Jill Schensul (T-1)?

Former newsroom staffers took one look and put the section in the recycling bin -- to avoid painful reminders of how Denver newspaper veteran Francis "Frank" Scandale screwed up The Record in his 11-plus years as editor.

Editors railroad readers again

Image via Wikipedia

Fencing shown in foreground is hard to find along many stretches of track.

Does NJ Transit have a responsibility to try and keep teens and others from using active railroad tracks as shortcuts, often with fatal consequences? 


Do the editors of The Record, Francis Scandale and Deirdre Sykes, have a responsibility to question the state mass-transit agency on what counter- measures it takes -- such as fences and guards?


The answer is "yes" on both. But you won't find anything in the paper today on how NJ Transit contributes to pedestrian deaths by leaving wide stretches of track unfenced or unguarded.


Same tragic story


Just over a year ago, a 12-year-old Hackensack Middle School student was killed on the tracks along Railroad Avenue as he walked home from school. 


The stories didn't even mention how block upon block of track through that residential-industrial neighborhood are unfenced (or that Hackensack provides no public-school busing, exposing students to danger).


The Record's assignment editors are more comfortable with the NJ Transit corporate line every time a train kills a pedestrian: the victim was "trespassing," the train could not stop in time, the engineer blew his horn, and blah, blah, blah.


Mother's anguish


In the last two paragraphs of today's Page 1 story on the deaths of two teens in Wayne, the mother of victim Nicholas Sabina, 17, says NJ Transit needs "to take steps to improve security at the trestle (A-6)."


Even though four reporters worked on the story, her statement is just thrown in there as an afterthought, and the transit agency wasn't even asked for comment.


The Wayne teens were killed Sunday night and a Garfield teen was killed by a train on Monday afternoon, so why are there separate stories on A-1 and L-1 today?


I guess Sykes' famously lazy assignment desk couldn't get their tushes moving fast enough to put all three deaths in one package on Page 1, as a real newspaper would do.


Or Scandale couldn't be bothered to tear up the A-1 layout to get all three deaths out front.


The caption under the A-1 photo of the Wayne trestle where the teens died says it's "known to be used as a shortcut to Willowbrook Mall." That's awkward. How about, "a well-known shortcut to Willowbrook Mall"?


And is "encounter" an appropriate word for the drop headline, when two teens suffered horrible deaths and a third was seriously injured?


Christie lap dog


The off-lead A-1 story is a column by Staff Writer Charles Stile, who calls on Governor Christie to finish his first term, not run for president -- exactly what an editorial said on Monday.


In his second paragraph, Stile says Christie "engaged New Jersey in a grand debate."


What a hoot. Revisionist history already. What debate? The GOP bully used his executive powers or veto anytime the Democrats passed a bill he opposed, including the so-called millionaires tax.


(The New York Times reported at 11:09 a.m. today Christie will not seek the presidency, so we're stuck with him.)


Scandale is doing everything in his power to keep the occupation of Wall Street off of Page 1, reaching all the way to Perugia, Italy, to make the Amanda Knox story the third element on A-1 today.


C'mon, Francis. Wall Street. The seat of power. It's just across the river. This is a lot bigger than A-4 news.


Local news drought


The last Hackensack municipal story appeared on Sept. 21, and there's none today, either.


Sykes' assignment minions really are hurting for local news today, filling nearly half of L-3 with stories that belong on the Business pages.


Staff Writer Karen Sudol must have re-written a press release to get her lead paragraph on Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno (L-3). 


She wrote the official "continued to show state government's support for Garden State businesses by visiting two companies in North Jersey ...."