Prosecutor's embargo spooks editors and reporters

For frustrated commuters, North Jersey has it all: Narrow, antiquated streets; bus and rail service with not enough seats; and exorbitant tolls. On Passaic Street in Hackensack, a major commuting thoroughfare, above, traffic backs up for nearly a block behind a bus that stopped near Summit Avenue. Passaic and Summit is a major bottleneck for another reason: No turn lanes on Passaic.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

You don't have to be a police reporter or homicide detective to know that when there are no signs of forced entry, it's a good bet the victim knew her killer.

But if you are a sheepish editor or reporter at The Record, covering the murder of 23-year-old Mary Greff, a single mom in Waldwick, you go only with what Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli tells you.

In today's sensational Page 1 story, Molinelli is quoted in the third paragraph as saying "it was too early to reveal the identity of potential suspects" (A-1).

Too early for what?

Suspect charged

Readers, of course, know how this tortured tale ends, as finally reported on NorthJersey.com at 11:34 a.m. today: the ex-boyfriend, Mark Spatucci, 22, of Midland Park was charged with first-degree murder.

He was arrested Wednesday, the day Greff was found strangled "with her baby lying unharmed in a bassinet nearby," and that arrest should have been in today's paper.

Apparently, none of the four reporters who worked on the story -- or any of the local editors screaming about the sky falling back in the Woodland Park newsroom  -- bothered to ask Molinelli if the ex-boyfriend was a suspect or owned the black Volkswagen investigators were looking for (A-1).

Another natural question is whether the victim, who lived with her parents, was seeking sole custody of her infant son after breaking up with Spatucci.

Kelly's failures 

Mike Kelly and The Record's other lame columnists should make time to read Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald (Opinion, A-21).

In a quarter of the space taken up by the long-winded Kelly, who delights in pushing around thousands of words to little effect, Pitts makes clear exactly how he feels about America's "enslavement of Africans and forced removal of American Indians."

Pitts delivers his opinion, forcefully and eloquently, while Kelly's columns are merely an assemblage of information and quotes that are indistinguishable from news stories.  

Alpine and Paterson

Molinelli isn't the only law enforcer who isn't talking to The Record, according to an L-1 story on the collision of a motorcycle and Alpine police cruiser in Paterson.

The police officer from the wealthy Bergen County town ran a stop sign, according to an eyewitness.

Was the cop visiting the impoverished city to testify in state Superior Court? The story doesn't say.

Weak local report

There is a second Paterson story on L-2, but no Teaneck or Hackensack news, as Deputy Assignment Flunky Dan Sforza continues to struggle during the prolonged absence of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes.

However, Sforza learned well from Sykes, and found a good deal of filler, including: 

An L-1 story on the mayoral contest in far-off Wayne, and the photo of a 2-vehicle accident in Paramus (L-3).

A short break

Eye on The Record will return next week, but readers should brace themselves for more crappy work from Kelly, Road Warrior John Cichowski and the other assorted hacks at the paper.

My gun is bigger than your gun

The Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas serves Flatliner Fries, and a Quadruple Bypass Burger that contains 9,982 calories. A promoter of the restaurant died of a heart attack at 52, The Record reported today.  (Wikipedia)

Gun owners are feeling inadequate under an assault of gun-control bills in New Jersey, the latest wave of new proposals and laws after the massacre of innocent children in Newtown, Conn.

A Page 1 story in The Record today declares:

Crowd

jeers call 

for gun 

control  

These putzes somehow have duped the media and the courts into believing the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the individual right to bear arms, when nothing could be farther from the truth.

They defend the personal ownership of assault rifles, shotguns and other obvious phallic symbols out of some feeling of male inadequacy, and in the process indict the police for not being able to protect us from violence.

'Pay to play'

In other news, The Record today continues to add up all the "pay to play" contributions by New Jersey companies to the Republican Governors Association, a big booster of Governor Christie (A-1).

Christie was jeered by relatives of the developmentally disabled who oppose the closing of two state institutions in North Jersey -- in another sign of the GOP bully's commitment to the common man (A-1).

Queen of Errors

Two more long corrections appear on A-2 today -- the tip of the iceberg under the six-figure Queen of Errors, Liz Houlton, the paper's so-called production editor.

On A-6, the latest story in unprecedented coverage of mass transit reports Sandy damage to rail cars and locomotives (A-6) was underestimated, but readers have seen little about crowding and the overall quality of bus and train service.

Seizure Shake

A 52-year-old man who dressed as a hospital patient to promote the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas died of -- you guessed it -- a heart attack (A-15).

"It's a dark, cautionary tale," the American Heart Association says. "Heart disease is still the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. Nutrition and what we put into our bodies [play a] significant role in the heart health of an individual."

When was the last time you read anything resembling that message in The Record's food pages?

Seat belts, naps

On A-18, an editorial takes Sen. Barbara Buono -- the Democratic gubernatorial candidate -- to task for not using a seat belt without mentioning that Christie doesn't need one: 

He's wedged into the back seat of his massive state police SUV, and his body fat serves as a natural air bag in the event of an accident.

I had a hard time following the message from Columnist Leonard Pitts Jr., but I'm sure Christie's morbid obesity says nothing about me or the tens of millions of fit people who go to the gym regularly and watch what they eat (A-19).

From the looks of today's Local section, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, never awoke from their afternoon naps.

Setting Record straight

A concerned reader found errors in the Pulaski Skyway press release that formed the basis of a Road Warrior column on Jan. 13.

The reader got the state Department of Transporation to correct the mistakes, and then made sure Wikipedia's entry on the skyway was linked to the corrected release, not the Road Warrior column.

He alerted The Record as well:

"The enormous NJDOT organization had enough decency and integrity to listen to me and correct 2 mistakes it made in a Jan. 10 press release about the Pulaski Skyway.

"I updated the Wikipedia page for the Pulaski Skyway that, unfortunately, had one of these mistakes referenced by the Road Warrior Jan. 13 article.  I removed all Road Warrior article references and changed it to the Jan. 10 NJDOT press release.

"Road Warrior mistakes are confusing Record readers.  Wikipedia readers should not be confused by the same unsubstantiated or senseless mistakes.

"It would be helpful if The Record and Road Warrior had enough decency and integrity to start correcting and preventing Road Warrior mistakes that I bring to your attention.

"It could start with 6 mistakes I mentioned with his Jan. 13 column about Pulaski Skyway."

Read the full e-mail on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Another Polish joke from John Cichowski