Second look: 9/11 photo, IRS scam, Fidel, climate change

Richard L. Cerbo speaking at a Hackensack City Council meeting on Sept. 1. Cerbo, son of a former mayor, is running in a special Nov. 3 election for an open council seat under the banner of "We can do better." His name appears first on the ballot, which lists three other candidates.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

With another front page dominated by Pope Francis' first visit to the United States, I'm taking a second look today at recent photos and stories that made their own big splash in The Record.

The photo on the front page the day after the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America was simple and moving:

A father flanked by his two sons, all wearing first-responder uniforms, bowing their heads as they looked at the name of a relative at the memorial in lower Manhattan (A-1 on Sept. 12).

Tall and short

But another photo from the same staff photographer, Chris Pedota, showed a rare gathering of officials at the ceremony, including Governors Christie and Cuomo and the former and current mayors of New York City (A-8 on Sept. 12).

Cuomo is only a few inches taller than Christie, who stood next to him, but I'm sure I wasn't the only reader who was reminded of how much more he has done for the people and economy of New York than the GOP bully has done for the Garden State.

Christie's regressive policies and unbending conservatism are the principal reasons New Jersey remains in the shadow of New York and so many other states.

Yet Editor Martin Gottlieb continues to assign several reporters and editors to Christie's so-called presidential campaign while largely neglecting the state's downward spiral.

Cars v. buses

At the other end of the photo, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio towers over his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg may be short, but more than any other previous mayor, he tried and succeeded in taking back the city's streets from cars, and failed only in getting drivers to pay a special toll for entering Midtown.

That story was ignored by The Record, even though tens of thousands of North Jersey residents were affected by the relentless spread of parking meters, red-light cameras, bike lanes, bike-sharing stations and other restrictions.

In New Jersey and at The Record, the car is king, as can be seen from more than a decade of Road Warrior columns examining driving and drivers from every possible angle while ignoring mass transit and related commuting issues.

Mounting traffic congestion at the Hudson River crossings, despite higher tolls, increases pollution and speeds climate change, but the Port Authority hasn't been criticized for refusing to expand rail and bus service into Manhattan.

It's not clear whether that coverage has anything to do with all of the advertising from car dealers and manufacturers in the Woodland Park daily, revenue that is helping to keep the Borg family's North Jersey Media Group afloat.

IRS scams

Kudos to Staff Writer Chris Harris for his riveting expose on IRS scams in New Jersey, including a sidebar recounting his phone call "with a group of IRS scammers," that led the paper on Sept. 18.

I may have missed it, but Harris could have made the point the Internal Revenue Service always sends notices about back taxes or tax underpayments by good, old-fashioned snail mail.

So just hang up if you get a call from someone claiming to be from the IRS.

Cuba coverage

The coverage of Cuba and Pope Francis' visit to the largest island in the Caribbean was especially weak (last Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday), principally because most of it was handled by long-winded Columnist Mike Kelly, who was sent to Havana.

Much of his reporting sounded like an echo of what The Record published the last time a pope visited Cuba.

However, the photos with his columns were supplied by a freelancer, not a staff photographer, in another sign the Woodland Park daily is cutting corners.

One story Kelly didn't cover was the meeting of Francis and Fidel Castro.

Castro, 89, has often been demonized by the media, especially in the years when The Record assigned two Cuban exiles, Miguel Perez and Liz Llorente, to cover the onetime Cuban leader.

Climate change

I chuckled when I read a Washington Post story on The Record's A-6 on Monday reporting "the two [Francis and Fidel] ... discussed their mutual concerns about climate change."

That same day, the editors gave front-page coverage to owners of gasoline-engine cars who spend many thousands of dollars to lower them.

Yet, I have yet to see equal time on A-1 for owners of purely electric vehicles and others drivers who are trying to help the environment.

Every time the price of gasoline drops, The Record trots out a celebratory story on how much drivers are saving, but ignores the impact of more driving on pollution and climate change.

Editors are covering Cuba with the same tired old eyes

In a 2004 photo, a Havana resident standing near a beautifully restored 1956 Chevy in a parking lot off of Calle Carlos III.

Belarmino Rico, left, and son Joseph carving roast pork for Cuban sandwiches at La Pola, a busy West New York cafe. The elder Rico's crispy sandwiches, moistened with a garlic sauce, have earned him the title of "King of the Cuban Sandwich."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

U.S.-Cuba relations may be improving, but little has changed in the way The Record's cynical editors are covering the story.

A large photo on Page 1 today shows jubilant residents of Havana after President Obama announced the resumption of diplomatic relations.

Still, Editor Marty Gottlieb managed to find an 82-year-old hag who vows not to return to the island she left in 1965 until Fidel Castro dies (A-1 and A-10).

Ana Pulido Nordelo is the same type of hard-liner The Record has been quoting prominently in Cuba stories for ages. 

The photo of a moderate should have been used on the front page and his or her quotes are the ones that should be leading the local Cuban-American reaction story on A-10 today.

Exile coverage

Today's coverage is only slightly better than when The Record assigned reporters Miguel Perez and Liz Llorente, who were rabid anti-Castro Cuban exiles, to every major story about the island.

In one of her stories, Llorente even referred to Cuba as "tiny," apparently unaware that it is, in fact, more than 775 miles long and the biggest island in the Caribbean.

7 trips to Cuba

When I was working at The Record, I made seven trips to Cuba as a journalist.

I was the first staffer to write a Travel section cover piece, "Many faces of Cuba," published on March 26, 2000, after two years of resistance from then-Editor Glenn Ritt.

I followed that with two Food section cover stories on Cuban cooking, including one on the best Cuban sandwich in North Jersey that appeared on Feb. 26, 2003.

My story followed a New York Times story that focused exclusively on Cuban sandwiches in Miami.

Little crime

On my trips to Cuba, I found an island with little violent crime and no drug problem, and one where school shootings were unheard of.

I recall walking all over Havana at night without fear, even when frequent blackouts plunged streets into darkness. 

I would never do that in Manhattan or even my native Brooklyn. 

Before the 1959 revolution condemned by so many in the exile community, wealth was concentrated in the hands of a white ruling class, farmers were not allowed to own the land they worked and rural areas had no schools or medical clinics.

Of course, you never read any of this in The Record or other media, which continued to demonize Fidel Castro even after the United States climbed into bed economically with two other hard-line communist countries, Vietnam and China.

Also on Page 1

The only angle chief word pusher Mike Kelly could find to explore is Joanne Chesimard, who escaped to Cuba after she was convicted of the 1973 murder of a New Jersey state trooper (A-1).

Of course, Kelly can't even manage to craft a logical lead paragraph:

First, he has "animosity between the United States and Cuba seemed to thaw" followed by "another old and painful memory in New Jersey heated up."

"Thaw" and "heated up" are basically the same thing. The contrast he intended isn't there. 

You're left to stare at the shit-eating grin in his photo, and wonder if Kelly is showing any sign of brain activity.

After New Jersey's disappointing experience with casinos in Atlantic City, why would any resident who is not a gambling addict approve games of chance in North Jersey (A-1)?

Check out the three embarrassing corrections on A-2 today -- no surprise with six-figure Editor Liz Houlton in charge of production.

Dog lovers

The lazy assignment editors managed to find another dog-rescue story for the Local front today, following the one on Wednesday (L-1).

What about cat lovers? Don't they deserve to have their heart strings tugged?

Forgive me, but who can feel any sympathy for luxury car owners who allege they were cheated out of many thousands of dollars by a flashy Ramsey auto dealer whose last name rhymes with "con"?

Today's L-1 story reports the FBI is asking for the public's help in finding Bobby Kahn, and the federal agency's phone number appears in the second paragraph.

Give me a break. What kind of crime busters are these?

Tenafly news

Does Tenafly get more coverage than other towns because Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives there?

On L-3 today, a story on the borough's success in luring businesses downtown is unlike anything The Record has reported for Teaneck, Englewood or Hackensack.

Stories on Hackensack focus exclusively on the hopes of officials that apartment development will bring many more residents and potential downtown shoppers and restaurant customers, a strategy that has already failed in Englewood.

'False' post?

A careful reader of Eye on The Record claims my Dec. 10 post was wrong when I reported the younger Borg "moved the printing of The Record and Herald News to a printing plant in Rockaway Township, and ordered a major downsizing of the staff in 2008."

"Mr. Borg played no role in those decisions," the reader says.

The younger Borg became publisher of The Record and Herald News in June 2006, supplanting his father, Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg.

Stephen Borg was named president of North Jersey Media Group in late 2007.

It's hard to see how, in view of his commanding positions, he  "played no role" in those major decisions.

More slanted Cuba coverage

Image via Wikipedia

Except for the colors, the Cuban flag, above, and the flag of Puerto Rico are identical.

Editor Francis Scandale made sure only two staffers wrote about Cuba for The Record. Both were Cuban exiles who hated Fidel Castro and who turned out one slanted story after another -- quoting the same anti-Castro Cubans year after year. Did Scandale's wife, who is Cuban, have any influence on that policy?

The reporters, Miguel Perez and Liz Llorente, are no longer with the Woodland Park daily. But the paper's strong anti-Cuba stance continues, despite increasingly moderate views among Cuban-Americans and other readers.

The Record and other media continue to treat Cuba as if it is still a U.S. colony, and deliberately portray the Caribbean's biggest island in negative terms. I recall that Llorente once even called Cuba "tiny" in the lead paragraph of one of her stories.

Not close, no cigar

Today's Page 1 story is by Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano, who isn't Cuban, but she uses the same loaded language Perez and Llorente did, and through ignorance or deliberate malice, leaves out Cuba's many positives.

The story and headline -- "Anniversary divides Cuban passions" -- are almost identical to many stories The Record ran in the past decade. As usual, Fabiano makes no mention of the U.S. economic embargo and how it has slowed the island's growth.

She invokes "the fabulous [19]50s" and Cuba's "glory days," but ignores that era's deeply ingrained racial and economic inequality; the lack of health care and schools in rural areas, the Mafia-run casino-hotels; and the live, biracial sex shows for American tourists.

Today's story, as did those in the past, makes no mention of free education, health care and food rations enjoyed by all Cubans; the lack of gun violence and the absence of a drug problem.

Crackpot on A-1

The rest of the front page is a joke. 

Why is Scott Garrett, the arch-conservative congressman from Wantage, given a bully pulpit for his radical notion the federal government shouldn't spend money on public education and local transportation projects?

Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson reports the Tea Party supports Garrett. Wonder why Jackson -- in covering a Tea Party rally in Washington -- failed to mention the banner comparing President Obama's health-care plan to the Holocaust?

Slam-skunk

What's the new owner of the Nets doing on the front of the Local section, which is fast becoming a garbage can as head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her lazy minions scramble to fill empty columns.

A photo-graphics package on L-1 reports North Jerseyans are more likely to take public transportation to work than workers nationwide, but doesn't address why transportation reporters Karen Rouse and John Cichowski are so lazy they refuse to ride mass transit and assess the quality of bus and train service in their stories or columns.

Nor is there a photo of public transportation with the package -- only cars. When you don't cover mass transit, you won't have any file photos of buses or trains. It's as simple as that.

No Hackensack or Teaneck (or Ridgewood or Westwood or Fort Lee) stories appear in Local today, and the dull Englewood story is by a weekly reporter.