More bad journalism: False Bridgegate trial story, column

The upper level toll plaza of the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee in September 2013 (Credit: The New York Times).

Editor's note: Today's post has been revised and expanded.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In a major error on Page 1 today, The Record says the federal judge at the Bridgegate trial has already instructed the jury on the law.

Also on A-1 today, Staff Writer John Cichowski, The Record's pathetic excuse for a commuting columnist, quotes one of his moronic readers comparing the Bridgegate trial to the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals after World War II.

The conspiracy trial of two of Governor Christie's ex-aides, Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, opened on Sept. 19, and the judge instructs the jury on the law governing the charges only after prosecutors and defense attorneys sum up their cases.

This morning, U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton postponed those closing arguments until Friday, apparently to resolve defense objections to proposed instructions that jurors should ignore the political motive for the lane closings.

Kelly is charged with sending an email to David Wildstein, Christie's crony at the Port Authority -- "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" -- that set into motion five mornings of gridlock, starting on Sept. 9, 2013, the first day of school.

The traffic jams were intended to punish Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, for refusing to endorse Christie's reelection, prosecutors say. 

Missing type

At least nine words of Cichowski's Road Warrior column between the front page and the continuation page (A-6) went missing due to a production error.

The complete column appears online.

His first paragraph names five "victims" who were "trapped in their cars" when two of three Fort Lee access lanes to the bridge were closed.  

"Bridget Kelly is a single mother who was worried about losing her job, but that's not a good enough defense," says Hyla Epstein. "It's a self-serving argument" (A-6).

In an exaggeration typical of the column, Cichowski says Epstein "recalled nearly being trapped in her Fort Lee home by gridlock for most of the week."

So, I guess we can assume cars caught in the traffic jam mounted the sidewalk and blocked Epstein's front door.

Trial coverage

The biggest flaw in The Record's coverage of the Bridgegate trial was the editors' decision to assign reporters who apparently have little or no experience covering trials in federal court.

Two of those reporters are Paul Berger, who is assigned to the Port Authority; and Dustin Racioppi, a reporter in Trenton who covers Christie.

That can be the only explanation for why Racioppi's report today on a "closed meeting with lawyers" says incorrectly that the judge "read the charges to the jury, a routine procedure in criminal cases so that each member [of the jury panel] understands instructions on how to deliberate" (A-6).

The sub-headline on Page 1 says:

"Jury told to ignore possible

 motivation for alleged scheme"

His reporting and the sub-headline are flawed, because the judge instructs the jury on the law governing the charges in the case right before they start their secret deliberations, and does so in open court.

Since both prosecutors and defense attorneys haven't given their closing arguments, the judge couldn't have read the instructions, which usually are so extensive and complicated they can put even an experienced lawyer to sleep.

Columnist who spins Christie's every word can't help now

From New Jersey native Christopher Weyant of The New Yorker magazine.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Even after prosecutors and defense lawyers in the federal Bridgegate trial fingered Governor Christie, The Record tries mightily to put his actions in the best light.

The first paragraph of the Page 1 news story today isn't filled -- as it should be -- with prosecutors' bombshell allegation that Christie knew about the George Washington Bridge lane closings as they were occurring in September 2013, and knew they were retaliation against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee.

Instead, the lead paragraph reports for the umpteenth time in the last three years Christie "has not been charged with a crime or found to have direct knowledge or involvement in the scheme" to to punish Mayor Mark Sokolich for not endorsing the governor's reelection (A-1).

This isn't how a news story on opening statements in court is supposed to be written, though it fits with The Record's history of treating the GOP thug far less harshly than does The Star-Ledger and other dailies in the state.

It also fits with The Record being the only major daily in the state that has refused to call for the governor to resign after endorsing wacko racist Donald J. Trump for president.

Meanwhile, political Columnist Charles Stile, the paper's chief apologist for Christie's mean-spirited policies, is beside himself today over the governor having "no one in the courtroom to defend him" (A-1).

And he goes on and on in that vein for thousands of words.

Also evident is sloppy editing of Stile's second paragraph.

'Ventriloquist doll'

"When David Wildstein spoke, Governor Christie's voice came out and everybody knew it," defense attorney Michael Baldassare told the jury on Monday (A-4).

Evidence will show that Wildstein "looks like a ventriloquist doll sitting on Christopher J. Christie's lap," the lawyer said.

Wildstein, a Christie crony who was deputy executive director of the Port Authority, pleaded guilty and will be the government's star witness against two former Christie associates, Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni, who are being tried on conspiracy and other charges.

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Kelly told Wildstein in an email before upper level access lanes to the PA-owned and operated bridge were closed for five days in September 2013.

A photo on A-4 today shows Christie, Baroni and Wildstein allegedly discussing the lane closings at the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2013, as they were occurring.

Local crime news

The front of today's local-news section is completely devoted to crime and court news, and reaction to the arrest of a Muslim who is charged in the Elizabeth bombings (L-1).

Still, the local editors needed two long wire service obituaries and a large photo of a burning bus on Route 23 in Butler to plug holes in the section (L-6).

'Bridgegate' won't be over until the fat guy sings

The owner of an expensive SUV risks a ticket by parking illegally around the corner from the post office in Hackensack -- and across the street from police headquarters. Limited parking at meters and glacial service inside the post office combine to make a visit there as unpleasant as possible.  

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

After days of intensive "Bridgegate" coverage, Governor Christie's State of the State address this afternoon was full of anticlimax.

Christie spent only a few moments on the lane-closure scandal, noting the past week had "tested this administration."

"We let the people down," the GOP bully said, adding he will cooperate in the multiple inquiries into what he called a "breach of trust."

But he vowed the investigations won't be allowed to delay the work of his second term.

"I am the leader of this state and its people," he said firmly.

He used the word "bipartisan" a half-dozen times or so, but didn't mention any of his first-term vetoes. 

Boring.

Today's paper

The Record today delivered another wave of stories, columns and letters to the editor on the Christie administration plot to tie up traffic at the Fort Lee end of the George Washington Bridge in early September (A-1, A-5, A-6, A-8 and A-9).

The package is poorly edited.

On Page 1, the lead story on the state Legislature's investigative panels asks "whether the action was ordered to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing" Christie's reelection campaign.

On A-5, Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, finally recalls being called at least twice last year and asked whether he could ever endorse Christie, a recollection backed up by two colleagues.

And a story on the same page -- reporting a damage lawsuit by cabbies caught in four days of upper-level gridlock -- states "the governor's staff and bridge executives backed up the George Washington Bridge as payback against a political opponent [Sokolich]" (A-5).

Bodies galore

Deputy Assignment Edtor Dan Sforza assembled a Local section filled with sensational news:

A coffin contained the wrong body, a Lodi man was dropped off at a hospital with multiple gunshot wounds and a young Leonia man was killed in the collapse of a Philadelphia apartment fire escape (L-1 and L-3).

Christie: Vindictive leader or totally in the dark?

Fort Lee Borough Hall, where Governor Christie apologized to Democratic Mayor Mark Sokolich on Thursday afternoon for four days of politically inspired gridlock at the George Washington Bridge in early September. The visit by Christie and a media flash mob closed streets and caused traffic mayhem in the borough.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Three more pages of Bridgegate coverage in The Record today is missing even an attempt to answer the biggest question at the center of the growing scandal.

Are we to believe that Governor Christie remained in the dark until this week -- despite hundreds of e-mails  circulating among his top aides and cronies at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (A-1, A-6 and A-7)?

Christie, the GOP bully who seems more suited to the roll of vindictive leader, claims he was lied to by a top aide and only learned about the plot to tie up Fort Lee traffic from a media report on Wednesday morning.

A victim?

Syndicated columnist Mark Shields, a commentator on PBS, said Friday night that Christie portrays himself as a "victim" in the Bridgegate scandal.

Shields recalled how Christie, on Aug. 26, 2011, was totally in control when he ordered Jersey shore residents to get the hell off the beach before Hurricane Irene hit.

Now, Shields said, Christie expects us to believe he was "detached, he was disengaged, he didn't know" anything about the plot to cause gridlock as a form of political payback to the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee.

Lack of concern

"He didn't once express real, genuine, authentic Chris Christie concern for the lives of people whose lives were disrupted [by the gridlock]," Shields noted.

Shields called the GWB lane closures "a ruthless act, a cheap political trick."

Don't you wonder why the editors, columnists, reporters and editorial writers at The Record aren't expressing the same concerns?

Another big error

Thanks to another major screw-up by six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, a Bridgegate editorial on A-11 today is a real mess:

The headline and sub-headline are broken -- headline words appear over and under a photo of former Port Authority bigwig David Wildstein -- and text is cut off in mid-sentence at the end (A-11).

Ex-clerk is engaged

In Hackensack news, residents learn Debra Heck, the former city clerk, is the fiancee of school board lawyer and former municipal attorney and prosecutor Richard Salkin, an ally of the Zisa political dynasty (L-3).

The story by Staff Writer Hannan Adely quotes from e-mails by City Councilwoman Rose Greenman, a member of a reform slate that swept the Zisa team out of office this year.

Salkin is now representing Heck, who has said she intends to sue the city, claiming her removal was based on her "perceived political views."

Editors' snow job

In Friday's Hackensack Chronicle, two photos reveal what a terrible job municipal crews did in cleaning up after the Jan. 2 snowstorm.

One shows a pedestrian trying "to figure out how to cross the Anderson Street Bridge [between Hackensack and Teaneck], which was snow and ice covered."

In decades of weather coverage in The Record, I haven't seen a similar photo from any one of the 90 or so towns in the daily's circulation area. 

Gritty and slimy

Yet another restaurant reviewed by Staff Writer Elisa Ung bombs.

What else would you expect from Biggie's in Ramsey, where fresh clams are fried and seafood is served on pizzas or covered in a pink cream sauce (BL-14).

You know the food is just awful when Ung devotes the first third of her review to history, decor and service.

The dessert-obsessed reviewer was even repelled by the "tooth-hurting" peanut butter pie and "slimy" cheesecake. Ouch.

Yet, she doesn't rate it "Poor." Go figure. A waste of money and a waste of our time.

The Record's claim of a 'scoop' is ringing hollow

A ramp in Fort Lee gives drivers access to the lower level of the George Washington Bridge. It remained open during the four days of gridlock in September caused by a Christie administration plot to close two of the three access lanes to upper-level tollbooths.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Amid all of Governor Christie's apologies and firings on Thursday, The Record claimed it had scooped other media on obtaining the shocking e-mails at the root of the politically inspired traffic gridlock in Fort Lee. 

The Woodland Park daily sent out an e-mail to subscribers with this title: "A look behind The Record's big scoop."

The e-mail boasts:

"As you may know, The Record broke the big story this week linking Governor Christie's office to the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge."

Tip to Borg

The e-mail also provided a link to a Washington Post blog that relates Publisher Stephen A. Borg got a call in early September from a friend who complained, "It was taking me hours to get into New York," and that Borg told Editor Marty Gottlieb, who passed on the tip to the somnolent assignment desk.

Although The Record may have been first with news of the lane closures -- in an error-filled Road Warrior column -- it didn't come close to scooping other media on the e-mail exchange between a top Christie aide and his Port Authority crony, who set the closures into motion.

Times weighed in

On Wednesday morning, the Web sites of The New York Times and The Record broke the news at about the same time that Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly told David Wildstein, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

And The Times -- Gottlieb's former employer -- was first to report U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman has opened an inquiry into whether any laws were broken by the closures on Sept. 9-13, 2013.

Today, for the second day in a row, The Record devotes its entire front page to the fallout, Christie's 2-hour news conference in Trenton and his pilgrimage to Fort Lee to apologize to his supposed political nemesis, Mark Sokolich, the borough's Democratic mayor.

Looks guilty?

If I didn't know better, the Page 1 photo of Christie parting a sea of news photographers and cameramen looks a lot like a carefully orchestrated "perp walk," when crime suspects are paraded past the media.

But the two state troopers behind the GOP bully are his bodyguards, and I'm wondering if the butch one has trouble separating her duty to Christie and her feelings about his stance against gay marriage (A-1).

From many angles

Today's sidebars include a lame attempt by Columnist Mike Kelly to profile Bridget Anne Kelly, the aide Christie fired (A-7).

Still, the reporter fails to get what everyone wants to read, an interview with the Ramsey native, who was fired and who will forever be called "Bridge" for short.

Is he believable?

The Record even critiques Christie's performance in front of the national and state media (A-8), but nowhere is there a suggestion of what many observers have concluded:

Christie may have been lied to by Kelly and others, as he claims, but isn't it likely he also is lying about what he knew and when he knew it, as he has done so many times since he took office in January 2010?

Recall his lame explanations for breaking his 2009 campaign promise of a property tax cut, dismissing the only African-American on the state's highest court and failing to win $400 million in federal education funds.

Damage control

Today, Columnist Charles Stile, a well-known Christie apologist, traces the damage control evident in the GOP bully's Trenton press conference (A-1).

Stile concludes Christie "failed to come across as someone who is all that eager to get to the bottom of the fiasco."

An A-18 editorial that likely was written or edited by another Christie lover, Alfred P. Doblin, ends this way:

"The longer it takes to get that information [what happened and why], the greater the odds that the governor's apologies will fail to restore the luster of his reputation."

Footnotes

Despite all the coverage of Bridgegate today, The Record missed an obvious angle: 

Street closings and traffic gridlock in Fort Lee caused by Christie's visit to the Art Deco Borough Hall on Main Street, hounded by a media horde.

Today is also the first time we learn anything about Florence Genova, 91, the Fort Lee woman who died on Sept. 9, likely a victim of emergency response delayed by the Christie administration plot to tie up traffic in the borough (A-7).

Readers aren't surprised, being well acquainted with the laziness of Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, who runs the local-news desk so ineptly.

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes' lead Page 1 story today refers to a traffic jam -- "the most Jersey of life's troubles" -- which has "threatened" Christie's "popularity and clout."

But readers have been disappointed for years by how Gottlieb, Sforza and Road Warrior John Cichowski ignore daily traffic gridlock in North Jersey, and the crying need for better mass transit to relieve it.

The ink wasn't dry on Cichowski's Wednesday column when events overtook him and made him sound like the babbling idiot he is reputed to be in the newsroom:

Road Warrior stalls again at the GWB 

U.S. attorney to open inquiry into GWB lane closures

Drivers stuck in rush-hour traffic on Route 4 east in Paramus on their way to the George Washington Bridge this morning.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Unusually high unemployment and lagging state tax revenues didn't do it. Nor did killing the biggest expansion of mass transit in decades.

Balancing the state budget on the backs of the middle and working classes also didn't disturb editors of The Record of Woodland Park.

No. It took a politically malevolent traffic jam at the Fort Lee end of the George Washington Bridge four months ago to pierce the bubble of invincibility around Governor Christie (A-1).

Christie idolatry

If the GOP bully is "STUCK IN A JAM," as today's Page 1 headline declares, then the editors of The Record were STUCK IN A CHRISTIE RUT.

Those editors -- and reporters Charles Stile, Herb Jackson, Melissa Hayes and other staffers -- are culpable for giving Christie a pass since he took office in January 2010.

They not only overlooked his mean-spirited policies and whether they were good for New Jersey, but they regurgitated all of the governors' marketing ploys -- from his "Reform Agenda" to "Bipartisan Compromise."

Those reporters and editors gave up one of their biggest responsibilities to readers: Challenge authority.

The owner of this Toyota Prius saves lots of money on gasoline, but throws those savings away on higher tolls. Owners of hybrid cars can ask for a Green E-ZPass that automatically gives them off-peak toll discounts, as much as $3 less  at the Hudson River crossings. This Prius has a conventional white E-ZPass.

Christie's apology

This morning in Trenton, Christie told the media he is apologizing to the people of New Jersey and the residents of Fort Lee.

He said he has "terminated the employment" of Bridget Anne Kelly, his deputy chief staff, who had e-mailed Christie pal David Wildstein at the Port Authority that it was "time for traffic problems in Fort Lee."

"Got it," Wildstein replied in the Aug. 13, 2013, exchange of e-mails.

Federal probe

In what many might see as a colossal ass covering, Christie claimed his staff lied to him.

The New York Times Web site reported U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman is expected to announce today that he will open an inquiry into the Sept. 9-12 lane closures in Fort Lee.

Christie, a former U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said he plans to go to Fort Lee today and apologize personally to Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, for the lane closures from local streets to upper-level tollbooths of the George Washington Bridge.

The governor said he is "stunned by the abject stupidity that was shown here" -- a reference to the closing of those lanes.

Christie said he had no knowledge of the e-mails from Kelly, his deputy chief of staff, to his crony at the bi-state transportation agency.

Wildstein and Bill Baroni, his other appointee to the Port Authority, have already resigned.

The future

It remains to be seen whether Bridgegate will hurt Christie's chances in a 2016 White House race.

But commuters will be stuck with exorbitant tolls and crowded buses and trains for years -- thanks to Christie's short-sighted policies.