Publisher backs use of accident photos to fill gaps in news

Pat Kinney, a freelancer who wrote the Neighbors from Japan column that appeared in The Record, is offering her services as an English teacher. This notice is on a bulletin board at Mitsuwa Marketplace, the Japanese supermarket and food court in Edgewater.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's lazy local-news editors continue to fill gaps in coverage with non-fatal accidents and other minor incidents on North Jersey's highways and byways.

Today, none other than Publisher Stephen A. Borg contributed a photo of a humdrum van fire on Route 80 east on Friday afternoon, and earned a credit line: "STEPHEN A. BORG/STAFF" (L-3).

Of course, the big news on Routes 80 east, 46 east and 4 east on Friday afternoon was massive traffic congestion approaching the George Washington Bridge, partly due to the lack of mass-transit alternatives.

In fact, the lead story in today's Local section reports Democratic lawmakers are urging the $1 billion extension of NJ Transit's electrified light-rail system to downtown Englewood and Englewood Hospital and Medical Center (L-1).

Federal officials quoted in the story estimate that every $1 billion spent on infrastructure creates 35,000 jobs.

But non-polluting light rail also takes cars off the road, a benefit lost on Tenafly officials who opposed extending the service to their town.

The Record ran stories quoting borough officials who demonized light rail, and never published an editorial criticizing those officials for their opposition.

At least when it comes to mass transit, Borg, who lives in a Tenafly McMansion, is following in the footsteps of his father, Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg of Englewood, in not bothering to be a force for positive change in his community. 

Living v. dead

We get it. It's a miracle that two young women survived on Feb. 13, when their Toyota RAV4 left a Route 80 bridge over the Hackensack River and fell 60 feet, landing on a tree (A-1).

But why is their reunion with the firefighters who rescued them on the front page today? 

On Wednesday, a story reported that on Monday, a 64-year-old pedestrian was fatally injured by a car turning onto Kennedy Street in Hackensack, near Route 80, and except for her name and age, The Record didn't bother finding out anything about her.

Did Hue Dang live in the neighborhood? Was she a mother and grandmother? Was she treated like chopped liver because she was a senior?

Is her family planning to sue the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office and John Straniero of Wayne, the detective sergeant behind the wheel of the unmarked Ford Crown Victoria that struck her?

Sewage v. taxes

Whose decision was it to run a story on higher sewer-connection fees for Hackensack developers on Thursday?

That was a day before belatedly informing residents a budget the City Council introduced on Tuesday night would hike property taxes by $115 for the average homeowner (Friday's L-2).

No news today, but here are a few second looks

Repairs to the parking lot, roadway and sidewalk of the Alfred N. Sanzari Medical Arts Building on Essex Street in Hackensack seemed to drag on for months, and made visiting Starbucks Coffee a challenge. When I stopped there on Friday, the work had finally been completed.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Some days you have to question why the media spends more time trying to predict the future than they do on reporting what has happened.

In the crystal-ball category, you can put all the speculation in the past few years about who is going to be the standard bearer for the do-nothing Republicans in the 2016 presidential race.

Today, on Page 1 of The Record, Herb Jackson's NJ/DC column on the fate of a new Hudson River rail tunnel also falls into the former, "no news today" category.

But you have to believe the clueless columnist has never fought the horrendous traffic into New York when his lead paragraph mentions the tunnel in the same breath as projects denounced "as wasteful pork" (A-1).

That's in keeping with the policy of The Record's transportation reporters to ignore how difficult it has been in recent years to find a seat on a rush-hour train.

Home rule

Since Jan. 1, the Local section has been filled with swearing in stories and photos, but today, the editors ran an especially unflattering photo of Jayme Ouellette, who was bending to place her hand on a Bible held by her step-grandson (L-3).

Either the new Rochelle Park mayor is pregnant or she is overweight, but readers are left to speculate.

Amateur hour

All of the swearing in stories have run without comment from the editorial writers, who should at least ask residents to hope that the latest amateur elected to run their town will do a better job than the previous one.

In wealthy Tenafly, the editors haven't attempted to explain why residents rejected two proposals that would have had big environmental benefits, an expanded nature center and extension of NJ Transit's light-rail system to the town's center.

Or why town officials didn't override those narrow-minded residents.

A story on the Tenafly reorganization ran on Sunday's L-3.

Nazerah Bugg

Stories on tributes to Nazerah Bugg, 14, the aspiring Paterson basketball player who was killed by random gunfire in September, haven't reported whether police are doing a better job of protecting Silk City residents from gun violence (L-1 on Sunday).

In fact, the image of the police The Record has promoted in recent years is heroic, and the editors have failed to question the job they are doing -- whether it's stopping the murder of innocent young girls in Paterson or burglaries in Tenafly.

This policy has backfired, as shown by all of the woefully incomplete stories The Record runs on pedestrian deaths, murders and other news the police and prosecutors refuse to discuss with reporters.