Now is the time to defeat Trump, impeach lapdog Christie

From cartoonist Jeff Darcy of Cleveland.com, the website of The Plain Dealer, above and below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

For commentary on the national nightmare of a possible victory by Donald J. Trump on Tuesday, readers of The Record have to look elsewhere.

Today, for example, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin exposes campaign fliers depicting 5th Congressional District challenger Josh Gottheimer, who is Jewish, as a devil with horns (A-9).

He blasts Sarah Neibart, campaign manager for Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, for suggesting the Gottheimer campaign is behind "a political ploy manufactured by them to fabricate a hate crime."

"This is ... exactly what the Nazis would say. Blame the victim for orchestrating his own victimization," Doblin writes.

But I don't recall Doblin condemning Trump for encouraging his supporters to launch attacks against Jewish reporters, nor has he demanded the resignation or impeachment of Governor Christie for lying and covering up his role in the Bridgegate scandal.

After Christie dropped out of the presidential race in February and endorsed Trump's radical GOP White House campaign, The Star-Ledger and six Gannett-owned dailies called on him to resign.

The Woodland Park daily still hasn't followed suit after all of the testimony at the Bridgegate trial that Christie knew about the George Washington Bridge lane closures as they were happening in September 2013.

Clinton emails

The Record continues to channel Republican attacks against Democrat Hillary Clinton and her emails as secretary of state.

Today's Page 1 headline declares the FBI "provides Clinton with last-minute relief," and what follows is yet another sensational report from The Associated Press, which has legitimized every lie from wacko racist Trump in the past two years.

'Rigged' election

Over at The New York Times, Columnist Paul Krugman writes about how the presidential election was "rigged."

Krugman includes voter suppression in southern states, Russian hacking of Clinton's emails; FBI Director James Comey, "who used his position to spread innuendo and influence the election;" and pro-Trump FBI agents, who have been spreading "claims and allegations that may not have anything to do with reality."

"The election was rigged by mainstream news organizations, many of which simply refused to report on policy issues, a refusal that clearly favored the candidate who lies all the time, and has no coherent proposals to offer," Krugman says.

"In 2016, all three [nightly news broadcasts] combined devoted a total of 32 minutes to coverage of issues -- all issues. Climate change, the most important issue we face, received no coverage at all.

"The election was rigged by the media obsession with Hillary Clinton's emails. She shouldn't have used her own server, but there is no evidence at all that she did anything unethical, let along illegal.

"Yet those networks that found only 32 minutes for all policy issues combined found 100 minutes to talk about Clinton emails."

40-day volunteer

Good for Nyree Miscia, a photogenic mother of four who volunteered for 40 days before her 40th birthday and got nearly the entire Better Living cover devoted to her today.

Excuse me for mentioning that thousands of volunteers have given their time for many more months, years and decades, and have never seen their names or photos in The Record.

Death of bear that walked upright upstages local historian

"Trump in the Toilet" is from political cartoonist Darly Cagle (Cagel.com). 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You have to feel sorry for Kevin Wright, who is described in a Page 1 headline today as the "passionate defender of Bergen's history."

Not only did the River Edge historian die prematurely at 64, according to Staff Writer Jay Levin of The Record, but he got upstaged by a goddamn bear, which was killed in a state-sanctioned bow hunt.

Jeez, what does a prominent North Jersey resident have to do to get his obituary above the fold on the front page of the Woodland Park daily?

The bear's photo and obituary get much better play than those for Wright, who is described as "a quintessential and indefatigable champion and protector of New Bridge Landing, Bergen County's cherished Revolutionary War site" (A-1).

To add insult to injury, animal lovers gave a name to the "tall-walking bear," and started a Facebook page, making the animal "an Internet sensation" (A-1).

Pedals -- that's the bear -- gets the same play as a big photo of We Mcdonald (a local minority student who is a contestant on "The Voice"), and Governor Christie signing into law an unpopular 23-cents-per-gallon hike in the gasoline tax.

Poor focus, editing

More than three months after Gannett Co. bought North Jersey Media Group from the Borg family, The Record remains one of the most poorly focused and edited newspapers in the state.

Stories about dogs, cats, bears, geese and other animals often get far better play than those about the mistreatment of humans.

NJ Transit decline

The fatal Sept. 29 crash of an NJ Transit train in Hoboken unleashed a flurry of analytical stories and columns in The Record.

But none focused as relentlessly on Christie's anti-mass transit policies as did a New York Times story that ran on Thursday under this headline:

"New Jersey Transit, 
a Cautionary Tale of Neglect"

According to the story, "Under the administration of Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, the state subsidy for the railroad [NJ Transit] has plunged by more than 90 percent.

"Gaping holes in the agency's past two budgets were filled by fare increases and service reductions or other cuts.

"Plans for a new tunnel under the Hudson River -- one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the country -- were torpedoed by Mr. Christie, who pushed for some of the money to be diverted to road-building projects."

In fact, Christie's name doesn't even appear in today's story on the state Legislature launching a wide-ranging investigation into NJ Transit operations (A-4).

Bad journalism

Christie's hostility toward mass transit was reflected years earlier in the pages of The Record, which published takeouts listing the so-called negatives of extending electrified light-rail passenger service to Bergen County.

A Page 1 story also questioned why NJ Transit doesn't make a profit.

And in the past 13 years, Staff Writer John Cichowski's Road Warrior column has virtually ignored the declining quality of NJ Transit bus and rail service.

Same story twice

The news and business editors apparently don't talk to each other, judging from identical A-9 and A-10 stories on the U.S. lifting a $100 limit on Cuban cigars and rum.

Reader abuse

Today's Local front carries another story on "elder abuse" from Staff Writer Colleen Diskin, who continues to ignore the health and welfare of tens of thousands of well-off seniors in North Jersey.

Although heart disease is the No. 1 killer of seniors in the United States, The Record's food writers can't help but promoting some of the unhealthiest food available.

Get a load of the photo of artery clogging "Sharkfin pie" ($5.99 or $8.99 to share), one of the highly recommended dishes in Staff Writer Elisa Ung's review of Mitchell's Fish Market, an expensive seafood restaurant in Edgewater (Friday's BL-14).

Seniors might fare better in a swimming contest with a real shark than eating this heart-attack on a plate (peanut butter, chocolate and ice cream).

White Maple Cafe

A week earlier, Ung praised "the enormous ice cream sandwich" ($7) at the White Maple Cafe in Ridgewood, and said a fish fillet was worth ordering because the salty skin reminded her of "pork rind."

Despite the word "cafe" in the name, Ung notes unnecessarily:

"That White Maple sees itself as a cafe, not a fine-dining restaurant, is either a selling point or a reason to avoid it, depending on your expectations."

Which might lead readers to look at Ung in a similar way: 

The so-called restaurant reviewer's dual obsessions with sugary desserts and enormous hunks of aged mystery beef are ample reasons to discount or simply ignore her appraisals.
  

Will ex-Times editor's retirement revive local coverage?

Pedestrians on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack faced a number of obstacles on Thursday afternoon, including uncleared snow in front of the house at 90 Euclid Ave., above and below, and uncleared corners at Euclid and Grand avenues.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

One look at what may be Editor Marty Gottlieb's final front page today tells you the former Times veteran is no fan of the local-news coverage for which The Record once was praised.

In the four years he's been running the Woodland Park newsroom, the number of sports and sensational crime stories on the front-page has soared, such as the amputee and alleged murderer on A-1 today.

And Gottlieb has allowed local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza to pad their thin local-news section with endless Law & Order coverage, numerous stories about Paterson's dysfunctional government (L-1), and minor accident and fire photos (L-3).

On Thursday afternoon, crossing Grand and Euclid avenues in Hackensack required detours, above and below. Snow from the blizzard of 2016 stopped falling last Saturday night.

The 'context' editor

In a column on A-19 today, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin appears to be damning Gottlieb with faint praise.

"This is Marty's last week at The Record. He is retiring. He will be missed," Doblin writes, adding that four words sum up what he has learned from working with Gottlieb: "Look at the drapes."

Doblin claims Gottlieb is one of those editors who "leave indelible marks on how to practice journalism," a reference to the editor's insistence that no news story is complete without "context."

Of course, that was what Gottlieb learned in his many years of reporting and editing at The New York Times, where he ended his career as the high-flying editor of global editions in Paris and Hong Kong.

But providing "context" at The Record meant Gottlieb would edit and rewrite every Page 1 story filed by local reporters and approved by local editors.

Then, those reporters and editors would have to rework the stories from his hand-written notes, sucking out what little energy was left in a newsroom that had grown lazy under Sykes, Sforza and Francis "Frank" Scandale, the editor who was fired in late 2011.

Front-page stories became wordier, more complex and far less reader friendly.

And Gottlieb was a big fan of publishing the endless ruminations of Charles Stile, Mike Kelly, John Cichowski and the paper's other burned-out columnists on Page 1.

In the process of focusing on the big picture, coverage of Hackensack and many other towns waned dramatically.

Editor Martin Gottlieb is in his last week at The Record, but it remains to be seen if the Woodland Park daily will boost local-news coverage after he retires.

HUMC

Today's story on a new president for Hackensack University Medical Center is missing salaries for Ihor S. Sawczuk and Robert C. Garrett, president and CEO of Hackensack University Health Network (L-1).

Their bloated salaries are important, because the Hackensack complex has fought for years to preserve its tax-exempt status, shifting the property tax burden onto city residents and businesses.

Garret was paid nearly $3 million in 2012, according to NJBIZ.com's "Medical Millionaires."

Today's HUMC story carries the byline of Mary Jo Layton, but it appears to have been taken straight from hospital press releases, and doesn't mention the medical complex's controversial non-profit status.

And there is no pronunciation guide so are readers to assume the new president's last name sounds like "Sawchuck"?

No shortage of B.S.

Staff Writer Elisa Ung, the paper's chief food critic, is so busy stuffing her face with low-quality burgers she doesn't have to time to investigate how the cows were raised (Better Living).

So readers have to assume the beef used at Black Rebel Burger in Wood-Ridge and Mooyah in far-off Old Tappan is pumped full of harmful antibiotics and growth hormones, and may actually contain manure and superbugs (BL-12).

If you go, stick with the vegetarian options.

See:  How dangerous bacteria travel to your table

On Christie, Editor Gottlieb's head remains up his a-hole

This morning, Hackensack firefighters and police responded after a transformer exploded, knocking out power to homes on Euclid Avenue and other streets in the city's Fairmount section. Power was restored in about an hour.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's coverage of Governor Christie is more evidence that Editor Martin Gottlieb's New York Times state of mind is wrong for North Jersey readers.

Could today's front-page story be the first time in nearly five years The Record has reported the financial damage from Christie's cancellation of the Hudson River rail tunnels, ending what would have been the biggest expansion of mass transit in decades (A-1)?

And how did Columnist Charles Stile and his editors in Woodland Park miss Christie's serious misstatement of fact at Thursday night's GOP debate on when he was appointed U.S. attorney for New Jersey (Friday's A-1)?

This embarrassing oversight -- whether deliberate or not -- was repaired on Saturday's front page by Melissa Hayes, the reporter assigned to cover Christie and, seemingly, promote his presidential bid:

"Christie twice said during the televised debate Thursday night that he was 'appointed' U.S. attorney on Sept. 10, 2001, the day before the terrorist attacks [on America]," Hayes reported on Saturday, a day late.

"And when [U.S. Sen. Rand] Paul referred to the hug between Christie and President Obama following Superstorm Sandy, Christie retorted that 'the hugs I remember are the hugs that I gave to families who lost their people on Sept. 11.'"

In fact, Christie wasn't "formally nominated until Dec. 7," and didn't take over as U.S. attorney until January 2012 (Saturday's A-6).

2016 election

The Record and other media continue to promote Thursday night's GOP debate as a watershed moment, when, in fact, it will be a mere footnote when the Republicans name a candidate for president in 2016 (A-1).

Two headlines on Saturday's front page tried to minimize Christie's fading campaign while portraying the election against the presumptive Democrat candidate, Hillary Clinton, as a horse race:

"Christie
renews
shaping
of image"

"Why Trump's
vulnerability
should worry 
Democrats"

On A-1 today, Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson claims:

"Christie
performed
according
to plan"

Local news?

Today's thin local-news section includes a story promoting the dying sport of horse racing (L-1).

And Road Warrior John Cichowski presents another column on a woman who bought a house next to Route 17 in Waldwick, "where tractor-trailers barrel through at night" (L-1).

Paterson editorial

An editorial defends the performance of Paterson Police Director Jerry Speziale despite the "apparent shooting deaths last year of two young girls -- 12-year-old Genesis Rincon and 14-year-old Nazerah Bugg" (O-2).

The editorial even credits Speziale with a "truce" between street gangs from the 1st and 4th Wards after the drive-by shooting death in April of Paterson basketball star Armoni Sexton, 15. 

Low-quality food

On Friday and Saturday, the Better Living section promoted Callahan's and Kimchi Smoke, two businesses that serve pork, beef and chicken raised on harmful antibiotics, growth hormones and other additives.

On Friday, restaurant critic Elisa Ung used a hard sell in her informal dining review of Callahan's in Norwood:

She called the pricey deep-fried pork-and-beef hot dogs "a must-try," and claimed the grilled chicken sandwich is "a surprise star" (Friday's BL-16).

And Food Editor Esther Davidowitz promoted Robert Cho's "Southern-style" Korean barbecue company (Saturday's BL-1).

Davidowitz says nothing about how the marinated beef or ribs are raised or what separates Cho from most Korean barbecue purveyors, who rely on cheap cuts to maximize profit.

On Teaneck horse owner, editor is upstaged by ex-paper

Chubby's on Queen Anne Road in Teaneck, one of the oldest barbershops in Bergen County, is offering a free mane trim to any resident who owns a racehorse.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The front pages of The Record and The New York Times today report extensively on the Teaneck millionaire whose racehorse has a shot at the Triple Crown on Saturday.

But The Times does a far better job exploring the human-interest angle, especially how Ahmed Zayat has managed to remain an observant Jew during his rise to the top of the murky horse racing industry.

In doing so, the Manhattan-based national and international newspaper tells a story that Teaneck residents, especially the township's Muslims and Orthodox Jews, will find much more engaging than The Record's report (A-1).

Isn't it rich? 

Martin Gottlieb is upstaged and outflanked by the paper where he had a stellar career as a reporter and editor before he took over as editor of The Record, where he started his journalism career in the early 1970s.

Muslim or Jew?

One startling revelation in The Times story:

"Publicly, Mr. Zayat alternately identifies as Muslim and Jewish."

Before he moved to the U.S., Zayat privatized the former state-held beer company in his native Egypt, and "pioneered a line of nonalcoholic beers that appealed to the conservative Muslim country," The Times reports.

But in 2006, he bought a $4.6 million colt and named it Maimonides after one of the greatest Jewish philosophers.

"As a Muslim, he said at the time: 'I wanted to say something with a tool I had, which was a horse. I wanted to be pro-peace, and about loving your neighbor.'"

In Teaneck

"He lives with his wife and four children in a largely modern Orthodox neighborhood of Tudor and Victorian houses known as West Englewood in Teaneck ...," according to The Times.

"They keep kosher, arranging menus in advance at racetracks and, if they cannot locate a hotel close by, they stay in an R.V. and walk to the track, as they did at the Preakness Stakes, to avoid driving on the Sabbath."

The Times story continued:

"When asked for clarification about his religion, Mr. Zayat said, 'Why is it relevant, and why does it matter? It's personal.'"

The Times story was the talk of Teaneck's Orthodox Jewish community today.

Two men discussing Zayat and the race wondered how many synagogues will leave on a TV so that congregants can watch his stallion, American Pharoah (a misspelling of "pharaoh"), in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday.

Also on Page 1

Don't miss the scintillating story on the rising number of bank branches in Bergen County (A-1).

Gottlieb leads the front page with a Washington Post story on Chinese hackers hitting the Office of Personnel Management as a warning to the four federal employees who call North Jersey home (A-1).

Another Page 1 story on "more than $1 billion in ... fees paid to Wall Street money managers in the last five years" doesn't tell readers whether Governor Christie has anything to do with the giveaway.

Clogging our minds with politics, our arteries with dessert

Seen on Essex Street in Hackensack, near Summit Avenue.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Staff Writers Melissa Hayes and Charles Stile of The Record have shamelessly repeated Governor Christie's many attacks on President Obama without ever challenging the GOP bully.

Stile is at it again today in a Page 1 column reporting Christie will be chasing his White House dreams in New Hampshire during the president's visit to Camden next week (A-1).

And the political columnist repeats the fiction that Christie "tipped the balance of victory to Obama" in the 2012 presidential election (A-9).

Obama's margin of victory over the pathetic Mitt Romney was wide in both the popular vote and Electoral College, despite polls claiming the election was too close to call.

Given Christie's fading chances of winning the GOP nomination in 2016, reporters like Stile and Hayes should be asking whether the governor's attacks are racially motivated.

Here is New Jersey's worst governor launching political attacks against one of the best presidents we've ever had.

Hackensack news

How did The Record miss an appeals court decision against a developer who wanted to build a controversial 19-story Long Term Acute Care Hospital on Prospect Avenue in Hackensack (L-1)?

The developer's appeal was a central issue in the City Council campaign of 2013, and candidates appeared before Prospect Avenue residents to state their positions on the proposal.

The court's decision was issued on May 7, according to today's story.

William D. Smith

The otherwise detailed obituary on former Tenafly resident William D. Smith, 79, fails to explore how the globe-trotting former New York Times reporter developed Alzheimer's disease and dementia (L-6).

Nor does The Record explain whether a much bigger paycheck compelled the intrepid journalist to become a lobbyist and then public relations representative for Exxon Corp.

Sugar high

Staff Writer Elisa Ung can't get off the sugar high that informs most of her reporting on food and restaurants.

She was a walking contradiction when she first came to The Record -- an overweight Asian woman. Now, after years of gorging on artery clogging desserts made with heavy cream and butter, she must be as big as a house.

Today, she pans Finca in Ridgewood, saying "so many cooking errors" forces her to recommend the new small-plates restaurant only for dessert "after dinner at one of the dozens of other restaurants within walking distance" (BL-16).

Gee. What do the owners of other Ridgewood restaurants think of Ung telling their customers to go elsewhere for dessert?

What did she expect from Finca's owner, who called his previous failed effort The Stable, prompting some to think he served grilled horse meat and candied, deep-fried hay?