It's a new week, but here's old news

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The Record errs on a Korean specialty roll called kimbap.

More fed-up flood victims, more financial fallout from killing the Hudson River rail tunnels a year ago and more -- much more -- on Governor Christie's future as a presidential candidate -- it's deja vu all over again on The Record's front page today.


Readers are looking forward to a new week, but Editor Francis Scandale is giving them a whiff of all the stale news he can muster, so he can maximize his time on the golf course.


On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, the insufferable John Cichowski has a column on the last 21 year of the Road Warrior column. 


He draws on the recollections of Jeff Page, who originated the column. Unfortunately for readers, Page's brain is far larger and far more developed than the incumbent's.


Road kill


Although Cichowski has been writing obsessively about cars and drivers at the expense of mass-transit commuters, he shows readers just how little he knows about automobiles.


Today, he says about cars that "air bags, global-positioning systems, anti-lock brakes and a host of other devices have boosted their efficiency and safety." 


But those advances made cars heavier and hurt their "efficiency." Gasoline-electric hybrid systems are what really boosted miles per gallon and cut pollution.


Cichowski, who has been writing the column since late 2003, also completely omits any mention of changes in the commuter bus system in the past 21 years


Ethnic conflict


Also on L-1, Staff Writer Karen Rouse covered a Korean harvest festival at the new Overpeck Park, but got tripped up by a seaweed-rice roll call kimbap, spelling it "kimbab," and erring when she calls it "Korean-style sushi."


Kimbap often contains only rice and vegetables, though other rolls are made with meat or raw fish. Of course, Rouse's assignment editor and Liz Houlton's news copy desk are clueless when it comes to food, and provide no backup.


There is no Hackensack news or news of many other towns in Local today.


Three more pieces about Christie appear in the Opinion pages today, one written by Carl Golden, whose credibility is suspect, given he's a former aide to two past Republican governors. 


Do readers really care about the GOP bully's future? Most of us are bracing for more damage to our way of life in the last half of his first term.


Travel weary


In Travel, the real shock isn't the camera-store advertisement topping all those photos making up The Record on the Road page (T-3). 


It's on Page T-4 in the photo of a haggard Jill Schensul, the travel editor, who looks nothing like the photo of her the editors have been running with her column for a decade or more.


Her elaborate cover story on an Amazon adventure in Colombia takes up  nearly three full pages, but no prices are given, suggesting she took another free travel junket and did her best to promote this trip to death.


Publisher Stephen A. Borg must have had a bad case of indigestion when he folded the Food section several years ago, but allowed the Travel section to continue.


No end to the jokes


Christie, the Great White Hope, dropped out of the White House race last week, but the jokes kept on coming.


On HBO, comedian Bill Maher said on Friday night it had been a week of "right-wing anti-climax." He called Sarah Palin, who also said she is not interested in the presidency, the "Great White Dope."


Maher noted Christie issued a statement: "Look at me. Do I look like I'm ready to race anyone?" He said Christie is, after all, "Tony Soprano" and would have told the Tea Party to sit down and "shut up."


One of Maher's panelists said Christie "projects fun." "Fat people are jolly," he noted. Maher said Christie would have projected an America that is "fat and rude."


Another panelist said, "The Democrats were worried about Christie, because he's too big to fail."


Related articles

• 'Chocolate Face' discovers mass transit (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Readers want fresh voices for old columns (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• The worst New Jersey governor ever (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

The news gang that can't write straight

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The State House in Trenton. Is Governor Christie packing up already?

It's good to see most of The Record's front page devoted to the budget drama in Trenton -- finally -- but what do you make of that confusing off-lead story on the Teaneck police contract?


Governor Christie's 2% cap on arbitration awards applies only to contracts that expire after Dec. 31, 2010, so why is the Teaneck contract -- which expired in 2007 -- being used as an example of failure?


Christie boo-boo


Did Christie deliberately or mistakenly include the Teaneck contract in the cap and misspeak, as he has done often on subjects ranging from education to transportation? 


The story reports the police contract in Spotswood was settled under the new rules, so the main headline must be wrong: "No cap on new police salaries."


Is this mildly critical, A-1 story Editor Francis Scandale's best shot at Christie, who seems intent on destroying the middle-class way of life in New Jersey?


Isn't the real mystery why Christie hasn't capped the salaries of hundreds of police chiefs, as he did for school superintendents? Where are The Record stories about that?


Bad sub-head, photo


Another headline on Page 1 is wrong. The sub-headline on the Democrats'  budget and the millionaires tax reads "millionaire's tax." 


No. The tax doesn't belong to a single millionaire.


Scandale specializes in scintillating Page 1 art -- as readers can see from the photo of a nearly empty NJN newsroom on the front page today.


Fat of the land


If you want a good laugh, see the OpEd piece on A-21, claiming Christie should run for president now.


Can't you just see the cross-gender, Laurel and Hardy-like team of Christie and Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann trying to seize the White House?


The first thing Christie would dump is first lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign against obesity.


"If you want to move, move your bowels," Christie would tell critics. "I like my beer and pizza sitting down."


Sun in her eyes


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes uses a good chunk of her Local front today on a non-news story -- the installation of solar panels on the roof of the Bergen County parking garage.


The weekly Hackensack Chronicle wrote about this same county solar project nearly three months ago. 


In the past decade, Englewood has focused development along Route 4 (L-1), but why has The Record neglected to report on the hard times that have befallen the Palisade Avenue business district?


No Hackensack news appears in the paper today.

Editors' minds are in the sewer

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Sarah Palin's bus trip is going nowhere, but she has the media fooled.

Talk about news judgment.

Six towns complain about sewer-fee hikes or a hospital formally applies to reopen another, and Editor Francis Scandale thinks it's front-page news. That's desperation.

Even a stand-alone photo of micro cars in Japan lands on Page 1 of The Record today. What gives? 

 

And, at the bottom of the page, a photo of Sarah Palin raises an unanswered question, and it isn't about her laughable flirtation with high office: Why is she wearing a Star of David around her neck?

Whirlybird diet

Scandale blew it big time when he assigned an apparently inexperienced reporter to Wednesday's A-1 story on Governor Christie's descent from heaven in a state police helicopter.

Political columnist Charles Stile should have covered it, so his cutting remarks on A-1 today are good, but a day late.

And why didn't Scandale package Stile with lawmakers' reaction to the $2,500-an-hour jaunt, instead of putting the latter on A-3? Then, he could have referred readers to the editorial and cartoon on A-10.

Oh, I guess that pink Japanese car had to go out front.

Rabbi in the news

At the top of A-3, a Star-Ledger story errs in the lead paragraph with the phrase "Syrian Sephardic." It should be "the nation's largest community of Syrian Jews." Would the phrase "Polish Ashkenazi" mean anything to readers?

In Local, Hackensack readers looking for news will find an L-3 story on a new e-ticket system for police -- the second story recently on a department adopting the new technology.

It looks like head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes is intent on reporting the roll-out of e-ticket systems in every one of the 90 or so towns in the circulation area.

Who says she doesn't cover local news?

More rotten judgment

On April 13, Scandale squandered part of the front page to report the Hunts Point Market might relocate to a garbage dump in the Meadowlands -- raising the potential for a new crop of Jersey Jokes.

Today, on L-8, readers learn the huge produce market signed a three-year lease extension on its Bronx quarters.

It's more than sour grapes. The original story reeks of Scandale's rotten news judgment.

Front page shouts: No news today

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As a GOP presidential candidate, would Sarah Palin represent "AIDS" or "terminal cancer"?

Editor Francis Scandale thinks a huge photo of an obscure professional golfer is far more important for Page 1 today than a real civics lesson for his North Jersey readers.

More than 20,000 Peruvians from New Jersey and Pennsylvania traveled to Paterson to vote in their country's presidential election, because it is hotly contested and because they are required to do so by their country's constitution (L-1).

The great writer, Mario Vargas Llosa, said the Peruvian candidates presented "a choice between AIDS and terminal cancer," which also could apply to Sarah Palin and other presumptive Republican challengers to President Obama in 2012. 

Christie gets a pass

The lead Page 1 story today is the budget battle in Congress, but Scandale ignores the far more important budget battle in Trenton, likely because he and the other editors are solidly behind Governor Christie, who reminds me of Kool-Aid laced with cyanide.

Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and The Record of Woodland Park are such big fans of the wasteful home-rule system of government, they make a big deal at the bottom of A-1 over Westwood saving 90 gallons of diesel fuel a day during leaf season.

Screwing our seniors

Scandale and Sykes have an unwritten rule about covering only seniors over 95, so you'll find stories about a 97-year-old teacher on A-3 and a 103-year-old federal judge on A-9.

In keeping with the small minds on the assignment desk under the suffocating Sykes, Local today has stories from small towns, such as New Milford, Hillsdale and Northvale, but nothing from  Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood.

Doblin's highly partisan commentary

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An OpEd article by President Obama that appeared in The Los Angeles Times.

Even if you don't read Alfred P. Doblin's columns on the OpEd page -- such as the one that appears today on Page A-13  -- you're probably reading one of his unsigned editorials or other editorials he has reviewed, edited and approved in his role as editor of The Record's Editorial Page.

Doblin is the former Hackensack daily's first Editorial Page editor who both expresses the newspaper's official position in editorials and writes highly partisan columns. 

And there's the rub. His columns' clear bias in favor of almost everything Governor Christie has done since the Republican took office a year ago is damaging the credibility of the paper's editorials.

Doblin came to The Record from its sister paper, the Herald News. Editorial writers at the flagship paper were passed over when he was appointed to replace Dick Benfield, who retired. He is a fastidious little man with an apparently small brain.

He loves movies and Broadway shows, and often compares events to them. His often juvenile prose employs a lot of gimmicks and plays on words. Take a look at the headline over his column, which runs on the Editorial Page in a small Monday paper:

Fear-mongering makes for bipartisan blend of tea

I have no idea what that means, a problem even if he didn't write it himself.

In today's column, Doblin attacks Democratic State Committee Chairman John Wisniewski, also an assemblyman, for saying Christie launched an "assault" on seniors in his call last week for raising the retirement age and cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. 

Well, isn't it an assault on older Americans? Doblin prefers to call the speech to a conservative think tank in Washington "a large dose of leadership," because Christie supposedly has the political courage no other Republican or Democrat has to push for cuts in these programs. 

Of course, Doblin never mentions that Christie has no political courage when it comes to finding new sources of revenue the state needs to climb out of its deep financial hole -- such as the millionaires tax and a few pennies added to the low gasoline tax.

And is there any real validity to Doblin's comparison of Wisniewski's statement to Sarah Palin's "fear-mongering"? Don't insult my intelligence with a stupid gimmick.

Don't you love how Doblin and his ilk invariably use the word "reform" to mask big cuts in government programs that are working and helping middle- and working-class retirees? And as a recent letter to the editor noted, all of us contribute to Social Security during our working lives, so hands off, please. 

Just above Doblin's column today, he speaks in his "other voice" -- an editorial opposing Christie's use of toll hikes to rescue the nearly bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund.

More ass slapping

The jock itching, ass slapping, jock-strap waving and male bonding roared back at the news meeting where Editor Francis Scandale ordered a large photo of spring baseball training on Page 1 today.

The front page usually carries a preview of Christie's budget speech, which is set for Tuesday, but why should Scandale care whether the governor is going to continue his assault on middle- and working-class programs, as he did to balance the current budget?

Scandale continues to fiddle while New Jersey burns -- residents watch in disbelief as the rich and powerful attack their public employee unions, end their property tax rebates, cut programs for low-income women and children, and shake their way of life the core.

See previous post, Comment of the day

The pro and the hack

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I love today's front page in The Record of Woodland Park, showcasing the work of one of its strongest reporters and one if its weakest -- side by side. The editors inadvertently provide more  evidence of what a poor job former sports writer John Brennan is doing on the Xanadu story.


When I was still at The Record, the news copy editors could hear Brennan loudly talking up his stories in the late afternoons with one of the editors, Tim Nostrand. Brennan always seemed to be talking compulsively. Now, he somehow convinced the editors to send him to Las Vegas to cover a new backer's attempt to find tenants for the retail and entertainment center in the Meadowlands. What a waste of money.


This is a non-story, as you can tell from Brennan desperately mentioning Sarah Palin in the lead paragraph. The story is poorly reported and written, and doesn't belong on A-1. Yet, Brennan and The Record can't hide their eagerness to write Xanadu's obit. Palin and Brennan. Dumb and Dumber.


Of course, the paper still is capable of good journalism, as readers can see from Staff Writer Jeff Pillets' story on alleged state pension abuses by powerful lawyers -- right next to the Brennan fiasco. Pillets knows his craft. He is as much of a pro as Brennan is a hack.


Look at some of the beautifully crafted paragraphs on A-1 that bring readers up to speed, such as the one that begins this way:

"New Jersey's public pension system is famously packed with political insiders, party loyalists and professionals who entered the state benefit system via part-time public jobs."

Then Pillets goes on to name names, and report the state attorney general is reviewing the cases  for violations of the law.

An editorial on A-11 praises Governor Christie for restoring cuts to programs for low-income seniors and the disabled, and dismisses the viability of the Democrats' millionaires tax, which the governor vetoed -- more kowtowing to the Borgs and other wealthy residents. How responsible is this kind of journalism?


There isn't much else in this thin Monday paper, certainly no Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck news in Local. If there weren't graduation photos to blow up and cover the front of the section with, what would the incompetent assignment desk under Deirdre Sykes do?


In Better Living, the continuing focus today on celebrity chefs is a disservice to readers looking for information on how they can buy good ingredients, and prepare and serve healthy meals to their families. Look at this juvenile lead paragraph about Marcus Samuelsson, who will appear in New Jersey for a cookbook signing:

"Marcus Samuelsson is a busy dude."

I guess Food Editor Bill Pitcher was too busy to notice this kind of mindless promotion has no place in the paper.