A Sunday paper full of more niche reporting

Answering the prayers of New Jersey commuters, Starbucks has opened a cafe on the ground level of the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. Now, they won't fall asleep waiting on long lines to board NJ Transit buses.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The Record should cast a wider net and run stories of general interest or even report on the issues in the New Jersey gubernatorial race.

Instead, Editor Marty Gottlieb fills today's front page with stories of limited interest to most readers.

Parents of young athletes, political junkies and commuters who use jitneys are well-served, but the majority of readers have far more pressing issues to deal with.

For example, the success of what many call "the Spanish bus" is directly related to NJ Transit's inability to provide enough bus seats for commuters.

When is The Record going to cover that story?

Real legwork

It's good to see Staff Writer John Cichowski is actually leaving the office to do reporting for his Road Warrior column (A-1).

This cuts down on his frequent misquoting of driving rules and regulation; statistics and other data; inaccurate advice to readers who send in questions and general incompetence as he approaches the 10th anniversary of taking over the column from Jeff Page.

Of course, he also left the office recently to report on the NY Waterway Ferry, but still managed to make so many mistakes in describing the service, fares and other details.


Horses and football
 
The front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section is dominated today by two Meadowlands stories, not local news.

Sykes must think readers have been on the edge of their seats in anticipation of the Feb. 2, 2014, Super Toilet Bowl at MetLife Stadium (L-1).

Baby stroller news

Staff Writer Elisa Ung has returned from her second maternity leave with a fresh perspective on what she calls good service at "burger joints, diners or order-at-the-counter eateries" (The Corner Table, BL-1).

Although the majority of her readers are in their 50s or older and can no longer relate to dining with kids, at least her column today has a strong focus on customers -- not restaurant owners and chefs.

Prickly commentary

One prick writes about another.

That was my first thought when I saw that Staff Writer Mike Kelly is devoting his first column after a break to sex-addicted candidate Anthony Weiner -- a story that has been totally over-reported by the bored media (O-4).

But then it occurred to me that Kelly on Weiner is appropriate in another way: 

Both men need to find something else to do.

Meanwhile, why does The Record continue to use an outdated thumbnail photo of the columnist, complete with his shit-eating grin?

Travel New Jersey

Congrats to Travel Editor Jill Schensul, whose cover story on short trips today describes 3 great New Jersey towns (T-1).

Last week, readers searched in vain for information about New Jersey rest stops.
 

Dirty restaurants get a pass

Image via Wikipedia

It looks like The Record of Woodland Park has pulled the restaurant health inspections list from the Friday Better Living tab --which is filled with restaurant reviews, news and ads -- after many years of burying it in the Local section.


The list is missing today, and a reader of Eye on The Record says he believes there were no ratings last week, either. The last inspections listed on northjersey.com are for Sept. 25. Readers who like to try new restaurants will just have to hope for the best.


For many years, the health inspections appeared in the back of Sunday's Local news section, along with the Dean's List and other unrelated material. Compiled by a news clerk from faxes sent in by health departments, the list often was filled with typos and misspellings when it arrived at the news copy desk. 


One week (it might have been last year),  Roberto Clemente, the dead baseball player, was listed in the paper as "conditional." (It was the Paterson school of the same name that was conditional.)


Although there are 90 or so towns in The Record's circulation area, there were never more than 15 or 20 towns listed, and some towns, including Wyckoff, refused to release the ratings.


If The Record has dropped the list without informing readers, it will ensure that only positive news about restaurants appears in the paper, save for occasional gripes in reviews. That's in keeping with the reduction in food coverage and should boost ad sales considerably, in addition to making the greedy Borgs even happier.

Defendant as victim 

Page 1 has two moronic stories today. 


The major element on A-1 transforms Ridgefield Mayor Anthony R. Suarez into a victim -- just one day after he was acquitted on bribery conspiracy charges by a federal jury, which ignored persuasive evidence of his guilt. An editorial on A-22 says trust in the mayor was compromised by his indictment, but The Record stops short of asking him to resign now, as it did after he was indicted.


The off-lead story on A-1 is ridiculous. Staff Writer Karen Rouse says commuters "should brace for tight squeezes on buses, standing-room only on trains and crowds" at Penn Station in 2018 -- the year new rail tunnels under the Hudson River were scheduled to open before Governor Christie aborted them. Then, she quotes an expert saying if job growth remains slow, the new tunnels probably won't be needed anyway.


But Rouse and her clueless editors, including Francis Scandale, Deirdre Stykes and Dan Sforza, must be the only so-called journalists in the metro area who don't know the buses and trains are at capacity now during rush hour -- why the tunnels were being built and why the Spanish bus system grew so rapidly.

Big photo, no news

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes couldn't find any legitimate news for the front of Local, so she ran an artistic shot of golfers by Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi, whose talents have been wasted on every traffic accident he comes across. 


There was no Hackensack or Englewood news, and Teaneck reporter Joseph Ax lists streets that will be closed Saturday for the funeral of a police officer, without offering any details on the cause of the violent, high-speed crash of his patrol car into a telephone poll that killed him early Monday.


'Wild night out'


The redesign of the restaurant-review centerfold in Better Living -- more photographs, much bigger headlines and less room for text -- and the limited number of dishes sampled, to save the paper money, are proving to be a disservice to readers.


The three-star review of Picnic -- The Restaurant in Fair Lawn notes the fine-dining venue  wouldn't be appropriate for a "wild night out." I wonder what eating places would be appropriate for that kind of behavior. Maybe the Quiznos sub shop it replaced.


The reviewer, Bob Probert of (201) magazine, doesn't provide a lot of information. Noting the Manhattan-like entree prices, he explains, "This is artisanal work ... using high-quality ingredients," but never tells you whether the lamb is raised naturally or the shrimp wild-caught.


If you're watching your cholesterol, there is no information on butter and heavy cream in the "French sauces" and whether the preparation of dishes can be adjusted if you want to avoid those artery-clogging ingredients.