Star-Ledger, biggest daily paper in N.J., piles on Christie

The Anderson Street Bridge to Teaneck was how many Hackensack residents reached the Cedar Lane business district, Holy Name Hospital and Englewood. On Wednesday, with the bridge closed for repairs, Cedar Lane seemed unusually quiet, suggesting that customers are staying away. Have you seen anything about that in The Record?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

For the past decade, The Record of Woodland Park has emphasized marketing over journalism, as you can see in the paper's front-page motto:

"NORTH JERSEY'S TRUSTED SOURCE"

In fact, under Publisher Stephen A. Borg, The Record has shown time and again that its coverage of Governor Christie cannot be trusted.

Today, the Star-Ledger demanded Christie's final exit, echoing the earlier call of six other newspapers in the state.

An editorial notes the GOP bully "has made it abundantly clear that governing New Jersey is a distant second priority for him, far behind his personal ambitions." 

See: 'Resign for New Jersey's sake'

"His craven endorsement of Donald Trump is only the final blow, the moment when he lost any last shred of credibility," the editorial states.

"His fullsome praise of Trump, after his stinging condemnations only a few weeks ago, is impossible to believe."

NJMG and Borgs

Of course, The Record hasn't joined the other prominent dailies in the state, because Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin continues to hem and haw, and equivocate over Christie's neglect of his duties, his endorsement of Trump and all of the unresolved problems in the Garden State.

Doblin's strings are likely pulled by the Borgs and their powerful North Jersey Media Group. 

To call the editorial page editor a pussy is an insult to women. 

The coverage of Christie by reporters and columnists continues to focus relentlessly on politics, so every story and opinion piece is little more than "Republicans said/Democrats said."

As of June 2015, The Star-Ledger's paid circulation was 213,890 daily and 289,882 on Sunday, largest in the state, according to the New Jersey Press Association.

As of December 2013, The Record's paid circulation was 139,904 daily and 167,278 on Sunday, according to the press organization.  

Today's paper

The front page and the rest of the paper continue to ignore the rising chorus of resignation calls on Christie from other dailies.

A Page 1 story by Dustin Racioppi, a former investigative reporter at the Asbury Park Press, carries this headline:

"Criticism of Christie takes

on a virtual life of its own"

His story doesn't mention any other newspaper, but Racioppi today tweeted to his followers about the Star-Ledger editorial and provided a link to it.

Liberals rejoice

Many readers are rejoicing over another Page 1 story:

"Staring down the prospect of nominating Donald Trump for president, Republicans spiraled into a chaotic, last ditch search Wednesday for a way to save the GOP from hitching its fortunes to an unpredictable celebrity candidate without alienating his  throng of followers" (A-1).

Let's hope we are witnessing the self-destruction of Christie, the racist Republican Party and its radical Tea Party offshoot.

GOP radicals deserve swift kick, not banner headlines

Our tax dollars at work. Hackensack Fire Department equipment producing these geysers were parked between Costco Wholesale and Pep Boys on Monday, near the Hackensack River, above and below.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The Record and other media love conflict, as today's lead Page 1 story on Tea Party crackpots demonstrates.

Why don't newspaper, radio and TV reporters challenge Republican claims that the Affordable Care Act is a "train wreck" and a "job killer," instead of merely quoting such nonesense?

And contradicting such prominent play is an editorial condemning Friday's vote in the GOP-led House of Representatives:

Withhold funding for health-care reform while keeping the federal government up and running, temporarily, is called "one of the most irresponsible votes in recent memory" (A-13).

Where is the reporting that Governor Christie's refusal to set up the law's health-care exchanges will lead to less competition among insurance providers and reduce the savings of New Jerseyans who buy coverage starting on Oct. 1?

Sandy and Chris

Isn't it strange that state Sen. Barbara Buono -- not the media -- managed to find Sandy victims who haven't gotten a penny of federal aid nearly a year after the superstorm (A-3)?

Editor Marty Gottlieb should have put the Buono campaign story and a story on the $25 million state-revenue shortfall (A-4) outside -- replacing Tea Party antics and another crappy sports column.

OK. That wouldn't square with Gottlieb's effort to put Christie's bid for a second term in the best light, even if that means bending the facts.

Miguel Perez

A story on L-3 today rehabilitates the image of former Record reporter Miguel Perez, a Cuban exile who was stripped of his column when then-editor Francis "Frank" Scandale decided the newsroom was too diverse.

Scandale also ended the columns of Lawrence Aaron, who is black, and Elaine D'Aurizio, the only female news columnist at the time.

Spanish conflict 

Today's story also inadvertently reveals how little diversity exists in Woodland Park when reporter Monsy Alvarado blurts out:

"I am one of two reporters who speak Spanish at The Record. There is a need for more people like me, who speak Spanish...."

Perez also was one of the few Spanish-speaking staffers, leading Scandale to create a real conflict of interest by assigning the rabidly anti-Castro reporter to cover Cuba and the large exile community in North Jersey.

About Hackensack 

In Hackensack news today, Police Director Michael Mordaga is barring officers from being paid to do residency fraud investigations for the school district (L-1).

Also, see Regina DiPasqua's letter to the editor on the Hackensack school district's refusal to pay the city about $1 million for a school resource officer (A-13).

On Friday, another letter to the editor, from Howard Vogel of Fair Lawn, urges voters "to fire" Christie in November "and let him campaign for president on his own time and with his own money" (Friday's A-18). Amen.

Friday's Local section continues the blow-by-blow coverage of two multimillionaires' legal battle over the Hudson News empire (Friday's Local front).

Get me rewrite

John Cichowski's Road Warrior column on Friday rehashed an earlier column, according to an e-mail from a concerned reader:

"In his Friday column, the Road Warrior takes the exact same information from his Wednesday column and shuffles it around to report the exact same information about less transportation funding for urban counties v. rural counties in New Jersey.

"Either The Record management and Road Warrior are totally clueless about what they previously reported or they think and do not care that their readers might actually remember what they read in the Road Warrior columns.

"What is even stranger is that all of the surprising news in his two columns took place seven months ago.

"The Road Warrior actually did report some new information. He was stunned that 70 per cent of New Jerseyans live in only 50 per cent of its counties, as if that is newsworthy."

Read the full e-mail on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior should get out more

Drive, she said

See Friday's Better Living tab for a lukewarm, 2-star  review of 15 Grand American Bistro in far-off Montvale (BL-18).

It appears as if Vincent Giambona, co-owner of a popular Fort Lee restaurant, opened this "updated, upscale diner" to shorten his commute from his home in River Vale.

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Ex-Timesman is two-timing local readers

From the endless stream of Road Warrior columns on driving and parking you'd never know North Jersey and the region have a well-developed, though crowded, mass-transit system. (Wikipedia)

Here's another disappointing front page from Editor Marty Gottlieb, a New York Times veteran who seems determined to present a mix of local, state, regional, national and even international stories on The Record's premier page.

But this Times-like approach to the news betrays his duty to serve local readers.

More loco news

After he took over in late January, Gottlieb said in public appearances and media interviews that his job as The Record's editor was a "homecoming" -- recalling his days as a Hackensack-based cub reporter who covered town news.

But instead of slowing the decline in local news, he has double-crossed readers by allowing two lazy and incompetent sub-editors, Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, to accelerate the process.

Jock-itching editor

And he has made matters worse by a jock-like devotion to putting sports on the front page, such as the huge A-1 photo of football referees on Friday. 

That photo pushed below the fold a far more important story on Governor Christie vowing to veto Democratic spending bills until he gets the "income-tax credit that he has been pushing for months" (A-1)

A tax credit? What happened to the income-tax cut the GOP bully has been promoting? Are they one in the same?

Is driving a right?

On Friday's Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to ignore mass-transit users with a column on drivers who bitch about parking tickets.

Thanks to complaining e-mails from morons like reader "Irv," Cichowski has guaranteed himself an endless supply of off-the-subject columns in North Jersey, one of the world's most traffic-choked regions.

Dissing Hackensack

Even though columnist Mike Kelly declared "chaos" and a "double dose of chaos" in Hackensack several weeks ago, the drought on city news continued Friday and Saturday.

Friday's edition of the Hackensack Chronicle re-printed a story from The Record on former Police Chief Ken Zisa and the city's future.

North Jersey Media Group has  been re-printing Record stories since the departure of Mark J. Bonamo, who was the weekly's managing editor, so it's unclear whether he will be replaced.

This guarantees Sykes and Sforza won't be embarrassed by the weekly's Hackensack news scoop. 

Woops. Friday's edition of the Chronicle (Sept. 28, 2012) reports the City Council has renewed talks on hiring a police director instead of a police chief, a story I haven't seen in The Record.

More fatty desserts

In Friday's Better Living tab, a lukewarm 2-star review of Pearl Restaurant in Ridgewood emphasizes high prices and clumsy preparation, but Reviewer Elisa Ung made sure she sampled four desserts.

Ung also failed to point out the contradiction of one dish she liked: heart-healthy red snapper with an artery clogging butter sauce.

Tea Party wackos

Today, in keeping with Gottlieb's blend of A-1 stories, he gives local crackpots a platform to attack a U.N program that promotes conservation of resources and a limit on development.

David Walker, presumably a Tea Party radical, appears in a front-page photo. 

Walker and others oppose such "smart growth" initiatives as construction of homes and apartments near mass transit.

The story fails to expose them as one-man, one-car proponents who cause massive rush-hour traffic jams and pollution. 

Gun rights and wrongs

Why did Gottlieb waste more A-1 space today on the story of a Connecticut father who shot and killed "a knife-wielding prowler in a black ski mask," only to find out later it was his 15-year-old son?

The wire-service story is filled with the usual idiotic comments from neighbors who know nothing about the man or his son, and it ignores two big questions:

Why was this teenager masquerading as an armed prowler, and are the hundreds of thousands of Americans with guns an indictment of the police? 

Aircraft headaches

Today's Local front has another photo of a minor accident at Teterboro Airport, reminding readers of how little attention the editors have paid to the impact of aircraft noise on the quality of life in Hackensack and nearby towns.

Of course, the explanation might lie in Chairman Malcolm A. Borg, a long-time champion of the airport who co-owns a business jet.

On L-2 today, a photo caption leaves out an important detail: Why did county police salute Italy with a flag-raising ceremony on Friday?

Second look

After the Signature section published a cover story profiling Rep. Scott Garrett, a radical Republican from Wantage, I expected equal time for his opponent in the November election, Teaneck Deputy Mayor Adam Gussen.

But Thursday's Signature section didn't have a word about Gussen, a Democrat.

The Sept. 20 story on Garrett also used two big and one small photo of the so-called conservative icon, as if section Editor Alan Finder was doing public relations for the congressman.

Has the paper published a photo of Gussen since he won the Democratic primary in June?

Instead of a Gussen profile on the cover, this week's Signature section published a confessional from Ung, the restaurant reviewer, who sounded like she needed a break from eating out on all that unhealthy food and spending huge amounts of The Record's money.

Hey, readers would certainly welcome that.

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• Hackensack is behind rank-and-file cops
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