Civic Info Bill hopes to improve local journalism in N.J.

One look at the smaller and thinner Hackensack Chronicle is all it takes to see how Gannett Co. guts local news staffs. The free weekly no longer has its own editors and reporters. Instead, the paper re-prints stories from The Record of Woodland Park, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The state Legislature is expected to vote soon on the Civic Info Bill, one response to the consolidation of media in New Jersey.

Gannett Co., which bought North Jersey Media Group in July 2016, now owns eight daily newspapers in the state, including The Record, the Woodland Park daily that abandoned Hackensack in 2009.

For more, see The Dodge Blog:

Civic Info Bill would create fund

 to spark local journalism projects

Also see: 

N.J. bill hopes to revive local journalism

Hackensack, city attorney in showdown over $3M Zisa deal

Alexander H. Carver III, a former Superior Court judge, was appointed Hackensack city attorney on Sept. 30, 2015 (Credit: Harwood Lloyd law firm).

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

This week, Hackensack's City Council is prepared to vote on a resolution terminating the services of City Attorney Alexander H. Carver III, a former judge who has had the job for only 13 months.

In a letter to the editor of The Record today, Mayor John Labrosse and Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino complained Carver agreed to pay nearly $3 million to former Police Chief Ken Zisa "without informing the mayor and council" (O-3).

"We knew the matter was being discussed -- but not decided," they say in the letter.

"Why did the city settle the case without insisting Zisa drop his $30 million tort claim against taxpayers?

"Why did the city settle before the deadline the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office had set for deciding whether to file administrative charges against Zisa, even though we specifically asked Carver to wait for that decision?

"Why did Carver agree to pay Zisa more than $1.2 million in legal fees without first reviewing the detailed invoices himself or have another attorney review them?

"Why did the city cut a $600,000-plus check to Zisa without a vote of the council or an appropriation?

"We have lost faith in Carver. If he won't resign before [this] Tuesday's [regular council] meeting, we will have to terminate his services."

Carver is not a city employee and doesn't have a signed contract. He is being paid $175,000 a year -- equal to Governor Christie's salary.

Zisa is a member of a family political dynasty that ruled Hackensack for decades. The city once was referred to mockingly as "Zisaville."

Mayor John Labrosse, seated, and other members of the City Council, including Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino, second from left.

Manager OK'd deal

As reported on Oct. 5 by Eye on The Record, Carver and David R. Troast, on his last day as city manager, agreed to a deal that would pay Zisa nearly $1,755,000 in back pay, vacation and sick days, and other job-related compensation.

Zisa, who was suspended in 2010 after 34 years in the Police Department, had been tried and convicted in 2012.

A Superior Court jury found him guilty of official misconduct and insurance fraud, and he was sentenced to 5 years in prison.

But he was placed under house arrest during appeals, and those charges were eventually dismissed.

Carver and Troast, who said he reviewed the "legal bills and invoices" submitted by Zisa's lawyer, also agreed to pay the former chief nearly $1,203,000 to cover fees through Sept. 30.

At a special meeting on Oct. 25, the City Council passed a resolution indicating officials hope to hire a new city attorney by Dec. 1.


Bridgegate trial

If you aren't already sick of The Record's wall-to-wall coverage of the Bridgegate trial, the Sunday edition should do the trick (A-1 and O-1).

The lead Page 1 story is by Paul Berger, the Port Authority reporter who need a navigation system to find the federal courthouse in Newark.

After six week of testimony from 34 witnesses, Berger declares, "several large questions remain unanswered."

Readers have their own questions, including why Berger and Dustin Racioppi, another court novice, was assigned to perhaps the most important federal criminal trial in decades.

On the Opinion front, the editors came up with a provocative headline for Carl Golden's take on the trial:

"AND THE VERDICT IS ..."

Golden is former press aide to Tom Kean and Christie Whitman, who were the worst New Jersey governors before GOP thug Chris Christie came along to claim the crown.

Below Golden's wordy column, Record Columnist Mike Kelly declares:

"Thanks to the Bridgegate trial, we now know that Christie's version of history is, at best, threadbare and highly questionable. At worst, it's a damnable lie" (O-1). 

Other stories

Page 1 has two other stories that could distract readers sick of all the repetitious Bridgegate trial stories and columns.

Retailing reporter Joan Verdon recalls Donald J. Trump's grandiose plans in 1989 for "the finest shopping center in New Jersey and beyond" at Routes 4 and 17 in Paramus (A-1).

Trump gave North Jersey residents "a preview of some of the talking points of his presidential campaign, including blustery claims about his building prowess and his ability to fix long-standing government problems, lawsuits and insults against the competition, and an allegation that the approval process might be stacked against him."

Trump hired Thomas Wells, a Paramus attorney. In July, Wells wrote a piece for The Huffington Post. Here are excerpts the reporter doesn't mention:

"After the initial interview, my client contact with Donald was actually not very much. One low point I do remember (actually will never forget) is a limousine ride to a meeting with the editorial board of a New Jersey newspaper in which my married client sought to regale me with the number and quality of eligible young women who in his words “want me.” I was just plain shocked and embarrassed, but I kept smiling. I wanted and needed this client happy. 

"While I was working for Donald, various press reports had Trump and his then-wife Ivanna living in a personal apartment in the Trump Tower of 8, 16 and even 20 or 30 rooms. Genuinely curious, I once asked him how many rooms the apartment actually had. I will never forget his response to me: “However many they will print.”

No trick-or-treat

Below the tortured Trump tale, local obituary writer Jay Levin reports no trick-or-treaters ever come to the door of the Kostka home, because "the house is inside a cemetery" (A-1).

Guy Kostka, superintendent of Valleau Cemetery in Ridgewood, has lived on the grounds with his family since 1982.

Editors clash on Orlando killings: Hate crime or terrorism?

New York Post front pages from last Tuesday, above, and last Monday, below, contained clashing portraits of Omar Mateen, who used a military style assault weapon and a handgun to kill 49 people in an Orlando, Fla., gay dance club last Sunday.

A week after the slaughter inside Pulse nightclub, The Record of Woodland Park and other news media continue to struggle with whether the U.S.-born ISIS sympathizer was committing a hate crime against the LGBT community or was a terrorist.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers of The Record are pulled this way and that by today's front-page package on the slaughter inside a gay dance club in Orlando, Fla.

A week after Omar Mateen gunned down 49 people, readers aren't sure whether he was a Muslim terrorist or a Muslim who hated homosexuals or a little bit of both (A-1).

A news story from Asbury Park reports the advocacy group Garden State Equality used its annual fundraising walk to honor the victims of the Pulse dance club attack.

Below the fold, Staff Writer Mike Kelly continues to portray Mateen as an extremist in a column that recalls the 9/11 hearings in 2004, and then launches into a tedious exploration of a so-called debate on what words to use to describe a Muslim terrorist.

The Record's editing and production staff missed a major error in Staff Writer Matthew McGrath's story on the Garden State Equality walk -- the attack in Orlando was a week ago, not the "six days" ago that begin the second paragraph on Page 1.

Local news?

On the Local front, Staff Writer John Cichowski jumps through hoops to try to interest readers in a story on pedestrian safety at NJ Transit rail stations (L-1).

The veteran columnist actually left the office to cover a dog-and-pony show the state's mass-transit agency staged in Secaucus to dramatize the danger of walking and burying your head in a smartphone.

NJ Transit has come a long way, and no longer labels people who are killed by trains, including suicides, as "trespassers."

Cichowski pats the state agency on the back for being "proactive" by building fences in two communities.

But he doesn't mention a long stretch of track in the middle of Railroad Avenue in Hackensack that remains unfenced even though a middle school student was killed by a train there in 2010. 

LOL moment

On the Business front today, a large photo of apartment construction on Main Street in Hackensack provides a laughing-out-loud moment for residents (B-1).

In the foreground, Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi captured one of the many homeless men who roam around the city not far from the Bergen County shelter, where they are served three meals a day.

The story doesn't mention the Borgs are planning to unload 19.7 acres in Hackensack on an apartment developer in return for $20 million or more -- a deal that presumably will go forward even if they sell North Jersey Media Group and The Record to the Gannett company, as reported last week.

It's no secret

On the Better Living front today, Staff Writer Elisa Ung divulges two North Jersey chefs' "secrets" for losing weight, and provides four of their recipes (BL-1 and BL-2).

Except readers don't learn any "secrets," only stories of self-control and choosing lots of vegetables, fruit and naturally raised meat over all of the artery clogging dishes and sugary desserts the paper's chief reviewer promotes in her weekly restaurant appraisals.

Still, one element of Ung's column deserves praise, and that's the clever headline:

"WAIST NOT"

Me, me, me

A second column from Kelly labels as "nonsense, pathetic nonsense" the notion that if more law-abiding citizens were allowed to carry guns, "murderers like Omar Mateen could be stopped before they fired off too many shots" (O-1 and O-2).

But before readers see that rare opinion, they have to plow through Kelly's describing his journalism experience over a four-decade career:

"I was 23 years old when I covered my first mass murder," Kelly says in his first sentence.

Later, he reports, "This columnist has been caught in street gun fights in the Middle East."

Give me a break.

Sensationalism drowning out questions from local taxpayers

The Hackensack City Council and city manager are reviewing proposals to privatize sanitation pickup for a projected savings of $850,000 a year. Officials also may hire a public relations firm, Vision Media of Secaucus, to promote downtown redevelopment at an undisclosed cost. The Record hasn't covered those issues or asked why Board of Education President Jason Nunnermacker, below in hoodie, falsely claimed the school budget cut local property taxes. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today, the desperate editors of The Record exploit the anguish of a mother -- who suspected her son committed anti-Semitic acts -- to sell newspapers and distract readers searching in vain for local news.

Large photos of a tearful Denise Rivas, mother of Lodi defendant Anthony Graziano, are splashed all over Page 1 and the continuation page in the kind of sensational trial coverage you'd expect to see in a trashy tabloid (A-1 and A-8).

Local news?

On the Local news front today, Editor Deirdre Sykes continues to scramble, grabbing at crime news, a college graduation, animal-rights activists and the expansion of the Islamic Center of Passaic County (L-1).

In fact, there is so little local news from Hackensack and many other towns, Sykes had to plug a huge hole (half of a newspaper page) with a Dean's List (L-6) -- a crutch she has used for many years.

Meanwhile, the business editors couldn't find enough news in Bergen and Passaic counties, so they ran with the closing of the Saks Fifth Avenue store at the Short Hills mall -- far out of the circulation area (L-7).

Wednesday's paper

On Wednesday's front page, transportation writer Christopher Maag tried to whip readers into a frenzy over "waste" and "lapses in security" at Newark Liberty International Airport.

And Port Authority reporter Paul Berger threw crumbs to long-suffering commuters who ride buses to and from Manhattan on the completion of a new midtown terminal (2023 to 2026).

Berger is another in a long line of Record reporters who decline to question officials running the massive bi-state agency on their refusal to add exclusive bus lanes at the Lincoln Tunnel or expand PATH service to Bergen County.

On the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski dredged up a 2008 incident, but the introduction was so long and boring, readers fell asleep before he made the point that "driving drowsy" is as dangerous as drunk driving.

Lazy editors still ignore long-suffering property tax payers

As they do four times a year, hundreds of Hackensack homeowners will be dropping off their property tax payments at City Hall early next month. The city tax collector offers a 10-day grace period for payment of taxes, so the deadline is Feb. 10. Quarterly payments above $3,000 and $4,000 are not uncommon.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Tens of thousands of readers are bracing for their 1st quarter property tax payments on Feb. 1.

But if they're scanning Page 1 or the Local front of The Record today, they won't see anything on why their taxes keep going up year after year, and why services, such as street paving, remain stagnant.

Today, thousands of Jewish, Muslim and Hindu readers are staring dumbly at all of the front-page space devoted to a Ridgewood church former members call a cult, wondering what the controversy has to do them (A-1).

And the rest of the page -- devoted to Iran, a North Jersey casino proposal and Rutgers -- surely means Editor Martin Gottlieb still hasn't retired to his Manhattan apartment (A-1).

Local news?

Local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza lead the first page of the Local news section with a story on a proposal for affordable housing in tiny Ho-Ho-Kus (L-1).

Do residents fear an influx of minorities seeking the low- and moderate-cost town houses? Reporter Steve Janoski doesn't say.

Reinforcing the stereotype of minorities committing crime, a rare story from Hackensack focuses not on property tax increases or unchecked school board spending, but on a black church that helps inmates reenter society (L-1).

Police news

A large piece of L-3 is devoted to a fatal Route 4 crash in Englewood that saw the driver ejected and killed by a second vehicle, but he isn't identified and police weren't asked if he was speeding or racing.

Sykes and Sforza desperately need this and other Law & Order stories to plug holes in their section that should be filled with municipal news.

More and more, The Record reads like a police blotter, but the online service Hackensack Daily Voice.com does a far better job, and regularly scoops the supremely lazy local editors.

Fact checking?

A Business front story on New Jersey's antiquated liquor-license laws incorrectly calls Costco Wholesale's house brand "Kirkland" instead of Kirkland Signature (B-1).

And Costco offers its own brand of French champagne, Italian prosecco, cognac, California cabernet sauvignon and other red wines, not just the "chardonnay, tequila and whiskey" described in the article.

$4M-plus houses

The Real Estate cover on sale of a dozen Bergen County houses for more than $4 million in 2015 must have been commissioned by the publisher's office (R-1).

Publisher Stephen A. Borg may be feeling a little cramped in his $3.65 million Tenafly McMansion, purchased with a mortgage from his family's North Jersey Media Group.

Only months after the home was purchased in 2007, Borg put into motion a major newsroom downsizing in Hackensack that saw the departure of many veteran employees.

The following year Borg closed the landmark Hackensack building, and decamped to a nondescript office building in Woodland Park.

Who's depressed?

The Record continues its one-dimensional coverage of seniors with a Better Living cover story on depression (BL-1).

The majority of readers are older, but it never occurs to the editors that many seniors dine out regularly, enjoy Broadway shows or concerts of classical music, and do so well into their 80s.

Mike and Chris

Columnist Mike Kelly is taking more swings at Governor Christie, our absentee governor, but the veteran reporter still can't bring himself to tell it like it is (O-1).

The GOP bully certainly is the worst governor in state history, and holds the record for vetoes -- 450 and counting.

Many residents believe Christie lied about his involvement in the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal, and should be impeached. 

But not Kelly, who has been writing a column for more than 25 years.

So, you've got to wonder why the reporter still hasn't grown a pair of balls.

Money talks

Today's nostalgic Travel cover story on the lire and other national currencies replaced by the euro is of little practical use (T-1).

Jet-lagged Travel Editor Jill Schensul should be telling Europe-bound readers about credit cards that don't impose a foreign-currency transaction surcharge, and where to get the best exchange rates.

Saturday's paper

On Saturday, Gottlieb led the paper with yet another column on how Christie is doing in his futile bid for the GOP presidential nomination.

This front-page column was from Herb Jackson, the paper's so-called Washington correspondent, not Charles Stile, who is recovering from injuries he suffered from all the time he has spent in bed with the GOP bully.

Jackson also had a rare story on Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, the conservative who defied the reporter for six months "on his decision not to give money to a Republican campaign fund because of its past support for gay candidates."

Almost all of Saturday's local-news section was devoted to state and county politics; and police and court news, including a lawyer sent to prison for embezzling legal fees.

An Internet list on who reads some bigger newspapers

Capt. Bill Sheehan, the conservationist who founded Hackensack Riverkeeper, keeps an office on Main Street in Hackensack, above and below, not that far from the river for which he advocates.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Why do you read The Record of Woodland Park? 

Do you sit up and beg for local news? 

Read the obituaries to see if someone you know died? 

Or wish you could gorge on desserts and other food made with lots of butter and cream like the restaurant critic, and have someone else pay the bill?

Here is a list of bigger newspapers some wag compiled and circulated on the Internet, and who supposedly reads them:

1.        The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2.       The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3.       The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4.       USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times.

5.       The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could find the time and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

6.       The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it.

7.       The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8.       The New York Post is read by people who don't care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9.       The Chicago Tribune is read by people that are in prison and used to run the state, & would like to do so again, as would their constituents who are currently free on bail.

10.    The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores.

11.     The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are gay, handicapped, minority, feminist, atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided, of course, that they are not Republicans.

12.    The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

13.    The Seattle Times is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something to wrap it in.

Reagan's trickle-down lies and Christie's voodoo budget

The large number of empty storefronts in Englewood, above and below, is a story local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza of The Record refuse to tackle, even though both at one time covered Englewood as reporters. Today, the weekly reporter assigned to the small city discusses a heating project at the high school (L-7).

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Ronald Reagan's "trickle-down" tax and budget policies as president were discredited years ago as "voodoo economics."

In fact, in the 1980s, The Record did a series reporting the conservative Republican's budget was balanced with deep cuts in social programs, including those for children.

Is there any mention of that in today's Page 1 report on Reagan's "legacy" as a "master of compromise" that Governor Christie is trying to resurrect in his pursuit of the White House (A-1)?

Stile lies

Editor Martin Gottlieb loves putting Charles Stile --the Trenton-based political columnist who long ago sold out to Christie -- on the front page, but the way his flattering report is played today raises troubling questions.

The headline appears above the fold with no indication to readers that an opinion column appears below or that it is written by Stile, a reporter who is one of the GOP bully's lap dogs.

The word "Opinion" should appear on Page 1, maybe even over the headline itself, to tell readers this is more of Stile's selective reporting.

The one question Stile doesn't address is how could Christie, who has executed 350 vetoes in New Jersey, hope to sell himself as a compromiser, if he decides to run for a nomination he is unlikely to get?

Now, Christie is trying to balance a state budget and reduce taxes on the wealthy, forcing him to grab at money that should go into state pension funds, affordable housing, cleaning up the environment and other programs.

Sex trade

Except for the sex trade on Route 46 in South Hackensack, here is another Sunday edition with a global and national perspective (A-1).

I wonder if Gottlieb will ever lead the Sunday paper with news that police departments in Tenafly and other wealthy communities have stemmed the high number of house burglaries or that the lame Paterson department is winning the fight against street shootings.

Instead of reporting on struggling downtowns in Englewood and Teaneck, Gottlieb gives us an Associated Press story on chain stores in Manhattan, where he lives (A-4).

Photo puzzles

A photo on A-12 today raises a question that isn't answered by the caption:

Do guests of Route 46 hotels in South Hackensack have to worry their car's wheels and tires will be stolen?

On L-3, a photo of an architectural tour in Paterson doesn't identify the early 20th century building shown.

Local news

Today's Local news section gives readers a much stronger municipal report than in recent days or weeks, and, lo and behold, no crime news appears on L-1.

There is even a story on the Hackensack school board race, but none of the candidates are asked to address the low-quality of food service at the high school (L-3). 

Ferriero editorial

The only thing worth reading in Opinion today is an editorial that states in no uncertain terms that despite a mixed verdict, former Bergen County Democratic Party power broker Joseph Ferriero "was still found guilty" and "justice was served" (O-2).

Contrast this with Columnist Mike Kelly and other reporters falling all over themselves to lay out legal arguments from the losing defense attorney, Michael Baldassare, who plans to appeal the conviction and whatever sentence is imposed.

That assures the lawyer of tens of thousands of dollars in additional legal fees.

Table this

I got a good laugh from the Elisa  Ung column on North Jersey's hard-to-get restaurant tables (L-1).

I actually once got one of them, a spacious booth in Chakra's romantic dining room, which manages to silence the roar of traffic on Route 4 in Paramus.

But the toughest tables to find are those where grass-fed beef, antibiotic-free poultry, organic vegetables and other premium ingredients are served, because few restaurant owners want to give up profits to benefit customers.

Ung, the paper's restaurant critic, wouldn't know anything about that, blinded as she is by her food obsessions and a love of artery clogging heavy cream and butter.

Stupid headline hides truth about GOP-led Congress

A sign in the unisex bathroom at Pushcart Coffee on Ninth Avenue and 25th Street in Manhattan.

Shivering tourists on a walking tour of Manhattan's Theater District on Saturday, another frigid, sunless day.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A headline declaring "deep divide in D.C." certainly is familiar to anyone who has read a newspaper in the last few years.

But after months of hysteria in The Record and other media about Tea Party radicals and other Republicans taking full control of Congress and dismantling President Obama's health care law and other initiatives, reality has set in.

On Monday's front page, more than two months after the 2014 election, Columnist Herb Jackson reports voter turnout was pushed down "nationally to its lowest point since World War II," and ending gridlock is "overly optimistic, to say the least."

Jackson blames voter apathy on a "bitter election," but the media also are at fault for ignoring issues in favor of conflict and sound bites, and failing to reveal the lies in GOP attack ads.

However, the main headline on his column used the old "deep divide in D.C." and ignored the real truth -- no end to gridlock in the new Congress, despite Republican majorities.

Monday's A-2 carried another long correction of a story in the Local news section, the one on Sunday about Brendan Jordan, 7, the New Milford boy who died in a school accident.

Today's paper

Page 1 today is dominated by Staff Writer John Cichowski's Road Warrior column -- based on press releases, phone interviews and fatal accident reports (A-1).

If the past is any guide, Cichowski likely has committed a number of errors in citing state police data, and he continues to refer to pedestrian deaths as "crashes."

Weak laws

Cichowski should be calling for stronger laws to hold drivers criminally responsible for killing a pedestrian.

Now, drivers can use the excuse that they "didn't see" the pedestrian as a get-out-of jail card.

Older drivers

The challenges facing older drivers is another issue the lazy, demented reporter has neglected in the more than 11 years he has been writing the column.

That can be plainly seen today in the two photos that run in Local, where head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, hold up another older driver to ridicule.

Look at the helpless expression on the white-haired woman's face -- as captured by an ambulance-chasing freelancer -- after she drove her 2009 Honda Civic "over a guardrail and retaining wall and down an embankment at a condominium complex" in Ridgewood (L-3).

Of course, the woman didn't "drive" her car through the guardrail on Monday afternoon.

She likely mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal, a common error for elderly drivers.

Is driver retraining available for older drivers such as this woman? 

Cichowski could care less, and Sykes and Sforza fear any such public service stories would deprive them of the filler accident photos they so desperately need to complete their weak local news report.  

Second look

On Sunday, Columnist Mike Kelly criticized Governor Christie for not attending the funeral of another pedestrian, Cliffside Park Special Police Officer Stephen Petruzzello, who was killed by a driver who claimed she didn't see him (Opinion front).

But Kelly gets absolutely no editing, and thinks readers have nothing better to do than plow through a dozen long introductory paragraphs about Christie the football fan and a gubernatorial vacation.

The criticism appears on the continuation page, and many readers may have been so bored by all the background they never saw it.

It seems silly to tell someone who has been a columnist for more than 20 years: Put your criticism in the first paragraph and leave the background for later.

But it's necessary with Kelly, one of the paper's chief word pushers.

NJ Transit rail officials stop blaming the victim

The Midtown Bridge between Hackensack and Bogota, above, has been closed indefinitely for emergency repairs, borough police said today. The bridge was closed on Thursday, though I don't recall seeing anything in The Record.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

NJ Transit has stopped blaming the people who commit suicide by train.

On Page 1 of The Record today, Staff Writer Jim Norman reports rail suicides are on the upswing, prompting the public transit agency to work with the state Department of Human Services on new programs "aimed at stemming the tragic trend."

Nowhere in Norman's story does "trespasser" appear -- the word that NJ Transit repeatedly used to describe suicide victims in earlier stories by transportation reporter Karen Rouse.

Rouse completely and enthusiastically swallowed the agency line in every story she wrote about a rail suicide, and the paper often didn't even bother to identify the victim.

But The Record still shies away from asking NJ Transit why it doesn't build more fences or deploy more transit police to prevent people from using trains to kill themselves.

Bad headline

The Woodland Park daily managed to get midnight gay marriage ceremonies on today's front page, but chose an idiotic headline: "History struck at midnight."

What didn't strike was inspiration.

Editor Marty Gottlieb wasted more front page space on a professional football game and another look ahead at the Super Toilet Bowl in February (A-1).

Two more corrections from the newsroom that can't write straight or fact check appear on A-2.

Local yokels

Gottlieb wasn't the only editor scrambling for legitimate news: 

Deputy Assignment Flunky Dan Sforza put a story and huge photo of a "passive house" on the Local front today.

The L-1 story about a Teaneck couple and their energy efficient house has Sunday Real Estate section written all over it. 

Today's local-news section also carries an astounding four stories on walks, runs or ceremonies for various charities (L-1 and L-3).

Today's Better Living cover story on three career waiters is a refreshing break from the paper's mindless promotion of celebrity chefs, restaurants and their wealthy owners (BL-1).