Page 1: Dead and dying politicians, murder and mayhem

In the Fort Lee Public Library, a display on the bitter World War II battle against 21,000 Japanese troops dug in on Iwo Jima notes that "256 men [U.S. Marines] went up to Mount Suribachi to place the flag on top" and "only 22 men came back down."  In the 2010 census, about 1,300 Japanese residents were counted in Fort Lee.

By VICTOR SASSON
EDITOR

Nearly the entire front page of The Record today is devoted to dead and dying politicians, a motorcyclist who lost part of a leg on a poorly engineered highway and a businessman murdered in South Hackensack.

What was Editor Martin Gottlieb thinking when he assembled this schlomozzle?

I can certainly see the obituary for Gerald Calabrese of Cliffside Park, New Jersey's longest serving mayor, as front-page news (A-1).

But it doesn't look like his death will bring to end the Calabrese family dynasty that continues to rule the borough, and that point isn't made forcefully enough.

Look what a sorry mess the Zisa family made of Hackensack, where reformers struggle to repair the damage to the city's treasury from defending and settling lawsuits filed against a corrupt police chief and former state assemblyman.

But what about the lawsuit over a poorly engineered stretch of S-curves on Route 23 in West Milford, where Jim Smetana crashed his motorcycle and lost part of his left leg (A-1)?

Why is that on Page 1 today? 

Ditto for another boring Charles Stile political column, this one on twice-failed former presidential candidate John McCain, a war hero long past retirement.

Corrections

Two major editing errors are corrected on A-2 today. 

In one, the lame assignment and copy editing staff couldn't get right the name of a kid who donated his organs to three others after his death in October.

Local news?

Most of the stories on  the Local front today are from the courts or the police blotter (L-1).

Instead of according Mayor Calabrese a privileged place on A-1 today, the editors could have given better play to the death of actress and director Judith Malina, whose credits include "Dog Day Afternoon" and "The Sopranos" (L-1).

You'll find more Law & Order news inside the local-news section.

Hard landing

As an example of how out of touch the editors are, a photo caption on L-3 today of a corporate jet landing at Teterboro Airport notes low aircraft are "an all-too-common site for motorists."

But it's homeowners in Hackensack, Teaneck and other towns near the airport who endure the noise of those jets around the clock, a quality of life issue The Record has ignored for many decades.

These editors again fail to deliver hometown news

The quality of life in North Jersey -- including aircraft noise over Hackensack and other towns near Teterboro and Newark airports, above, or gaping potholes that damage car tires and wheels -- are of no interest to the editors of The Record's Local news section who appear to spend most of their time reading tabloids in the newsroom toilet.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I'm shocked by the amount of Law & Order news in The Record's Local section today and Friday.

Police, fire, accident and court news and photos dominate almost every page.

But readers also find stories about the police, including Friday's report on raises for the Pal Park chief and today's solemn piece on a vigil for Daniel Breslin, the hospitalized Bergen County police officer who was severely injured by an allegedly drunk driver (A-1 and L-1).

Sforza stumbles

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza was so desperate to fill his pages today he ran a freelance shot of a Route 80 accident in Hackensack from inside the photographer's car (L-3).

Now that's chintzy hometown news coverage. Still, Sforza stands proud, shouting, Who says we don't cover Hackensack? 

Sforza's stumbling around for the last several months would seem to call for the return of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes after a prolonged convalescence.

On vacation?

When is the last time readers saw Hannan Adely's byline on a Hackensack story? Has she been reassigned, sent to cover the Syrian civil war or what?

On Friday, the weekly Hackensack Chronicle reported the City Council on Monday night approved a $760,000 bond ordinance to repave streets and perform related work.

After the meeting, resident Steven Gelber's Hackensack Scoop blog reported that Mayor John Labrosse announced former campaign manager Thom Ammirato will no longer be writing press releases for the mayor or Deputy Mayor Katherine Canestrino.

But Labrosse said Ammirato's salary of $6,500 a month wouldn't be adjusted at this time, Gelber reported.

Following Gelber's lead, Adely of The Record has reported that Ammirato also has a full-time position with Bergen County, and serves as public relations consultant to at least three Republicans in the state Legislature.

But the Woodland Park daily hasn't reported on this latest wrinkle in the Ammirato story or approval of the street-paving bond ordinance.

The woefully short list of streets listed in the Chronicle story continues to omit Euclid Avenue, between Prospect and Summit avenues, a potholed block that hasn't been repaved for decades. 

Euclid Avenue potholes, above and below.

Friday's Record

Editor Marty Gottlieb led Friday's paper with a long report on the incredible mess Governor Christie has made of road, highway and mass-transit improvements by refusing to hike the low gasoline tax to fund them.

This is basically a four-year-old story The Record has ignored until now, especially increasingly congested traffic, and crowded trains and buses.

Barf bags

In Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung pans Port of Call American Fusion Buffet and Sushi in Hackensack.

Still, she feels it necessary to tell readers the all-you-can eat format "would be good for people with big appetites."

The data box on Friday's BL-18 lists only four recommended dishes, two of them desserts, but omits other dishes Ung praised in the text. 

Did anyone edit the piece?

Today's paper

Gottlieb's Page 1 today includes another story on the agonizingly slow investigative and legal process in the wake of January's explosive revelations in the George Washington Bridge scandal.

Since members of the GOP bully's inner circle in Trenton and at the Port Authority admitted they orchestrated four days of gridlock in Democratic Fort Lee, all readers have seen are firings and resignations, and targets lawyering up and taking the Fifth.

Christie himself hired a friendly law firm at taxpayers' expense to produce a whitewash declaring the governor had no knowledge or involvement in the lane closures.

Other stories and columns appear designed to help Christie repair his battered image (A-3).

The slow legal process is designed to ensure greedy lawyers who charge exorbitant hourly rates will walk away with literally millions of dollars in fees no matter who is found to be at fault for an apparent pattern of political retribution.

Paramus woes

Today's front page also includes a story on a "big change for Paramus," which has eased rules on retail signs along Routes 4 and 17.

This piece continues The Record's ad-fueled focus on major retail chains over Main Street merchants.

The last story on local merchants reported on a few record stores, as in those selling vinyl recordings, and continued to ignore struggling downtowns in Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck and other towns.

Reading the daily police blotter

Image via Wikipedia
Hackensack in the 1890s, around the time The Bergen Evening Record was founded in River City.

Page 1 of The Record today carries an update of the fiery plane crash that killed five, but I've already lost interest in what caused the accident on Tuesday. 


And I see nothing about the hubris or machismo that drove Jeffrey F. Buckalew, a 45-year-old investment banker from Manhattan, to fly his own plane and sacrifice the lives of his wife, children, a family dog and a colleague, himself the father of three.


In fact, today's story conflicts with a witness quoted in Wednesday's scatter-shot account that a wing broke off and the plane "went down like a rock" -- words that formed the basis of the banger headline on that day's front page.


Now, the consensus of witnesses is that the plane "spiraled out of control" and exploded when it hit Route 287.


The plane truth


Buckalew's multimillion dollar turbo-prop apparently was brought down by ice build-up. The plane was based at Teterboro, meaning long-suffering Hackensack homeowners will have one less noisy aircraft to worry about.


Readers looking at Pages A-4 and A-5 today can be forgiven if they think they have a copy of The Star-Ledger, which contributed four stories on those pages.


The photo on A-7 -- two female sailors kissing -- gives new meaning to the old salt's boast of having "a woman in every port."


On A-19, a wire-service story reports North Korean madman Kim Jong Il died in bed -- not while working -- but doesn't say whether a young woman was involved.


Crimes against readers


The front of head Assigment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section looks like a police blotter come to life -- every story involves police or court news or an indictment.


Seven more police or court stories appear on L-2 and L-3, and more police news is on L-5 and L-6.


Too bad they don't lock up Sykes and interim Editor Douglas Clancy and throw away the key for crimes against readers looking for local news in the Woodland Park daily.

See previous post, 

Ex-editor says he's landed on his feet

Is this really good news?

Image via Wikipedia

Do you ever read the inane stuff that appears every day on Page A-3 of  The Record of Woodland Park labeled "GOOD NEWS"?

Today, the incompetent editors shoved into that space a staff-written story about a proposed new traffic control tower at Teterboro Airport to improve safety at the hub. The tower would be built by 2016.

But what about the safety of homeowners and high-rise dwellers when those low-flying private jets skim Hackensack rooftops on their approach to the airport? What about the seemingly endless racket and the impact on quality of life from big and small jets, small planes and some of the vintage aircraft that use Teterboro? On these subjects, The Record and transportation reporter Tom Davis have long been silent.

In the Local section today, there are no fewer than eight crime stories, but no municipal, education or development news about Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck. Ridgewood? No. Glen Rock? No. Westwood? No.

But on the front of the section is an expose about town workers on the 'gravy train.' You'd think a newspaper like the former Hackensnack daily would have done this story years ago. But, then, you don't know how lazy the editors and  local reporters are. You don't know how little time the reporters spend in the towns they are supposed to cover or how some of them are sidetracked for months, even years on an interminable "investigation."

It's likely few local reporters have ever asked to examine the budget of the town they cover -- line by line -- or questioned the manager or administrator about employees' paid absences. So, when you have a newspaper like that, you wait for a report exposing these corrupt practices, as in this case. This one, from the State Commission of Investigation, is just like the one the paper waited for before detailing the ridiculously high salaries and perks of schools superintendents a couple of years ago.

Oh, say, can you see Hackensack?

It was drizzling this morning when I went out to pick up The Record from my driveway. I thought, At least the geniuses in the circulation department put the paper in two wrappers. Despite forecasts of rain, I have found a soaking wet paper in a single bag a half-dozen times this year, forcing me to call for delivery of a dry one.

At the kitchen table, I leafed through the sections, but searched in vain for a story about Hackensack, where I have lived for more than two years. That's typical, with Monsy Alvardao, the reporter assigned to cover Hackensack, spending most of her time at the paper's new headquarters in Woodland Park. The building has a wonderful view, but you can't see -- or cover -- Hackensack from there.

In addition, she has been sidetracked to take part in an investigative news project that apparently is in its third year without an announced publication date. The project began more than a year before I left The Record on May 30, 2008. One reporter, who asked to remain anonymous, quit after she was accused of contacting a target of the probe.

Today is the ninth day The Record has had no Hackensack news (excluding any crime or fire news, which is not considered municipal coverage). The last mention of the city -- the paper's home for more than 110 years and the Bergen County seat -- was in an Oct. 15 round-up about street and sidewalk repairs in several towns. From Aug. 2 to Sept. 2, no Hackensack stories appeared in The Record.

In fact, since June, most of Alvarado's stories have concerned an apparent crisis in the Hackensack Police Department, where 10 officers have filed lawsuits against the chief. (The department has more than 90 officers.) That coverage has included detailed stories about disciplinary hearings.

In recent years, no reporter has written a story about the aircraft noise that plagues Hackensack residents, who live under the flight paths of both Teterboro and Newark airports and who hear jet and even noiser propeller aircraft whistling, shrieking and roaring overhead from the moment they wake up until they go to sleep. The planes drown out the TV and interfere with radio reception. They make back yards unlivable. I spoke to one man who said he is afraid of using the terrace on his Prospect Avenue high-rise in good weather, because the private jets  pass so dangerously close to his building.

Are there any attempts to ease the noise? If the private jet pilots approached Teterboro at a higher altitude, rather than skim rooftops, would there be less noise? Who knows? The Record has been silent on this quality-of-life issue for many years.

Nor have I seen stories about whether Hackensack plans to replace its gas-guzzling police cruisers with more fuel-efficient cars or install solar panels on city buildings to cut electricity costs and, perhaps, property taxes. Alvarado doesn't even cover City Council or planning and zoning meetings. On June 13, she reported that the Main Street improvement district director had been fired -- two months before -- but never did a follow-up.

To be fair, she has been chained to the mysterious investigative project for more than two years.

Like many reporters at The Record under the guidance of Editor Frank Scandale and Deirdre Sykes, the powerful head of the news assignment desk, Alvarado only does stories that come in neat packages, such as lawsuits or hearings.

When I worked there as a copy editor, I vetted a multipart investigative project led by reporter Jean Rimbach, who was also the lead reporter on this project before I left. Then, she was directly supervised by Sykes. If that's still the case in this interminable investigation, one wonders how the head assignment editor keeps her job.