Readers search in vain for opinion on Christie nastiness

Peace banners in downtown Teaneck are signed "Cedar Lane Management Group," an entity I haven't seen discussed in The Record's comprehensive Local news section. The longstanding eyesore at Cedar Lane and River Road -- an abandoned gas station joined recently by a shuttered diner -- could use some "management."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Does Husni Mubarak run an Egyptian grocery store in Paterson's Middle Eastern bazaar? 

If not, what is his photo doing on the front page of a North Jersey daily newspaper? 

Friction between President Obama and the Defense Department (A-1)? 

How does that explain why my taxes are so high in Hackensack, where hundreds of millions of dollars in property owned by non-profits generates nothing.

Even the seemingly local story on an "immigrant" involves a school in Lahore, Pakistan, and a wealthy supporter of Governor Christie's (A-1).

Welcome to the Sunday suburban edition of The New York Times, where onetime cub reporter Marty Gottlieb made his mark before returning to The Record as editor nearly three years ago.

Chief word pusher

At first glance, Mike Kelly's Page 1 piece today appears to promise a strong opinion on Christie's bluster and nasty behavior when confronted by critics -- the kind of opinion readers seek from a columnist (A-1).

But readers are disappointed, and many are wondering why this column is displayed so prominently, if it's nothing more than the usual he said/she said any reporter could assemble.

Today's column goes a long way toward explaining why Kelly has spent more than 20 years merely pushing words around.

He could have said the GOP bully's "Jersey style" and channeling Tony Soprano are two big negatives the Garden State tries to live down, not promote.

Kelly could have said Christie is far from presidential, and his attacks on Democrats and liberal use of vetoes give a lie to his claim of being a compromiser.

No backbone

Readers find a second Kelly column, this one on "the lessons" of Ferguson, that seems to be the reporter's subtle way of promoting a book he wrote on the shooting of a black teenager by a white Teaneck police officer "more than two decades ago" (O-1).

But this column is poorly edited, and I can't find the actual date on which then-Police Officer Gary S. Spath shot Phillip Pannell, or whether Spath was tried on a charge of reckless manslaughter mentioned in a photo caption.

Also, you'd expect Kelly to say little progress has been made on holding white police officers accountable for using lethal force against black teenagers.

But, again, he's just pushing words around, this time on the front of the Opinion section.

'Local' wedding

The Local front today devotes more space to Snooki's wedding than to demonstrations seeking justice in Ferguson (L-1).

There is also a really boring Road Warrior column on blocked intersections in Little Ferry that are easily avoid by using Grand Avenue to reach Ridgefield (L-1).

You won't find any stories about Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood.

A house fire that killed two cats in Ridgewood has more information in it than did a photo caption on Jennifer Pechko, 43, a Kinnelon woman killed in a two-car accident on Thanksgiving (L-3).

Prosecutor's embargo spooks editors and reporters

For frustrated commuters, North Jersey has it all: Narrow, antiquated streets; bus and rail service with not enough seats; and exorbitant tolls. On Passaic Street in Hackensack, a major commuting thoroughfare, above, traffic backs up for nearly a block behind a bus that stopped near Summit Avenue. Passaic and Summit is a major bottleneck for another reason: No turn lanes on Passaic.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

You don't have to be a police reporter or homicide detective to know that when there are no signs of forced entry, it's a good bet the victim knew her killer.

But if you are a sheepish editor or reporter at The Record, covering the murder of 23-year-old Mary Greff, a single mom in Waldwick, you go only with what Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli tells you.

In today's sensational Page 1 story, Molinelli is quoted in the third paragraph as saying "it was too early to reveal the identity of potential suspects" (A-1).

Too early for what?

Suspect charged

Readers, of course, know how this tortured tale ends, as finally reported on NorthJersey.com at 11:34 a.m. today: the ex-boyfriend, Mark Spatucci, 22, of Midland Park was charged with first-degree murder.

He was arrested Wednesday, the day Greff was found strangled "with her baby lying unharmed in a bassinet nearby," and that arrest should have been in today's paper.

Apparently, none of the four reporters who worked on the story -- or any of the local editors screaming about the sky falling back in the Woodland Park newsroom  -- bothered to ask Molinelli if the ex-boyfriend was a suspect or owned the black Volkswagen investigators were looking for (A-1).

Another natural question is whether the victim, who lived with her parents, was seeking sole custody of her infant son after breaking up with Spatucci.

Kelly's failures 

Mike Kelly and The Record's other lame columnists should make time to read Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald (Opinion, A-21).

In a quarter of the space taken up by the long-winded Kelly, who delights in pushing around thousands of words to little effect, Pitts makes clear exactly how he feels about America's "enslavement of Africans and forced removal of American Indians."

Pitts delivers his opinion, forcefully and eloquently, while Kelly's columns are merely an assemblage of information and quotes that are indistinguishable from news stories.  

Alpine and Paterson

Molinelli isn't the only law enforcer who isn't talking to The Record, according to an L-1 story on the collision of a motorcycle and Alpine police cruiser in Paterson.

The police officer from the wealthy Bergen County town ran a stop sign, according to an eyewitness.

Was the cop visiting the impoverished city to testify in state Superior Court? The story doesn't say.

Weak local report

There is a second Paterson story on L-2, but no Teaneck or Hackensack news, as Deputy Assignment Flunky Dan Sforza continues to struggle during the prolonged absence of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes.

However, Sforza learned well from Sykes, and found a good deal of filler, including: 

An L-1 story on the mayoral contest in far-off Wayne, and the photo of a 2-vehicle accident in Paramus (L-3).

A short break

Eye on The Record will return next week, but readers should brace themselves for more crappy work from Kelly, Road Warrior John Cichowski and the other assorted hacks at the paper.

Don't expect a focus on the causes of heart disease

Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga got some good news today from a federal judge, who threw out a lawsuit filed by a dead mobster's family against Mordaga, who was then chief of detectives for the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, according to a front-page story in The Record.

Hit men couldn't bring down Tony Soprano, but the actor who portrayed him on TV was killed prematurely by "a massive heart attack" on Wednesday in Italy.

The Record apparently tore up the front page on Tuesday night to report the unexpected, late-breaking death of James Gandolfini, 51, who was from Bergen County.

How times have changed.

On 9/11, The Record's editors -- citing the extra expense -- refused to remake Page 1 for Tom Franklin's unusual photo of firefighters raising the American flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center -- a potential winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Photography.

The photo ran on a back page. Now, North Jersey Media Group spends tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees to sue outsiders who use the copyrighted photo.

Poor coverage

The Gandolfini coverage is full of holes.

I hate the headline -- "Jersey's family man" -- a play on the Jersey Mafia stereotype.

It's especially bad because "The Sopranos" never rang true. Leave it to television to turn a mob boss, one of the lowest forms of life on earth, into a likable guy.

Editors in denial

I don't expect to see any coverage in The Record of the causes of heart disease or whether Gandolfini's diet and weight had anything to do with his death.

The Woodland Park daily has at least two obese editors who are in denial, and a bunch of food writers who obsess over bacon, dessert and other unhealthy dishes.

Staff Writer Mike Kelly waited 7 long months before writing a column about his heart problems, but couldn't bring himself to do so in the first person.

And just try to follow today's editorial on the classification of obesity as a "disease" (A-8).

Real mobster

The Gandolfini obit runs today next to an A-1 story about a real-life mobster, Frank Lagano of Tenafly, whose family tried to pin blame for his unsolved 2007 rub out on county law enforcement officials.

Mike Mordaga, Hackensack's civilian police director, was the last defendant in the suit, which was dismissed Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Faith S. Hochberg.

The notoriously inaccurate copy desk and Production Editor Liz Houlton strike again with the headline:

"Lawsuit

against

officer

tossed"

Mordaga wasn't an "officer" when the suit was filed and he isn't an "officer" now.

Columnists Kelly, Cichowski are readers' real enemies

Commuting by car into Manhattan or around North Jersey has become a daily nightmare, above and below, yet Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to ignore the need for an expanded mass-transit system.

The headlights stretch for as far as you can see on antiquated, two-lane Passaic Street in Rochelle Park during a recent commute.

Columnist Mike Kelly still hasn't recovered from the heart surgery he had 7 months ago -- as his Father's Day confessional clearly shows.

On Sunday's Opinion front in The Record, Kelly appears so ashamed of the ridiculously unhealthy diet that led to his heart problems that he wrote his column in the third person (O-1).

Kelly was completely clueless about the harm of hamburgers, butter, bacon, ice cream, cake and lots of pizza before he went under the knife, and now his grown daughter is telling him what to eat.

Maybe his wife was trying to kill him.

His column could have served as a more powerful lesson to readers, if he wrote it in the first person and leveled with them about whether he had coronary bypass surgery to clear blockages from harmful animal fats.

Bridge to the truth

Sunday's paper also carried the second Road Warrior column on a new footbridge over Port Imperial Boulevard in Weehawken that Staff Writer John Cichowski is begging commuters to use.

NJ Transit told Eye on The Record today the footbridge was built to provide a "safer crossing" for users of its Bergen-Hudson light-rail line, as well as to provide handicap access to the NY Waterway ferry.

But there has always been a light to stop traffic and a crosswalk there, so most people simply cross the street -- information Cichowski deliberately omitted -- and not a single pedestrian has ever been injured or killed.

No need to cross

And many commuters park in a lot east of Port Imperial Boulevard and don't have to cross the street to reach the ferry -- likely a major reason the footbridge isn't getting a lot of use.

Below is an excerpt from an e-mail to The Record, exposing the many errors in Cichowski's Sunday and Wednesday columns.

It was sent by an anonymous reader who set up a Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers after his complaints about inaccurate columns fell on deaf ears at The Record -- from Vice President and General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg down to Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, who supposedly edits Cichowski.

"These columns falsely promoted and over-hyped the newly opened pedestrian footbridge over Port Imperial Boulevard, which is near the Weehawken ferry terminal on the Hudson River.

"He simply ignored the most obvious fact, which is that there already is a convenient, safe crosswalk at an intersection with a traffic light.

"It is one of the undisputed reasons that most pedestrians will NOT need to use this footbridge."

For a blow-by-blow listing of all of the errors in the two columns, see:

Road Warrior shows more contempt for the truth

Christie will never measure up to President Obama

Hackensack attorney Frank P. Lucianna, left, marching in the Memorial Day Parade in Englewood. In a letter The Record published on Monday, the Army Air Forces veteran paid tribute to fellow members of the Dwight Morrow High School Class of 1941 who were killed during World War II. He listed more than a dozen friends he "will never forget."

If you swallow Columnist Charles Stile's amateurish promotion of Governor Christie on the front page of The Record today, you might think the GOP bully was "auditioning" for the White House during a joint appearance on Tuesday with President Obama. 

What a joke.

Whether at the Jersey shore or as a leader, Christie will never measure up to Obama, a champion of the same middle class the governor has savaged since he took office in 2010.

Christie's massive public relations campaign to win a second term has hoodwinked Stiles and the rest of state media.

But voters won't forget how he's catered almost exclusively to his wealthy supporters, and broken his campaign promise to lower property taxes.

More corrections

Four embarrassing corrections on A-2 today are further evidence of how little fact-checking is performed by Production Editor Liz Houlton, her sleepy copy editors or the assignment editors who sign off on stories.

On A-3, a story on The Record winning statewide journalism awards doesn't explore whether the stories served readers or were written merely to impress fellow journalists.

A photo on A-3 -- showing Michelle Obama with  Jersey shore students in the backyard garden at the White House -- again demonstrates how little Christie or first lady Mary Pat Christie have done to promote healthy eating during the child obesity epidemic.

Readers brace

On the front of Local, a big photo showing the Franklin Lakes homecoming of disgraced former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik can mean only one thing (L-1).

Soon, burned-out Staff Writer Mike Kelly will land an exclusive interview with his pal "Bernie," and write an overlong column to rehabilitate Kerik's dishonest image. 

Litigiously speaking

What was the point of The Record's Page 1 story on Tuesday "on the propensity" of local police officers "to sue their employers over promotions and other work conditions"?

The takeout by star reporter Stephanie Akin seemed mean-spirited, especially in view of how often North Jersey Media Group sues or is sued by its employees and former employees.

None of those lawsuits are ever reported in The Record, but NJMG has started a blog to document its high-profile Freedom of Information cases:

http://blog.northjersey.com/legallyspeaking/

Despite declining revenue from classified and other advertising, NJMG's legal expenses have soared in recent years from the use of outside counsel who command $400 to $500 an hour.

Clueless Kelly should visit Englewood real soon

A week ago, in a column on the front page of The Record, burned-out Staff Writer Mike Kelly compared downtown Hackensack unfavorably to Englewood and other towns, which reportedly "bustled with new businesses." But the reality is far different, as these empty storefronts on Englewood's Palisade Avenue show, above and below. 

This empty retail space is on the ground floor of a luxury apartment building.

All of the empty storefronts are on Palisade Avenue or on a side street, and all are within one block of each other. And there are others on both side of the railroad tracks that divide Englewood economically and racially.

In recent years, The Record has virtually ignored downtown Hackensack, Englewood and Teaneck, in favor of stories about Ridgewood, Tenafly and other wealthier towns. And the newspaper has never explored the impact it had on Hackensack's Main Street when it abandoned the city where it had prospered for 110 years. Kelly, of course, never mentioned The Record's departure in his Hackensack column.

In  today's Memorial Day Parade, the Englewood Police Department Honor Guard marched past a Palisade Avenue storefront that remains empty more than a year after Victoria's Secret closed (not shown).