Editors continue to diss elderly, fabricate dumpling fever

Even though the surface of Route 4 in Paramus was clear around 9:30 this morning, eastbound traffic moved sluggishly after warnings from The Record that ice would make "travel hazardous" (Local front).

On the narrow, two-lane cow track known as Passaic Avenue, the light was green, but traffic was at a standstill near Summit Avenue in Hackensack, where county officials have ignored calls for the installation of turn lanes. In North Jersey, as much as 10 inches of snow fell on Monday.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The editors of The Record today are lampooning an elderly woman who inadvertently crashed her 2005 Buick LeSabre, which was found "suspended over a retaining wall at a concrete plant" in Wayne (Local front).

This time, readers don't have the same kind of photos that ran in the Local news section on Jan. 13.

Then, they could clearly see the helpless expression on a white-haired woman's face after she drove her 2009 Honda Civic "over a guardrail and retaining wall and down an embankment at a condominium complex" in Ridgewood. 

But today's story names the elderly driver, Mary Gwenn, 81, who disappeared Friday night and was discovered Saturday afternoon, having been "exposed to a life-threatening drop in body temperature" during a cold snap (L-1).

Gwenn and the unnamed driver on Jan. 13 likely mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal, a common error for elderly drivers.

Is driver retraining available for such older drivers?

Road Warrior John Cichowski has ignored that question for more than a decade.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, have run numerous stories on older drivers running into storefronts, hitting pedestrians and causing other mayhem.

But they've never run any stories on whether help is available for these drivers, who are no more addled than Cichowski himself. 

That's not surprising given how The Record virtually ignores Alzheimer's, heart disease and other illnesses suffered by older readers.

Christie in England

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes continues to hang on every word from Governor Christie, the undeclared candidate who is campaigning in England for the Republican presidential nod in 2016 (A-1).

Meanwhile, Christie is defending his "corporate-backed, three-day trip," claiming "it aims to improve the state economy" (A-6).

But campaign finance experts say Choose New Jersey, the non-profit paying for Christie and his wife, poses a potential conflict of interest "because the firms ... have significant business with the state."

Voodoo economics

A Bloomberg News story on the first Business page today doesn't explain how a couple who are saving $500 a month, "thanks to cheap gasoline," can afford to visit Disney World and renovate their home (L-7).

"We're finally starting to feel like we're back in the middle class," Cheryl Saul of Emmaus, Pa., says.

The Record's business editors apparently couldn't find a North Jersey couple who suddenly felt they could splurge on an expensive vacation.

And, of course, by emphasizing the savings on cheap gas, the story takes the focus off of North Jersey Media Group and other employers who have frozen wages in recent years.

Dumpling mania?

A Better Living cover story by freelancer Nina Rizzo would have us believe North Jersey residents have suddenly discovered Asian dumplings (BL-1).

Rizzo claims dumplings are a "trend" that is "exploding among foodies nationwide and picking up speed in North Jersey."

What a joke. We've been eating Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese dumplings for decades.

This is another so-called trend story newspapers love to run to peak reader interest in a topic proposed by a staffer or freelancer such as Rizzo, who is a food writer for The Asbury Park Press.

Under WHERE TO FIND DUMPLINGS on BL-1 today, the name of a Closter restaurant, Homung Nangmyun, is misspelled.

Petite Soo Chow, a Chinese restaurant, also is listed, but there is no mention the Cliffside Park Health Department closed the place three times in less than three years for insect infestation and other unsanitary conditions.

We patronized the restaurant for its Shanghai-style soup dumplings in 2007 and 2008, but stopped going there after we saw the lone male waiter picking his nose in the dining room one time too many.

The first Health Department closure was in May 2009.

Shopping story trumps black man's death

Image via Wikipedia
Is there really any connection between a mega-mall in Minnesota and the American Dream Meadowlands in North Jersey except in the minds of The Record's editors?

The Record's lazy assignment desk hasn't bothered to answer several questions surrounding the death of African-American Malik Williams, 19, including why a man "armed with tools" was shot five times by two police officers on Dec. 10.


So, it's no surprise 30 demonstrators joined his mother in a protest march Friday evening, on the same day coverage of Williams' funeral was the main element on the front page of the Woodland Park daily.


But do readers find the protest on Page 1 today? No. Shopping is more important.


Thanks to interim Editor Douglas Clancy and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, they get an ill-conceived story that tries to gauge the potential success of an enormous shopping and entertainment complex in the Meadowlands -- just across the river from New York  City, one of the world's biggest markets -- by sending a reporter and photographer to the middle of nowhere.


Night and day


I worked in the same newsroom with Staff Writer John Brennan and Staff Photographer Thomas E. Franklin, and can't imagine what they talked about on this silly assignment to the Mall of America in Minnesota.


Like me, I'm sure many readers didn't get past the front page of Brennan's long-winded story, but the news copy desk appears to have screwed up the time element in the A-1 caption. 


The reporter said he visited the mall "last week" and "last weekend," but the caption says the photos are "scenes from the Mall of America ... on the next-to-last weekend before Christmas."  Shouldn't that be the "last weekend" before Christmas, which is tomorrow?


What a waste of time, money and space -- as the editors force the news staff to scrape and bow before a potentially huge advertiser.


Gunning for drunks


Why is a Port Authority police officer shown in a front-page photo today armed with a shotgun while looking for "drunks and dangerous drivers" on the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel?


Along with the protest over the police shooting of Williams, the front of Local today reports the parents of a 9-year-old boy fatally injured by a car will donate his organs "as living memorials to him."


But the editors continue to ignore the challenges facing older drivers, and why their vision and driving skills aren't re-tested periodically. 


The boy was killed by a 79-year-old man who apparently didn't see him, but was charged only with failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.


Another fatal accident involving an elderly driver is reported matter of factly by the assignment desk, with no attempt to explore possible changes in the law that would hold such a driver criminally responsible for the death.

Amtrak to Christie: Drop dead!

Image by JonathanCohen via Flickr

The debate over the Hudson River rail tunnels suddenly lost focus Friday.

A day after the editors welcomed Governor Christie with open legs and almost all of Page 1 to stake out his positions on education, transportation and other issues, federal officials told the Republican bully to drop dead.


The Record of Woodland Park tried to minimize the story's impact today, but a one-column head below a tabloid story on a Peeping Tom couldn't hide the terrible news: 

Amtrak slammed the door shut on salvaging the Hudson River Rail Tunnels to Nowhere -- meaning cash-starved New Jersey may get stuck with a bill that approaches $1 billion. (NJ Transit already spent $595 million on the project, and the feds want $271 million of their money repaid, plus interest and penalties.)

Christie double-speak

Amtrak's decision "late on Thursday" apparently caught Editor Francis Scandale and his hand-picked transportation reporter, Karen Rouse, off-guard. There certainly was no hint of it in Thursday's lavish coverage of Christie, who was quoted as saying the Amtrak talks were active.


NJ Transit can still salvage the project if it extends electrified light-rail service from the base of the Palisades into Manhattan. The use of light rail may also reduce costs, but I haven't seen anything about that possibility in The Record.


Look at the rest of Scandale's pathetic front page today. 

He must really be losing it in his pursuit of readers if he resorted to this ridiculous story about a hidden restroom camera that caught a man urinating. And the patch -- about improving science education -- what's that doing on A-1? 


Look at the headline -- right next to the Amtrak-NJ Transit rail-tunnels story. Why didn't the news copy desk avoid the cliched "on right track" here?

Lessons shaped to get 

students on right track

Let's see what head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes did with the Local section, her pride and joy.

L-1 has a large photo of a non-fatal accident today -- one of Sykes' favorite ways of filling all the space that her lazy minions can't fill.

What red light?

At the bottom of the page, Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski seems to be siding with drivers who blow through red lights -- endangering all of us -- with what is at least his second screed against red-light cameras. 

"Limp Chick," as he is known around the office, also has virtually ignored the commuting problems of mass-transit users, because he is in the pockets of the car dealers who advertise so heavily in the former Hackensack daily.

Staff Writer Joseph Ax reports on L-6 that "mechanical failure" has been ruled out in the fatal crash of Teaneck Police Officer John Abraham early Oct. 25, though he makes no reference to the safety problems of the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor.

Also on L-6 are a photo and brief on two more elderly driver accidents, which Sykes and Cichowski are doing their best to ignore. 

They should have launched a project on the driving challenges facing seniors and the help available to them long ago, but they'd rather grow warts on their asses from the hours they spend in front of their computers. 

$200 for mystery meat

I simply don't understand how Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung can blow more than $200 on dinner for two and come away with so little knowledge of the food she ate and so much contempt for the reader. 

Her three-star Better Living review of The Park Steakhouse in Park Ridge is a celebration of gluttony with no details on the quality of the meat served. And she says the restaurant serves Chilean sea bass, but doesn't tell you it is an over-fished species that is high in mercury.

Don't readers deserve to know if the $41 sirloin they order comes from an animal that is raised naturally on grass or one that was confined to a feedlot, pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones, and fed animal byproducts (bits of dead animals)?


Instead, Ung quotes the menu, telling readers it's "an exceptional cut of meat." Her opinion? "It  was quite good." And she loved the four desserts she stuffed down her gullet on two visits, including a $14 souffle.


There are no local restaurant health ratings in the paper today, but you will find wire-service stories on wine and bourbon

Editors have contempt for older readers

Image via Wikipedia

A 2001 Toyota Camry, like the one above, barreled into a Paramus house.

The 77-year-old man who launched his Toyota Camry into the side of a house in Paramus told police the "brakes failed," according to a caption with the handiwork of Staff Photographer Tariq "Crash" Zehawi. But the real failure is head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who refuses to launch a project on the challenges facing older drivers and the help available to them.

You've seen variations of this photo in The Record of Woodland Park scores of times in the past 20 years: an elderly driver loses control of a car, climbing stairs or hitting a store, a house, a tree, another vehicle or a pedestrian -- sometimes with fatal consequences. The paper covers most of the accidents with a single photo and caption or just a few paragraphs, rarely following up. The man in the latest accident isn't even identified.

Sykes and Editor Francis Scandale have contempt for older drivers, just as they do for Alzheimer's victims and older newsroom workers. They've discriminated against the elderly by running more than one series about autism, but none about Alzheimer's. Scandale even thought he could stop declining readership by aiming coverage at 20-year-olds. What a farce.


Today's Local section has a dozen election stories, but residents of Hackensack, which has municipal elections in May, are out of luck, and there isn't any Englewood news, either.

Bomb scares for Halloween

A-1 today is dominated by the worldwide for search for explosive cargo at airports. Six Record reporters worked on the story.


An A-2 correction notes the A La Carte column in Better Living was mistaken on Friday when it reported Avenue Bistro in Clifton had closed, when it had just moved to a new location.

The erroneous closing notice still appeared this afternoon on the Second Helpings blog at northjersey.com. It was posted by Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung -- only one of the major errors she has made since joining the paper about three years ago.

A second erroneous notice in A La Carte on Friday wasn't corrected. 

Omusubi Gombei, a Japanese chain known for its handmade rice balls, opened a kiosk at Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater on Friday and will sell rice balls there through Nov. 7. The notice in The Record says it will open "by Nov. 7." 


See: Warm, delicious Japanese rice balls