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| Governor Christie in Union City on Feb. 9, 2011. (Wikipedia) |
Chris Christie has a photo of Liz Houlton, The Record's production editor, on his desk in Trenton, next to photos of Columnist Charles Stile, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin and Opinion Page contributor Carl Golden.
He's been planting wet kisses on all of the photos to thank the Woodland Park daily for all the propaganda it has been printing since he became governor in January 2010.
Today, Houlton made sure her copy editors didn't betray the governor by writing a headline that gave away a 2012 property tax increase of about 2 percent in most towns in Bergen and Passaic counties (A-1).
'Property tax
hikes kept
in check for
second year'
"Kept in check" means "stopped," but the tax increases haven't stopped, as the story reports, so how can Houlton and Editor Marty Gottlieb justify this inaccurate headline?
Golden moments
Take a look at the big photo of Christie -- his face sagging with fat -- on the front of Opinion (O-1).
One reason he's laughing is the Opinion piece with the photo that was written by Carl Golden, a former press aide to two other Republican governors, Tom Kean and Christie Whitman, two of the worst chief executives the state has ever had.
It's hard to believe the paper can't find anyone but the clearly biased Golden to assess Christie's chances for a second term.
Kelly on the mend
Also on the Opinion front today, readers learn Columnist Mike Kelly is still away "from the office on a short leave" -- another way of saying he continues to recover from a heart attack.
Hey, Kelly. No rush. You're not missed by readers. You're health is more important than any column you could possibly write, if past performance is any guide.
I hope you're watching your diet, and not looking for guidance from the paper's food pages, which are filled with recipes using cream, butter, bacon and other artery clogging ingredients.
A new Rimbach opus
If you've been wondering what the paper's least productive reporter has been doing, take a look at today's huge front-page story and the two-page spread inside the paper on "a tattered mob case."
The last time head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her favorite reporter, Staff Writer Jean Rimbach, tried to take down Michael Mordaga, retired Bergen County chief of detectives, the investigation dragged on for nearly 3 years and cost an estimated $500,000 in staff salaries.
But the November 2009 story was so weak, it appeared on the Local section front, not A-1. There's no telling how long today's opus has been in the works.
Toll on readers
On today's Local front, a story on the second phase of a Hudson River toll increase (to $13 from $12) makes no mention of how ineffective Christie was in stopping the Port Authority hikes (L-1).
Maybe, the governor made a deal to allow the initial 50% hike last year and not oppose subsequent hikes in return for several high paying jobs for his cronies.
What about discounts?
In typical Record fashion, the story mentions nothing about the car-pool discount available at any time of the day or night or the discount available to drivers of hybrid cars with a Green E-ZPass.
Off-peak, drivers with a Green Pass pay only $4.75, compared to $8.25 for other E-ZPass holders. Car-poolers with E-ZPass pay only $4.25 at all hours.
Here is the scoop from the Port Authority Web site on getting the car-pool discount:
- To register for the Carpool Plan, call 800-333-8655 (New York
Service Center) or 888-288-6865 (New Jersey Service Center). Be sure to
have your account number or tag number and PIN for account access.
- Three or more people must be in a vehicle to be eligible for the discount (no commercial vehicles qualify).
- Customers must use a staffed "Cash-E-ZPass" toll lane
and come to a complete stop so the toll collector can verify the number
of occupants in the vehicle.
Fattening up
In Better Living today, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung tells readers her goal is to get even fatter (BL-4).
She's hoping for a gift ice cream "membership."
On Friday, Ung panned Miller's N.J. Ale House on Route 4 in Paramus, saying you should only go for "inexpensive beer specials" and "fudgy ice cream cake," not for the oversalted food.
It's clear Ung has never visited a gym, because she neglects to tell readers all this unhealthy food is available only steps from 24 Hour Fitness, one of the biggest gyms in North Jersey.
Hang up on Road Warrior
A concerned reader has sent another e-mail to Staff Writer John Cichowski and management, alerting them to errors in the latest Road Warrior column.
An edited version of the e-mail appears below:
"Once again, the Road Warrior reports misleading and false information and further confuses readers by misstating facts.
"The Road
Warrior provided some good reporting about the status of cracking down
on illegal cell phone use, but he does further injustice with key omissions that should be even more important to readers and
drivers.
"This was a major investigative report and there was NO excuse NOT to mention the cited key omissions.
"His Dec. 1 column is the 20th article with problems, starting
with his 9/12 article, about which I've notified The Record's
management and the Road Warrior without indication of any preventive
actions to address these problems and very few published corrections.
"It's time for answers, corrections and solutions.
1. Reported information - The
column's major premise starts with the question, "Do police really
enforce the ban on driving with hand-held cell-phones?" and indicated
"N.J,'s cell phone law produced 87,142 tickets during the 12 months ending in October."
"KEY OMISSION -- Road Warrior failed to report a key fact
that police had previously been issuing approximately 10,000 cell phone
tickets per month since the law took effect in 2008. The column should
have then mentioned a significant 27.4% drop (~120,000 vs. 87,142 per
year) in cell phone tickets in the past year that clearly shows that
problems due to the lack of police enforcing this ban is getting
progressively worse. These facts were key to the column's premise noted
above.
2. Reported information - "The law carries a $100 fine"
"KEY OMISSION -- Road Warrior failed to mention the Kulesh, Kubert and Bolis Law was signed into law in July and
designates illegal use of hand-held cell phones (as defined by driver
cell phone statutes), including speaking and texting, as factors that can
be cited in a crime of reckless driving. That crime can lead to
imprisonment of 5 to 10 years, a fine of up to $150,000, or both, if
there is a fatality, or up to 18 months imprisonment, a fine of up to
$10,000, or both, if there is a serious injury.
"Omission of
this major information seems to be negligent reporting since this MAJOR
transformational, tougher law, if properly publicized, should clearly
rank with the publicity allotted to much tougher DWI laws that helped
reduce DWI injuries and deaths due to making people aware of the severe
consequences on people's lives if they violated the law. Mentioning a simple $100 fine pales in comparison in getting any reader's attention.
3. Reported information -- "Others cite such enforcement [of
hand-held cell phone use and other distracted behaviors] as a genuine
safety priority, given the 178 road deaths attributed to distracted
driving in New Jersey last year"
"KEY OMISSION -- However, Road Warrior failed to mention illegal
cell phone use so far has been cited in a small percentage of total
deaths due to distracted driving, which includes a wide range of
distractions. There were 6 reported deaths due to illegal cell phone
use in 2009, when 157 deaths were attributed to distracted driving. The
Road Warrior should not scare readers with a high number that is based mostly on distractions, which are NOT due to cell phones.
"For reference by the Road Warrior, there were approximately 6 deaths
per year, which were less than 5% of deaths due to distracted driving,
due to illegal cell phone use in the first 2 years after the new cell
phone laws were implemented. While some state data has indicated that
crashes involving cell phone use are around 1% of all crashes, this data
probably under reports actual cell phone usage since sometimes it is
difficult to ascertain this fact after a crash.
4. Misleading statement due to key missing information -- "The law carries a $100 fine that would double under a bill that passed the Senate and awaits action by an Assembly committee."
"CORRECT FACTS -- The
law carries a $100 fine, which would eventually go up 6 times to $600
with possible license suspension for 90 days and 3 points on a driver's
license under a bill that passed the Senate and awaits action by an
Assembly committee. This more accurately depicts the potential
imminent significance to readers and drivers rather than the almost
inconsequential mention of the insignificant potential doubling of the
fine to $200. The bill would double the fine for first time
offenders, quadruple the fine for second time offenders, and impose the
maximum stated penalties for 3 or more offenses in a 10-year period
from the first offense.
5. False statement -- There were "178 road deaths attributed to distracted driving in New Jersey last year — nearly one-quarter of the total death count."
"CORRECT FACTS - There were 178 road deaths attributed to distracted driving in New Jersey last year -- 28.4% (more than one-quarter) of the total death count of 627. I'm
still not sure how these mathematically challenged, false calculations
continually appear in the Road Warrior columns.
"Does anybody at The
Record own a calculator to check if his reported calculated figures are
ever correct?"
