Family: Black teen was shot in the back

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No changes in the local-news operation have been apparent since ex-Timesman Marty Gottlieb took over about three weeks ago as editor of The Record of Woodland Park. 

The biggest news on the front page of The Record today also serves as a sad commentary on the supremely lazy assignment desk working under the dead weight of Editor Deirdre Sykes.


In the two months since Malik Williams, 19, of Garfeld was killed by police, Sykes and her flunkies have merely regurgitated all of the questions surrounding his death without making any attempt to go beyond the prosecutor's handout.


Columnist Mike Kelly, who wrote a book about a similar police shooting in Teaneck, merely pushed hundreds of words around, shedding no new light on the death of Williams, who had an infant son.


Shot twice in back


Now, according to a story on Page 1 today, the family's attorney says Williams was shot twice in the back by the two police officers involved. The teen was shot a total of "five to six times."


However, today's story, like past accounts, doesn't go beyond details released by Prosecutor John L. Molinelli, who said Williams "had armed himself with unspecified tools."


Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi, who Sykes has reduced to an ambulance chaser, came up with a potentially prize-winning photo of a distraught woman standing in front of a multi-family home destroyed by fire (A-1 and L-3).


Of course, Zehawi also has covered scores of fender benders and other minor accidents that Sykes used as filler when her sniveling sub-editors couldn't come up with legitimate local news.


Quote of the week


Hackensack readers will find only a story on the front of Sykes' Local section on the closing of a building's parking garage after city officials expressed safety concerns.


The story does contain the quote of the week from Construction Official Joseph Mallone, who noted one city engineer put his hand right through a rusted steel beam:


"They [building managers] said everything was all gumdrops and rainbows and everything was OK," Mallone told Staff Writer Stephanie Akin (L-1).


That's funny. This is exactly what Sykes has been telling Editor Marty Gottlieb about her local-news operation since he arrived about three weeks ago after many years at The New York Times.


Smell the coffee


Let's hope Gottlieb wakes up and smells the coffee, especially when it comes to local news and the lame columnists who work for Sykes, including Kelly and Road Warrior John Cichowski.


Does the large graphic on the "angle of the sun" really add anything to another L-1 story -- a report on a 74-year-old crossing guard knocked down by the car of a driver who said he was blinded by sun glare?


What a waste of space. But I guess there was no other news available to fill the hole.


A third L-1 story today reveals federal taxpayers have to shell out $18 million to soundproof Henry P. Becton Regional High School from the roar of business jets, including the sleek machine that cossets the rear ends of Chairman Malcolm A. Borg and his pal, real estate mogul Jon F. Hanson.

The one-size-fits-all sports phenom

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Some non-sports fans might say a ball is missing in the New York Knicks' basketball team logo.

At the bottom of a strong North Jersey front page in The Record today, Editor Marty Gottlieb falls for a superficial sports story on the Knicks' Chinese-American "sensation," Jeremy Lin.


According to Staff Writer Steve Popper, Lin is "an inspiration for Asian-Americans." Really? Maybe he meant to write "for other Chinese-Americans."


What is Popper popping?


Can you really lump all Asians into the generalization, given well-known tensions between Korean and Japanese residents of North Jersey -- a story the Woodland Park daily has ignored.


And what about Asian Indians? Why is Lin more of an inspiration to Asians than any number of Korean golfers? Isn't Tiger Woods half-Asian?


Finally, would an all-Jewish pro basketball team be called the Knishes?


More on Syria


I don't know how much Gottlieb knows about North Jersey, but his use of a photo of the Syrian uprising on Page 1 is of intense interest to thousands of Syrian-Americans in North Jersey.


But isn't it time for the editors to assign a reporter to interview Syrian-Americans about the slaughter in their country and on which side they stand?


After years of standing by as greedy landlords exploited Passaic city residents, the City Council is getting into the act by proposing to charge 237 disabled residents for once-free parking spaces (A-1). What an outrage.


Change of heart


On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, readers have to plow through all the cute writing in the Road Warrior column before Staff Writer John Cichowski reveals a change in his position on pedestrians killed by NJ Transit trains (L-1).


In the past, Cichowski essentially has blamed the victims -- in lockstep with the state mass-transit agency.


But now that he has finally interviewed the father of Nick Sabina, 17, one of three teens killed by trains in separate accidents last October, the reporter says the agency isn't doing enough to improve safety along the tracks.


The only Hackensack news in the section today is a non-story on a motion in a series of lawsuits alleging abuse of power in the Police Department (L-3).


Who got rich?


A story on an 8% drop in the prices of North Jersey homes reminds readers not to hold their collective breath for an investigation of who got rich and who lost their shirts as a result of the housing bubble, which burst in 2008 (L-7).


In Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung doesn't explain why she is critiquing another Turkish restaurant or why it took her more than five years to find Hunkar in Carlstadt.


She notes prices are higher than at many Turkish restaurants, but says the "value" is "good if you value atmosphere." However, service is slow. 


Let's hope readers who go there don't try to make off with a tablecloth or the silverware.

Page 1 delivers a big dose of hype

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Fort Lee is known for its high-rises.

If reformers need ammunition to dismantle all of those corruption-prone local governments, they'll find plenty of it in Fort Lee's inability to develop a gateway near the George Washington Bridge -- despite 45 years of trying.


Here we go again, according to The Record, which leads Page 1 today with a breathless description of the latest proposal -- two 47-story luxury residential towers. 


This is a hard sell.


The headlines exaggerate the impact on Fort Lee, which is already known as a borough of high-rises, many of them perched on the Palisades:

Going to new heights

Two 47-story luxury towers would remake Ft. Lee

If they ever get built, the buildings won't "remake" Fort Lee, but they might finally change people's perception of its bungling government officials.

I can't think of a stronger North Jersey front page, but Editor Martin Gottlieb forgets he is no longer at The New York Times and ruins it with a large A-1 photo of Rick Santorum praying with pastors, making readers wonder what ever happened to the separation of church and state.

There are three stories about Governor Christie inside the main news section (A-3,  A-4 and A-6), so why does the A-1 blurb refer to only two of them?


Poor training

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes has commissioned so many news stories and columns blaming the victims, when pedestrians are killed by NJ Transit trains, she actually thinks a new safety device at a single station is news (L-1).

The major element on the front of Local makes clear a Bronx family was at fault for the fire that heavily damaged the Bergenfield home they had planned to move into this week.

There's news from Englewood, Teaneck, Leonia and other towns, but Hackensack news is conspicuous by its absence. 

Did the City Council on Tuesday introduce the solar-panel regulations reported extensively on Monday's Local front? Your guess is as good as mine.


In a tailspin

Why did Sykes think Columnist Mike Kelly could add anything new to the debate over the "dysfunctional" and free-spending Port Authority (L-3), which is the subject of an editorial today after a number of Page 1 exposes in recent weeks. 

The Kelly column begins: "Isn't math a wonderful thing? More importantly, let us all praise that noble mathematical device -- the calculator."

He begins the column that way because he has nothing to say. 

How juvenile and boring. And as I've said 20 times before, his unflattering column photo makes him look as if he has been released from a halfway house for the mentally ill.

'New York' Giants play big joke on Jersey

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Cranberry bogs in the glorious Pine Barrens are one of the things that make New Jersey great. The New York Giants, on the other hand, play the ultimate Jersey joke on the state.

The Giants have been playing football in New Jersey for 35 years. Yet, they play the ultimate Jersey joke on the Garden State by keeping "NY" on their helmets.


And that's OK with their legion of New Jersey fans, The Record and other media, which continue to support and glorify the team instead of organizing a boycott to force a name change.


Editor Martin Gottlieb has me doubled over with laughter. Can you imagine all the money fans waste on a team that rejects them?


Look at today's nonsensical coverage on Page 1 and in Sports about how the Giants "came home" to East Rutherford and there's "no place like home." LOL.


Limp Christie


Even our brash Governor Christie seems powerless, lamely referring to the team as the "New Jersey Giants." In your wet dreams, governor.


The Port Authority is another institution Christie has been unable to control since he took office in 2010, as shown by today's lead story on an audit that condemns wasteful spending at the agency -- which is packed with the governor's cronies.


In letters to the editor on A-10, two readers, Casey Connors of River Edge and Mary Blum of Paramus, say the real heroes are veterans, not the Giants. Amen to that.


Leaves a bad taste


But on the same page, Margulies' cartoon on the pro-Democracy movement in Egypt is in bad taste, especially in view of the brutal crackdown on protesters and recent soccer riot that killed more than 70.


No one there is trying "to build a network of Super PACs" by any stretch of the imagination. Previously, I was incorrect in saying the cartoon was about Syria, but my objections remain.


How could Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin approve such an wildly exaggerated, callous cartoon?


The Local news section continues to disappoint. Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes seems to endorse the Road Warrior's lazy method of assembling another column from reader e-mails.


Today's laughable piece addresses hoaxes and other false information on the Internet (L-1). How lame.


Screw the locals


The section also is light on municipal news from many towns, including Hackensack, but Sykes found room on L-2 for the photo of a diner fire that injured no one.


What was Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill thinking with a recipe for chocolate pancakes with chocolate maple syrup (Better Living front)?


Victor Cruz


I published a long comment from Jerry DeMarco at the end of Tuesday's post, Sports section glorifies unwed father, about Victor Cruz of the Giants.


Click on the following link to read the comment:


"I have a beautiful, amazing son ..."