Eye on The Record

Round-ups are replacing local news

2012-01-30T11:31:00.001-05:00

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A column by the restaurant critic listed only two restaurants that serve local, naturally raised food.

Although The Record's editors are ignoring local news from Hackensack and many other communities, they continue to assign round-ups and trend stories, with several appearing in the past two days.

But casting a wide net doesn't always catch all the news, and if readers don't see their towns mentioned in the regional stories, they're invariably disappointed and left in the dark.

And recently, the editors have been unable to resist linking local events to those that have roiled the nation, as they do today, comparing sex-abuse cases in North Jersey schools to the far-larger scandals in the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts of America.

That's a real stretch, as was Sunday's comparison of the Bergen County synagogue firebombing suspect to the Unabomber.

Editor is Queen Bee

Two more trend stories appear on the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section today -- one on falling property values in Bergen County and another on towns merging planning and zoning boards.

Sykes' assignment desk is responsible for generating local news, but also turns out all the regional and trend stories, and edits stories from staffers in Trenton and Washington, D.C.

She and her assistant assignment editors also are responsible for much of the atrocious writing and flawed reporting that have appeared in the Woodland Park daily in the past decade, including all the sub-par columns by John Cichowski and Mike Kelly.

When Francis "Frank" Scandale was the editor, Sykes' minions turned out numerous regional stories. At one point, Scandale even banned stories about a single town from the front page.

Last week, a story on towns moving their school elections to November didn't mention Hackesack, so residents don't know if that's the final word or whether the city is planning such a change.

In today's Local section, there is so little municipal news from reporters at The Record, the layout editors ran a Demarest story by Amanda Baskind, a reporter at one of its affiliated weekly papers.

Second look

On Sunday, a strong consumer-oriented column from Travel Editor Jill Schensul was far more welcome than her silly musings on global homogenization or her cover story on a lavish cruise vacation she apparently took for free.

Also on Sunday, I enjoyed Better Living's upbeat "12 reasons to love New Jersey" by Staff Writer Virginia Rohan.

Below that on the Better Living front, The Corner Table column by Staff Writer Elisa Ung listed only two restaurants that serve local, naturally raised food.

Ung is the main restaurant reviewer, so is she saying there are so few restaurants that serve quality food, she had to fill the rest of the column with Whole Foods Market and similar stores, as well as winter farmers' markets?

Maybe her column should be renamed The Kitchen Table.

However, she does rhapsodize about the "beautiful dark-yellow/orange yolks" of fresh eggs from local free-roaming hens, so maybe the dessert obsession she displays in every review is easing just a bit.

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Editors expose Christie's pork

2012-01-29T15:47:00.000-05:00

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Governor Christie has recommended more than 50 people for jobs at the cash-rich Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The Record has published so many favorable news stories and editorials since Governor Christie took office two years ago that readers are shocked when his true nature is exposed -- as in today's front page report on the more than 50 people he recommended for jobs at the cash-rich Port Authority.

They include donors and Republican Party officials, including one man who is being paid $50,000, plus full benefits, for only three days' work.

Is anybody surprised? When he was U.S. attorney, Christie steered hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees to two others -- his former boss and a former federal judge.

A second shocker is the rare byline of Staff Writer Jean Rimbach on the upbeat Page 1 account of Victor Cruz's rise to football glory from one of Paterson's most dangerous neighborhoods. The continuation of the A-1 story and a second story fill an entire inside page (A-8).

Unfortunately, in view of cuts in state aid and dishonest city officials, the celebration of his success will do little to help the Silk City, which the paper has consistently portrayed as a center of drugs and prostitution in North Jersey.

Money laundering?

It's hard to believe Christie didn't know about illegal deposits totaling more than $2 million in the family business' bank account when he nominated Korean-American Phillip Kwon of Closter to the state Supreme Court (A-3).

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local, a proposal to extend light-rail service to Tenafly gets lukewarm support from Road Warrior John Cichowski (L-1).

In a rare piece on mass transit, the so-called commuting columnist says "Bergenites are married to their cars." If Cichowski's is "married" to his car, which he calls "Mr. Honda," that would be same-sex coupling.

He also blasts "giant SUVs and psychos on cellphones" -- yet fills columns with his inane answers to their e-mails.

His endorsement of mass transit is in the last paragraph on L-3:

"Somehow, predictions of death, mayhem and excessive trips to ear doctors got lost in a wealth of obvious improvements in commuter convenience."

Lazy journalism

Sykes continues to cover protest marches in Garfield in the wake of the police shooting of Malik Williams, but readers still do not know the identities of the two police officers who killed him on Dec. 10 or many other details being withheld by the prosecutor (L-1).

That's in keeping with how this lazy editor has covered local news for many years: Wait for the press release.

In Better Living, a column by Staff Writer Elisa Ung on how to eat local through the winter makes readers wonder why she rarely tells them whether the food she samples for her restaurant reviews is naturally raised or grown (F-1).

Desperate editors hype the news

2012-01-28T11:07:00.000-05:00

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A young Bruce Springsteen performing in Norway. A ticket-selling "disaster" for his New Jersey concerts is front-page news today.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Would you get a load of today's Page 1 comparison between "horrific incidents seared in American memory" and two attacks, plus a third planned attack, on Bergen County synagogues.

"A loner from Lodi" has a certain alliteration, but does suspect Anthony Graziano, 19, really deserve mention in the same paragraph as "the Unabomber, the Virginia Tech shooter and the Anthrax attacker"?

I stopped reading there, but the story goes on and on.

The hard sell

Half the front page in The Record is devoted to bias crimes that killed no one, clearly showing that head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes is out of control, desperate to fill space and sell papers.

Three reporters worked on the story about new charges in the firebombing case, including Staff Writer Stephanie Akin, who has neglected her Hackensack beat for the last 10 days.

And if that isn't enough, part of the front page is devoted to a story by three more reporters on fans who had trouble buying tickets to Bruce Springsteen concerts. Now we know the world is ending.

Page A-2 carries another embarrassing correction -- for the second day in a row.

Flawed reporting

An editorial on A-13 today incorrectly blames a proposed $515,000 budget cut for the Englewood Public Library on the city manager, as did earlier news stories.

But the idea to cut the library budget -- which would hit minority families hardest -- was floated first in November 2010 by a group of wealthy residents from the East Hill, where Chairman Malcolm A. Borg lives.

They were members of a budget-review panel that called itself "Englewood F.A.S.T or Fiscal Accountability Starts Today Coalition."

Here is a link to an Eye on The Record post: In Englewood, whites know best

Muni tunes

I searched for municipal stories in Sykes' Local news section, but had a hard time finding any among even more Law and Order reports on L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6.

Maybe most of the assignment minions took Friday off to make it a three-day weekend.

Mixed message

Contrast today's Better Living cover story on "stocking a healthy pantry" to the unhealthy food described in Friday's Eating Out on $50 restaurant review (Better Living, Page 20).

Why did free-lancer Jeffrey Page chose Stacks Pancake House and Cafe in Paramus for dinner and why did he spend only $27.42 on two meals, including tax and tip?

Page is The Record's original Road Warrior columnist. With his strong point of view and command of the language, he wrote circles around most of the reporting staff, including John Cichowski and Mike Kelly, two of the paper's weakest staffers.

Page also was obese for most of his working life. What kind of example does he set by ordering an artery clogging dessert to split with a friend that was composed of "two large scoops of ice cream and four large dollops of whipped cream with a brownie"?

The editors and the paper are all wet

2012-01-27T15:19:00.000-05:00

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Readers yawned twice today -- when they awoke and when they looked at a front-page column on Rutgers' head coach.

My copy of The Record was soaked through, even though it was in two, knotted plastic bags when it landed on my wet driveway this morning.

When I opened it and saw that most of the front page was devoted to a vapid sports column on Rutgers' overpaid football coach, I realized that the editors are all wet, too.

The piece by Staff Writer Tara Sullivan is full of hype.

Sullivan fails to mention that Greg Schiano makes more than three times the salary of Governor Christie or that the coach's greed is gross and disgusting.

His departure for Florida may be a huge sports story, but it leaves the majority of readers cold and scrambling to find relevant news in the rest of the Woodland Park daily.

Cold shoulders, cold body

The lead A-1 story on Donald Domsky, a Wayne man who was found more than a year after he collapsed and died at home, is filled with unanswered questions, but the editors fail to address the biggest one:

What does his long-undiscovered death say about our society?

On head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local front, the biggest news is that no incendiary materials were found in a search of about 70 synagogues after a suspect was charged in a firebombing and an arson.

More road kill

Road Warrior John Cichowski has yet another column based on a reader's e-mail, this one from a driver whose car was rear-ended by a Passaic County pick-up truck and who complains of slow payment of his insurance deductible.

This is about as far as you can get away from the commuting problems Cichowski is supposed to write about.

Car-centric coverage

Why did The Record run two overwhelmingly negative stories in a row on a proposal to extend light-rail service to Tenafly on Page 1 and the Local front, then put a report on support for the plan from residents of four other towns on L-3 today?

In a region as traffic-choked as North Jersey, the progress of mass transit should be front-page news -- it's certainly a hell of a lot more important than football.

Editors seem lost, too

Another story worthy of Page 1 is way back on L-7, the first Business page, where Staff Writer Joan Verdon reports on a shoe that uses GPS technology to track people with Alzheimer's disease or dementia.

Editor Martin "Marty" Gottlieb, 64, is winding up his first week at The Record, where he began his journalism career as a cub reporter.

How much input he had on the play of stories is unknown. Does he live in New Jersey or know anything about it? Those are more unknowns.

A third unknown is whether he is familiar with the paper's bias for the young, especially in news coverage that favors autism and ignores the challenges facing the elderly.

Putting on a feed bag

In Better Living, the food at Valley Stables Food and Drink in Oakland sounds awful -- and what a stupid name for a restaurant. It might as well serve horse meat or hay.

Why did Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung even bother writing a review after consuming all that artery clogging meat, plus cake, a cookie and an apple crisp? Her rating is between Fair and Good.

It should have been, "Don't bother."

What happened to localizing the news?

2012-01-26T15:29:00.002-05:00

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The meals served at public schools in Bergen County are due for an overhaul, but you won't find any quotes from students or food-service workers in The Record today.

With my son's complaints about the food at Hackensack High ringing in my ears, I stared in disbelief at today's Page 1 wire-service story about a major overhaul of school meals nationwide, searching for any mention of Bergen County or North Jersey.

The changes won't go into effect until September, so readers would have appreciated an assessment of the meals served in any of the hundreds of schools in the region, and what students have to look forward to.

The Associated Press reporter visited an elementary school in Alexandria, Va., where students met first lady Michelle Obama and ate food made from recipes of celebrity Chef Rachel Ray.

This is the kind of story that would appear in The New York Times, where Martin "Marty" Gottlieb worked for many years before taking over this week as editor of The Record.

But he should know better than to settle for a national story on the front of a local newspaper.

Let's do lunch

Why not send Mike Kelly or another reporter to have lunch at Hackensack or another big high school, and report on the fare? I'm sure it would be an eye opener, given the high school taxes North Jersey residents pay.

Instead, Kelly was assigned to write a column on the arrest of Anthony Graziano in a firebombing and arson at two synagogues.

Kelly is a columnist who struggles to form the strong point-of-view readers expect, so his L-1 column today asks lots of rhetorical questions, and in a desperate bid to fill space, actually duplicates the reporting in an A-1 news story on the suspect's not guilty plea.

Kelly wrings his hands over "this unexpected invasion of hate." He says he is searching for "the emotional cleanser to wash" that hate away.

Meanwhile, readers are searching for the phone number to cancel their subscriptions.

Another story on L-1 was long on the experiences of workers or volunteers tallying the homeless in Bergen County and short on interviews with the homeless themselves.

Hackensack readers get a political story and a police story, both on L-3, but no municipal news.

Another great job by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions.

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Did new editor bring fresh objectivity?

2012-01-25T16:21:00.001-05:00

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President Obama giving his 2010 State of the Union address.

The Record has been less than objective when it comes to President Barack Obama, so it was a pleasant surprise to see an even-handed approach to his State of the Union address on the front page today.

The Woodland Park daily used a balanced story from The Washington Post instead of running the usual, shrill account from The Associated Press.

I don't know whether that was the work of Martin "Marty" Gottlieb, the new editor, but a look at the rest of the paper shows he has many months of hard work ahead of him, if he intends to improve the clunky headlines, slanted reporting and slipshod editing.

The major element on Page 1 is the arrest of an "anti-Semitic loner" in attacks on two synagogues, but the awkward main headline leaves readers shaking their heads.

Firebomb attacks

delivered by bike

"Delivered by bike"? Did the suspect "deliver" firebomb attacks? Hey, Editor Liz Houlton, supervisor of the news copy desk, doesn't that make it sound like Chinese takeout?

Super Toilet Bowl

And as usual, precious A-1 space is devoted to the cost of attending the Super Bowl, demoting the debate over same-sex marriage to A-3.

A story on politicians' tax returns on A-8 prompts Eye on The Record to predict Obama will defeat the Republican nominee in November, whether it is the $20 million man, Mitt Romney, or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who can't keep his cock in his pants.

But, of course, The Record and other media will keep readers guessing until the last possible moment as they play up all the conflict and make it sound like a horse race, even if it isn't.

I was expecting to see an A-10 editorial on Obama's plea for the middle class, but his speech ran late and I guess it was past the bedtime of Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin.

Road manure

After an unexplained absence on Sunday, Road Warrior John Cichowski returns today with another column based entirely on readers' e-mails -- this time about paying tolls with and without an E-ZPass. Ground breaking.

When is the last time Cichowski wrote a column based on his own legwork, such as asking commuters at bus stops or train stations to tell him what's on their minds?

The major element on head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local front is another negative story -- the second in a row -- about a proposal to extend electrified light-rail service to Tenafly, where Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives.

The poorly edited piece violates a basic rule of journalism, raising "pollution" worries in the lead paragraph, but never discussing them in the rest of the story.

Defending their constitutional right to drive solo into the city, Tenafly residents are so desperate to stop the project they asked NJ Transit officials at a hearing about the horrible possibility light-rail riders might need to use a restroom in town.

Editing is suspect

Also on L-1, a plea for donations to help a Korean international student who was robbed and stabbed in Paramus makes readers wonder why Sykes hasn't run a big story seeking donations for other injured or sick residents who don't have health insurance.

A police sketch of the suspect in the attack on the 19-year-old woman appears on Cliffside Pilot.com, but not in The Record.

On L-3, a fatal accident involving three cars, all driven by senior citizens, killed an 84-year-old Paterson woman, but only her name and age are given, reducing the story to a photo-op.

Who was she, is her spouse still alive, did she raise children or have a career, does she have grandchildren? Those questions and others are unanswered by Sykes' crack assignment desk.

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Today's big news isn't on Page 1

2012-01-24T13:06:00.000-05:00

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Electrified NJ Transit light-rail cars such as these would serve commuters under a plan to extend the line to several Bergen towns, including Leonia, Englewood and Tenafly.

Martin "Marty" Gottlieb finally has taken over as editor of The Record of Woodland Park -- as readers can see from a change in the masthead at the bottom of the Editorial Page today (A-10).

Gottlieb's name and title appear between those of Publisher Stephen A. Borg and Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin.

Readers are hoping the former New York Times editor will usher in much-needed change at the North Jersey daily as caretaker Douglas Clancy returns to his newsroom budget chores.

Gottlieb, 64, certainly can ask for better writing and editing from the staff, and a more even-handed approach to such important issues as mass transit.

Two glaring examples appear on the front page today under the main headline, which just as easily could have read:

New day for The Record

The first paragraph of the lead story on Governor Christie's historic nominations to the state Supreme Court is awkwardly written, especially the phrase between the dashes -- "hailed by him Monday for their diversity and 'pure judgment.'"

What an abomination. Did a committee write that lead?

Trashing transit

Given the huge amount of advertising revenue from car dealers, it's no surprise that news stories are anti-mass transit, as demonstrated again by today's A-1 centerpiece on the proposed extension of light rail to Tenafly.

Tenafly officials appear to be the only ones opposing the plan, claiming they will have to give up $200,000 in tax revenue from the loss of commercial property to create parking lots for commuters.

But why add parking? The commuter ferry at River Road and Route 5 in Edgewater is thriving with a shuttle bus and no public parking. Why couldn't light rail do the same?

The A-1 photo caption for the light-rail story also contains an error, calling Englewood "one of the cities affected" by the plan. It is the only city; none of the other towns have a city form of government.

The boring photo of a man crossing the tracks isn't worthy of appearing on the back page, let alone the front page. Where is a photo of the electrified light-rail cars that would serve Englewood and Tenafly?

Hack attack

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section is missing any Hackensack news.

But I love that photo of a horse carved from snow in Cliffside Park by talented Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi, who Sykes has had chasing ambulances for too many years (L-1).

The Road Warrior column didn't run on the front of the section on Sunday, as it usually does, and there was no explanation in the paper. It is scheduled to appear again on Wednesday.

Mixed message

On the front of Better Living, the promotional Starters restaurant feature reports MK Valencia in Ridgefield Park serves "American-Italian" cuisine "with an emphasis on seafood," but a photo shows two dishes with meat and none with fish.

At The Times, Gottlieb served as global edition editor, associate managing editor in charge of the weekend editions, deputy culture editor and an investigative reporter and editor on the national and metro staffs.

He has also been editor-in-chief of The Village Voice, managing editor of The New York Daily News, and a reporter at The News and The Record when it was in Hackensack.

Breaking news: Dead patients don't pay

2012-01-23T15:56:00.000-05:00

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The New World Trade Center is over-budget and won't be finished until who knows when.

Did you see the inadvertently hilarious Page 1 quote in The Record today from Anthony Orlando, CFO at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center?

Englewood and other hospitals apparently are stiffed so much they are requiring patients to pay upfront, even in the emergency room.

"When you go to Best Buy, do you walk out without paying," Orlando asks rhetorically -- as if an operation or other medical procedure is as common as buying a flat-screen TV.

"The only chance to collect a debt, direct and face to face, is when they're [patients] here," he goes on. "You may never see them again."

Especially if they die on the operating table. In other words, dead patients don't pay, so the hospital tries to get its money while they are alive and kicking.

Editor's giant error

Thanks to interim Editor Douglas Clancy, overblown coverage of the Giants on A-1 doesn't leave much room for general-interest news besides the hospital story.

A second front-page report says North Jersey residents continue to take a bath from the Port Authority's construction of the New World Trade Center.

It's bad enough we're all paying higher tolls, but now readers learn about the outrageous compensation being paid to members of the private 9/11 Memorial foundation.

In the Local section, a story on the miraculous recovery of an Englewood woman whose heart stopped in church on Jan. 15 doesn't say whether her relatives were asked for a credit-card imprint when she arrived at the Englewood Hospital emergency room (L-3).

Searching for news in the Sunday paper

2012-01-22T14:00:00.000-05:00

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In a recipe column in The Record today, Chef Mario Batali says meat is "overused."

Once you get past the riveting Page 1 story about a 58-year-old Dumont woman bankrupted by her illnesses, there isn't much to read in The Record's once-special Sunday edition.

People like Frances Giordano eventually will be helped by national health-care reform, so can you imagine what would happen if selfish Republicans succeed in repealing the law?

The two other stories on the front page are follows to previous reports on a former police officer who is charged with killing his childhood friend, and a onetime lawyer at that shadow government known as the Port Authority. Who cares?

He needs editing

On the front of Local, former sports reporter John Brennan uses the wrong verb in the first paragraph of the weather story, and nobody on the assignment or news copy desks caught it. He wrote:

"North Jersey sloughed off the winter's first measurable snowfall Saturday...."

"Sloughed off" means "discard as undesirable, get rid of or remove." Brennan meant to say "shrugged off."

Despite all his years in the business and his hard sell to the editors of every one of his stories, Brennan writes at the level of a high school journalist.

Red-light cameras have proven to be life savers, but you wouldn't know that from today's poorly edited story on L-7 that quotes unnamed critics.

Food follies

In Better Living, contrast the columns by Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung (F-1) and restaurant owner and Chef Mario Batali (F-3).

Ung promotes low-quality food at chain restaurants, including mystery chicken and farmed salmon. Batali reports meat's reign is waning, and offers a healthy pasta recipe without cream or butter.

After more than a decade as a columnist, Mike Kelly still doesn't get it that readers look to him for strong opinions, not rhetorical questions.

In his assessment of Cliffside Park Mayor Gerald Calabrese on the front of Opinion, Kelly should have condemned the politician for being propped up by a corrupt system for nearly 50 years, not seek to balance his column with opposing views.

Key editor is 'Too Big to Fail'

2012-01-21T10:46:00.000-05:00

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A story about ex-Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell appeared under the headline, "North Bergen mayor's sentencing delayed."

Coverage of snowstorms can make or break an editor at The Record -- as the trick-or-treat Halloween firing of Francis "Frank" Scandale clearly showed.

The lesson in the anemic editorial response to the surprise October 2011 snowstorm -- which knocked out power to hundreds of thousands for days -- wasn't lost on the staff, which produced today's timely stories on Page 1 and the Better Living cover.

Scandale arrived at The Record 11 years ago this month, and he didn't have to wait long for a big storm, which demonstrated once again how poorly the local assignment desk handled weather stories.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes was in charge of covering the storms -- in January 2001 and October 2011 -- and she or one of her junior assignment editors directed the news-gathering staff.

But she has survived all the complaints about pathetically weak coverage from higher-ups like Publisher Stephen A. Borg

Like the banks and brokerages that brought the nation to the brink of financial ruin, Sykes is simply "Too Big to Fail."

Sykes and Tim Nostrand, who held the top assignment post before her, have survived at least three managing editors. And Sykes emerged triumphant in the Scandale debacle, even though one of her junior weekend editors botched the pre-Halloween snowstorm story.

This weekend's storm, the first of the new year, may also be a milestone, coming in the waning days of the interim editor, Douglas Clancy, who presumably will resume his newsroom budget chores.

The Borgs' new editor, Marty Gottlieb, was hired away from The New York Times in December, and was expected to start early in the new year. Gottlieb was global editions editor of The Times for three years.

Milking the GOP process

Readers who picked up the Woodland Park daily today realized from the lead story that the excruciatingly boring process of picking a Republican presidential nominee will be shoved down their throats until the convention in August (A-1).

On A-2, another embarrassing correction appears. An L-3 headline on Friday said, "North Bergen mayor's sentencing delayed."

The problem is the story was about Dennis Elwell, former mayor of Secaucus. The words "North Bergen" or "North Bergen mayor" never appear in the story, which was handled by Editor Liz Houlton's news copy desk.

Free editorial help

Congress has been virtually paralyzed since a posse of rabid Tea Party members took their seats a year ago, but the editors have refused to do the story, leaving it to readers to explore how much damage they've caused.

In a letter on A-11 today, former Closter resident Chuck Bailey
discusses "the unprecedented lack of cooperation by [Republican Party] members of Congress " in aiding the economic recovery.

Instead of municipal news from Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and other towns, Sykes' Local section is filled with court and police news today.

Where are you, Marty Gottlieb?

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Everything but the kitchen sink

2012-01-20T14:04:00.000-05:00

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Pad thai as served in Bangkok, Thailand. Elisa Ung reviews a Thai restaurant, delaying her food critique until the end.

One look at The Record's front page today and you'd think the world is ending with the move of school elections to November or that driver-license fraud is the biggest problem facing the state.

In fact, interim Editor Douglas Clancy had so little news for Page 1 today, two of the four major stories are about football -- the second day in a row he has squandered precious space on the sport.

Now, all we need is a kitchen sink.

The overlong, eye-glazing story on license fraud carries the rare byline of Staff Writer Jean Rimbach, who milked the subject for all it is worth.

Four corrections

On A-2, are four embarrassing corrections and one clarification a new record?

Hackensack residents are offered two stories -- the umpteenth development in the legal saga of suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa (L-3), and the denial of an application to build a 19-story health care building between Prospect and Summit avenues, near Golf Place (L-6).

I haven't seen anything in head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section concerning a proposed $516,000 cut in the budget of the Englewood Public Library, but it is blasted in a letter to the editor of the weekly Hackensack Chronicle.

Fit to be Thai'd

You know the food must be pretty bad if Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung fills the first two-thirds of her report with everything but the dishes she sampled at Pa De Thai in Edgewater.

The 34-seat restaurant is called a "hole-in-the-wall" on the cover of Better Living and a "tiny treasure" in the centerfold. Ung gave it a lukewarm 2 stars (Good), though it doesn't deserve even that.

In two visits, she tried only 11 items, including two desserts. The waiter recommended the "crispy red snapper" for $16.95, but the small fillet had a "tough exterior."

A duck salad had "tough chunks of meat," and the fried rice and pad thai had "too much soy sauce."

Thai food is known for its wide use of fresh vegetables and restaurants usually offer vegetarian alternatives to many dishes, including duck salad. Ung is silent on those scores.

Belated second thoughts on Christie plan

2012-01-19T15:27:00.000-05:00

Image by 401K via Flickr
The biggest winners in Governor Christie's plan are residents with $1 million in taxable income.

Why did it take The Record's staff the better part of two days to give prominence to Democratic criticism of Governor Christie's latest proposal as a "B.S. tax cut" that's "not real" and "for the wealthy"?

All of the quoted words came from state Senate President Stephen Sweeney on Tuesday, but they're just appearing on Page 1 today, along with an "ANALYSIS" that found a lot of holes in the governor's proposal.

And the State of the State address may have been released under an embargo the night before Christie was to deliver it on Jan. 10. The delay was prompted by the unexpected death on Jan. 9 of Republican Minority Leader Alex DeCroce.

Interim Editor Douglas Clancy again shows readers he isn't a serious journalist, devoting only a third of the front page to state government and burying other important stories inside.

A Christie veto of a bill on taxpayer-funded pensions is on A-3, and a $325 million shortfall in state revenue is reported on A-4. Both of those stories are worthy of being packaged with the two on the tax-cut plan.

Two more embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today.

Column has holes

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, an unflattering photo makes Columnist Mike Kelly look like the newsroom idiot (L-1).

Kelly finally has taken note of the five-week-long "silence" from law enforcement officials on the many questions surrounding the shooting of Malik Williams, 19, of Garfield.

But Kelly doesn't do any original reporting here. He doesn't even bother interviewing the owner of the garage where Williams hid before he was shot dead by two police officers.

All he does is regurgitate all the unanswered questions, which have appeared in at least a half-dozen news stories since the Dec. 10 shooting.

In fact, Kelly's style is to ask a lot of rhetorical questions. He rarely expresses the strong opinions that readers are looking for in a columnist.

Nor does Kelly inform readers he wrote a book defending a white Teaneck police officer who shot and killed a fleeing black teenager, Phillip C. Pannell, in April 1990.

Christie bullshits the media, public

2012-01-18T10:20:00.001-05:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife
Chris Christie was considerably slimmer when the Republican ran for governor in late 2009.

Governor Christie's proposal for a 10% tax cut would put $80.50 in the pockets of anyone with taxable income of $50,000 -- or what you'd blow on a single visit to ShopRite.

But the plan would cut $7,265 from the tax a millionaire pays -- as if they need the money.

Yet, editors at The Record were so eager to sell Christie's fictional State of the State address on Tuesday, they stepped all over each other with redundant front-page headlines today:

CHRISTIE WOULD SLASH 10% ACROSS ALL INCOMES

Tax cut for 'everyone'

"Slash" and "cut" are bad echoes, and "everyone" and "across all incomes" say the same thing. Why is the word everyone in quotes?

Sadly, the plan would deprive the state of about $1 billion in revenue, so more public-school cuts are feared.

Interim Editor Douglas Clancy muted any criticism of Christie's many lies by burying it on the continuation page. An editorial was labeled, "Christie comeback."

From what? Binge eating over the holidays? Hoodwinking Oprah Winfrey, a fellow food addict, on the governor's compulsive eating habits?

If Clancy had any objectivity, he would have ordered a sidebar on Page 1 with Democratic criticism and a side-by-side comparison of Christie's claims and reality.

But what can you expect from a glorified newsroom bookkeeper whose days in the editor's job are numbered?

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, a Road Warrior column on how to set your parking brake leaves readers shaking their heads (L-1).

As does the absence of Hackensack news for another day.

Teardown

The distinctive, half-timbered building off Route 46 in Ridgefield Park, where a Gasho of Japan hibachi steakhouse once operated, is being demolished.

"This unique ... multiple-family farmhouse is typical of those found hundreds of years ago in certain regions of Japan," according to the Gasho Web site.

Related posts

Editors can't resist a divided town

2012-01-17T16:13:00.000-05:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife
Rep. Scott Garett, R-Wantage, is a member of the House Financial Services Committee.

Two-thirds of Teaneck suddenly finds itself represented by one of Congress' most conservative members, but all of Hackensack, Fair Lawn and other towns have the misfortune of being moved into the Republican's district.

So, interim Editor Douglas Clancy, why is today's Page 1 story in The Record about Teaneck residents affected by redistricting to the exclusion of the other communities?

Where in the story is anything about the regressive policies of Rep. Scott Garret of Wantage, lord of the 5th District, that are so counter to the minorities he now represents?

And is there a sillier way to end such a story than to say brothers divided by the district border now have two congressman to call, if they want to complain about a "rough pat[c]h" of pavement on their street?

Who would ever call a congressman to complain about that?

The photo on A-5 speaks volumes about Garret and his party. All the Republicans can come up with to oppose President Barack Obama are white, middle-age men, most of them wealthy.

Hackensack news is conspicuously absent in head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section as well.

Oprah and Chris

Two of the nation's most prominent food addicts sat down for a TV interview and not a word was uttered about the obesity epidemic.

On Sunday, Oprah Winfrey and Governor Christie discussed being overweight.

Oprah called food "a drug " and said she is a "compulsive over-eater."

Christie said he just finds himself eating the wrong things, but couldn't explain why. "But there is a certain compulsiveness at times about my eating," he said.

The governor said he has a dietitian and works out three days a week with a personal trainer, and one day on his own. "I'm getting there."

But Oprah never asked Christie how much he weighs or how much weight he might have lost.

Slim pickings for lilliputian readers

2012-01-16T11:19:00.002-05:00

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There is absolutely nothing like the original.

Is there anything in The Record today for us mere mortals -- the vast majority of readers who care nothing about the heroic Giants and their chances of winning another Super Toilet Bowl?

For us Lilliputians, pungent locker-room odors and male bonding demote inspiring coverage of Martin Luther King Jr. to the bottom of Page 1 -- thanks to interim Editor Douglas Clancy.

Why does every project at Hackensack University Medical Center -- even a new "wellness" center that's more than a year away from actually opening -- land on the front-page?

Does it have anything to do with all the years Vice President Jennifer A. Borg sat on the its board while North Jersey Media Group collected tens of thousands of dollars in ad revenue from the medical center, still one of the paper's biggest advertisers?

News holiday

Another A-1 story -- reporting a drop in traffic after tolls went up 53% on the New Jersey Turnpike and 50% on the Garden State Parkway on Jan. 1 -- doesn't account for the roads being less busy due in part to observance of New Year's Day on Jan. 2.

Governor Christie's pivotal role in forcing higher tolls is buried on the continuation page, A-8.

On the Local front, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes devotes most of the front to a drunken celebration of the Giants' victory by patrons of North Jersey taverns (L-1).

Second look

Travel Editor Jill Schensul makes a rare appearance in the daily paper today with a sidebar on cruise ship safety (A-6) -- three days after the Costa Concordia ran aground and tipped over off the coast of Italy, killing at least five.

On Sunday, Schensul wrung her hands endlessly in the Travel section cover story over "the homogenization of unique travel experiences."

The jaded editor never explains why the magnificent, original Eiffel Tower in Paris no longer has any value, compared to all of the mere imitations around the world.

In a section on food, she seems to disapprove of the spread of good food served at restaurants carrying the names of celebrity chefs -- while many travelers rejoice at how those places have become alternatives to the crappy fare at McDonald's.

And she doesn't mention that the spread of fast food hasn't affected all the choices adventurous eaters have wherever they are, especially in Italy and other countries where seasonal food is taken seriously.

Editors commit titanic misjudgments

2012-01-15T11:30:00.000-05:00

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The Record's editors demonized Jon Corzine during his single term as governor of New Jersey, but now praise Republican Governor Christie as a gift from the political gods.

Does the Italian tragicomedy of errors involving a capsized cruise ship really belong on the front page of a daily North Jersey newspaper -- where desperate editors couldn't produce anything more relevant to readers' lives?

This colossal misjudgment by interim Editor Douglas Clancy is mirrored in the Opinion section today, where another editor publishes three letters apparently meant to repair the reputation of a doctor who was hit by a $1.27 million jury award last week.

Today's Page 1 story in The Record might be of interest if you've taken or are planning a cruise. Otherwise, you'll take one look at the gee-whiz photo of the Costa Concordia on its side, maybe read a few paragraphs and move on in search of news you can use.

Incomprehensible

You won't find it in a second A-1 story, this one trumpeting how The Record and Herald News prompted Governor Christie to order a review of state purchasing laws and "the public contracting process."

Today's piece on government purchasing is just as unfathomable as previous ones.

A third front-page story -- on a new state Prescription Monitoring Program -- gives rare credit to Christie's predecessor, Jon Corzine.

On the Local front, the Road Warrior has morphed into the Death Warrior, with the second piece in a week on driving fatalities, another statistical story he produced from the comfort of his computer (L-1).

Readers will find Englewood and Teaneck items today, but Hackensack news coverage is a shipwreck once again -- thanks to the lazy assignment desk under Editor Deirdre Sykes.

Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais continues to ignore organics and other food that is raised or grown naturally in the monthly Marketbasket Survey (B-2) and in today's piece on rising food prices (B-1).

More misjudgment

On O-2 in the Opinion section, Letters Editor Charles Saydah praises a frequent letter writer, Arab-American Hani Awadallah, without disclosing Saydah is of Lebanese descent.

Saydah was known in the old days for his homemade hummus recipe and his skills on the dance floor during the newspaper's annual party for loyal employees.

Across the bottom of the opposite page, O-3, Saydah publishes three long letters of praise from Dr. Roger P. Kierce's daughter and wife, and a patient.

Apparently, the letters are designed to repair the doctor's reputation after a jury awarded $1.27 million to plaintiffs in a lawsuit that portrayed him as an abusive boss at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center.

The decision to publish the letters is shameful. Is the Your Views pages now open to family members and friends of every defendant, whether he is held liable in a lawsuit or found guilty of a crime?

Just shut up

In Better Living, the production editors put Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung on a diet of sorts -- the last sentence of her inane column was cut off (F-1 and F-5). LOL.

Let's hope Ung, whose favorite course is dessert, takes the advice offered by the the article just above her column on how to "avoid gaining weight in the sluggish winter months."

It takes nearly a week to get it right

2012-01-14T15:56:00.000-05:00

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Oprah Winfrey has a new network, but her interviewing skills leave a lot to be desired when it comes to exploring Governor Christie's weight problem and the obesity epidemic.

Alex DeCroce is back on the front page again today -- nearly a week after he died in a State House bathroom.

The Record has published thousands of words about the life and death of the Republican state assemblyman from Morris County -- completely out of proportion to his prominence -- because he was one of Governor Christie's key allies.

But what The Record failed to report was what killed DeCroce on Monday night, and readers noticed the glaring omission in Tuesday's lavish front-page coverage and in a follow-up story on Friday.

Heart of the matter

Today, it takes a Page 1 funeral Mass story from The Daily Record, which once competed with The Record, to finally inform readers that DeCroce, 75, died of a "heart-related problem."

Abbott Koloff, The Daily Record's reporter, quotes the state police on the cause of death. Imagine that. A reporter called the state police to ask about a death in the State House.

This is Reporting 101.

Why didn't interim Editor Douglas Clancy and all of The Record's other editors and reporters think of that? And is it any surprise DeCroce's death is linked to heart disease?

The Record is so fixated on autism and so determined to ignore the problems of older people, its editors apparently are totally unaware of just how common heart problems are.

In fact, on A-4, a story reports former presidential candidate John Edwards has a serious heart condition.

Hand kissing at funeral

On A-6, the continuation of the DeCroce story, a photo of a chivalrous Christie shows that he definitely has the hots for the widow, BettyLou DeCroce, who may fill her husband's Assembly seat.

Page A-2 carries two more embarrassing corrections and a clarification.

Check out A-3 for an unflattering photo of Christie with Oprah Winfrey. He makes her look svelte.

In an interview scheduled to air Sunday, Oprah apparently fails to find out how much the GOP bully weighs or whether he has lost weight working out with a personal trainer.

Nor does the story mention whether Christie and the first lady, Mary Pat Christie, are doing anything about the epidemic of obesity in New Jersey.

Cops make news again

If you're looking for Hackensack municipal news, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section disappoints once again today.

On L-1, Staff Writer Stephanie Akin has yet another account of legal problems in the Police Department -- a day after the story appeared in the weekly Hackensack Chronicle.

The section has lots of other news about the police as well as police and court news on every page but L-4, which is filled with death notices.

On the Better Living front, an article on the health benefits of tai chi lists only one class for beginners -- in Little Falls.

That may be close to the Woodland Park newsroom, but it's far from the majority of readers.

Restaurant critic thinks she will live forever

2012-01-13T16:09:00.000-05:00

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Mussels in a Guinness-and-lemon broth are served at Biddy O'Malley's, an Irish pub.

Readers who have heart conditions and diabetes or are just watching their weight come running every Friday to vicariously lap up all the desserts, pork and beef sampled by Staff Writer Elisa Ung in her weekly restaurant review.

Today, her 3-star appraisal of a Northvale pub called Biddy O'Malley's reminds me of a Irishman I met at the gym who blames his five heart operations on a diet of meat -- morning, noon and night (Better Living centerfold).

Ung tried no salads or vegetables and only three dishes mentioned in her review could be considered good for you -- a pan-seared salmon special (she doesn't say whether it was wild-caught); mussels in a Guinness-and-lemon broth; and a huge fillet of cod, though deep frying it and serving it with french fries insults this noble fish, once America's favorite.

Meat galore

The Irish pub's macaroni and cheese has sausage in it, the hamburger is made with pancetta (bacon) and butter, and the naturally raised pork chop was overcooked and dry.

Cardiac surgeons love Ung, because her proselytizing about dessert is one of things that keep them in business.

The reviewer always finds room for artery clogging little nothings, and her standards for the end of the meal appear to be even higher than for appetizers and entrees:

She loved the "pistachio bread pudding smothered in white chocolate ganache and plump, delicate cranberries" and a "Bailey's/espresso ice cream pie in a crumbly chocolate crust."

But another dessert, a chocolate hazelnut confection from an outside source, bordered on stale. Ung may think she'll live forever, but if she keeps eating dessert, she might not be able to get in the door of her next restaurant.

Today, in a mini-review on Page 19, she also recommends another "laid-back" spot, the 2-star Bahama Breeze, a faux-Caribbean chain restaurant on the highway in Wayne.

In 2009, she sampled the restaurant's mushy "jerk-chicken pasta" and ordered seared scallops, which were served raw, not once but twice. Still, she gave the restaurant 2 stars (Good).

Road kill

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes really came up with big local news today and plastered it all over the front of Local: a new water tank in Waldwick.

Is this the fifth or sixth Road Warrior column in a row where burned-out Staff Writer John Cichowski relies on reader e-mails for his ideas (L-1)?

Chichowski is so out of touch with the concerns of anyone who doesn't drive that in discussing replacement of the Route 495 helix, he completely ignores delays for the thousands of city-bound commuters who ride buses through the Lincoln Tunnel.

On L-6, a story on mourners viewing Assembly leader Alex DeCroce, 75, omits the cause of death, as did a coverage on Tuesday of Governor Christie's eulogy to his mentor.

Where have the editors been hiding?

2012-01-12T16:10:00.000-05:00

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How much of his huge fortune will Republican Mitt Romney squander on his bid to unseat President Barack Obama?

Tensions

rising over

inequality

of wealth

Study reveals shift in

middle-class attitudes

I almost spit out my coffee when I saw these headlines on Page 1 of The Record today and wondered what the editors have been doing during the last two years of partisan warfare between the rich and everyone else.

It's just like interim Editor Douglas Clancy to wait for a survey to confirm what readers knew long ago.

The Record does its best to ignore Governor Christie's refusal since he took office two years ago to raise taxes on millionaires or hike the levy on fuel for their gas-guzzling limousines.

And Republicans in Congress are doing their best to keep taxes on the rich at a 50-year low as a result of the Bush tax cuts.

Mitt Romney, leading in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, estimates his net worth at $190 million to $250 million.

You'd have to be a fool to believe they care anything about unemployment, foreclosures and all the other shocks destroying the middle class.

Chickening out

It's not just the news editors who are out of touch.

Years after antibiotic-free chicken showed up in supermarkets, Better Living today publishes a cover story on how to read poultry labels (F-1).

The story would be a lot more useful to readers if it listed brands that are drug-free, such as Readington Farms (ShopRite) and Murray's (Fairway Market), and those that are raised with lots of antibiotics, including Perdue and Tyson.

Little real insight

The major element on Page 1 today reports on the latest desecration of a synagogue, which involved a Molotov cocktail tossed into the bedroom of a Rutherford rabbi and his wife.

The A-1 sidebar by Staff Writer Deena Yellin reports the rabbi was injured, but the main story doesn't.

The caption for the photo, which shows the rabbi and his wife, says the gasoline bomb was thrown into "his bedroom" when it should have been "their bedroom."

Neither story attempts to explain why there have been four attacks on Bergen County synagogues since Dec. 10.

And where has head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes been, covering most of the front of the Local news section with a fire in North Bergen that killed no one?

Partisan politics -- in death as in life

2012-01-11T16:39:00.000-05:00

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Would Governor Christie have made such a big deal if a Democratic lawmaker died on Monday night in a State House bathroom?

I was surprised to hear Governor Christie postponed his State of the State address to the Legislature on Tuesday and even more surprised by the lavish coverage in The Record of his 9-minute eulogy for Republican Minority Leader Alex DeCroce.

DeCroce and Christie served together years ago on the Morris County Freeholder Board, and the senior Republican in the Assembly presumably spearheaded the GOP governor's mean-spirited budget cuts in 2010 and 2011.

Would Christie have postponed the business of state if a Democratic legislator died?

The Record's coverage is ridiculous, especially the feature-like first paragraph of the lead story on Page 1: "The first day of a new legislative term is traditionally filled with ceremony and festivity ...."

No cause of death

Give me a break. The reporting is awful, with the stories failing to list a cause of death for the 75-year-old DeCroce, who collapsed in a State House bathroom on Monday night.

Columnist Charles Stile actually has the balls, in a second A-1 piece, to call the State of the State address a "triumphant moment" for Christie, ignoring all the pain the governor has visited on the middle class in New Jersey.

More errors

An embarrassing correction on A-2 today is the latest in a string from the lazy local assignment desk and the news copy desk: There were three corrections on Tuesday and two on Monday, and last week, three on Friday and three on Thursday.

When you consider that many errors go uncorrected, you can only assume accuracy is no longer a priority at the Woodland Park daily under interim Editor Douglas Clancy, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Production Editor Liz Houlton.

Teen theme

On Sykes' Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski sounds a favorite theme: teen driving deaths (L-1). Readers of the column die silently.

Judging from Hackensack news, the city is at a standstill. Staff Writer Stephanie Akin has yet another story about police officer lawsuits against suspended Chief Ken Zisa (L-1).

Six related stories have run since Dec. 3.

Rabbi gives Jews a bad name

2012-01-10T12:01:00.000-05:00

Image by dougtone via Flickr
Englewood's schools, including Dwight Morrow High, above, can't afford to lose the $63,000 in annual property taxes paid by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on his East Hill estate.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach of Englewood is a publicity monger and a hypocrite, yet The Record devotes a huge amount of space today to his shameless plan to seek tax-exempt status for his multimillion dollar East Hill mansion.

Boteach bought the estate in 2000, knowing the Libyan Mission to the United Nations was next door. He parlayed that into a million dollars worth of free publicity for himself in 2009, when he protested a planned visit by dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

The Record published five stories over the course of six days in August 2009, many of them featuring Boteach prominently. Later, the Better Living section wrote a glowing review of the rabbi's book on his relationship with Michael Jackson.

In recent years, Boteach withheld property taxes to protest the Libyan Mission's tax-exempt status in Englewood, but now he's proposing to take his own property off the tax rolls. This man gives Jews a bad name.

Editor worships rabbi

The story on Page 1 clearly shows Boteach has interim Editor Douglas Clancy in his pocket. From the size of the headline and the space devoted to his selfish plan, you'd think a major disaster had occurred in North Jersey.

Don't hold your breath for an editorial opposing Boteach's plan and urging the city Planning Board to reject the use of a caretaker's house as a synagogue. Let Boteach take Englewood to court.

Next, Publisher Stephen A. Borg will convert a room in his $3.65 million Tenafly McMansion into a newsroom, declare The Record and Herald News a non-profit and seek his own tax-exempt status.

More poor journalism

Another front-page story raises all the questions surrounding the month-old police shooting of Malik Williams, 19, of Garfield -- and answers none of them.

So, this is just a rewrite of previous stories by the lazy assignment desk under Editor Deirdre Sykes.

Why didn't the reporter talk to the owner of the garage where Williams hid and find out what he or she knows about the "tools" police said the escapee held in his hands as justification for killing him?

Today's story reports Williams was "found behind numerous objects" and "had allegedly armed himself with tools."

Taking on Garret

It's good to see Adam Gussen, the deputy mayor of Teaneck, is among Democrats who are weighing a run against arch-conservative Rep. Scott Garret, the Wantage Republican who cowed Rep. Steve Rothman, D- Englewood (L-1).

Let's hope Garret will rue the day his district was reconfigured to include Hackensack and most of Teaneck, two of the most diverse communities in North Jersey.

Also on the front of Local, a story on the death of three seniors in a highway accident in Florida doesn't say who was driving nor quote police on what caused their small SUV to go off the road.

The GOP's Laurel-and-Hardy campaign

2012-01-09T14:07:00.000-05:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife
Governor Christie scolding a protester during campaign for presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

Nick looked up at the wall-mounted TV and the image of a roly-poly Governor Christie campaigning in shirtsleeves for Mitt Romney in New Hampshire and said, "Whatever he's eating, we're paying for it."

Christie's size surprised even the staff and patients such as Nick in the cardiac rehab unit at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center this morning -- and they've seen it all.

Doesn't Christie have a personal trainer, one nurse asked. But the governor won't say how much he weighs or whether he's lost weight, a patient said.

You can see a photo of the media's favorite fat slob on A-6 of The Record today -- the continuation of a Page 1 story reporting Christie lashed out at an Occupy movement protester who accused the GOP bully of killing jobs.

Since Christie took office, The Record and other media have time and again praised his brash Jersey style -- as if this is now the only qualification for governor -- and forgiven his mean-spirited budget cuts, huge toll-and-fare increases and his assault on the middle-class way of life in the Garden State.

GOP comedy team

You can't see it in The Record photo, but on TV, Christie was a few inches shorter than the fashionably thin Romney, who is leading in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

They're a modern-day Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, but the biggest joke is on voters.

Another story on A-1 reports NJ Transit took a $297 million bath after Christie killed the Hudson River rail-tunnel project, another $95 million was paid to settle a repayment demand from federal officials and nearly $1.2 million went for legal fees (A-6).

No attempt was made to get comment from Christie.

Sports trumps news

On Jan. 9, 2011, the day after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords survived an attempted assassination that killed six in Tucson, Ariz., The Record's front page was dominated by the photo of an athlete, squeezing the Giffords story under a 1-column headline.

Today, a year later, the front page is again dominated by the big photo of an athlete, thanks to interim Editor Douglas Clancy, who thinks sports is going to sell papers.

But I guess Clancy also is telling readers they have to love all that sports has given us:

Overweight fans who drink as much beer and eat as many ribs as possible before every game, as shown on L-1 today; perverted coaches who molest young boys, obscene salaries that shock the conscience and, in Wayne, the arrest of nine thugs on one high school football team.

The third element on A-1 today is a story by the nursing home reporter, Colleen Diskin, whose last byline was Dec. 27, 2011. Diskin once wrote the Mother Load column.

Food for thought

Don't look for a Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood report or much other local news today.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes spent all her time raiding tailgate parties on Sunday in East Rutherford -- then plastered the fans' bacchanal all over her Local front in place of any legitimate local news.

Another disappointing Sunday

2012-01-08T09:54:00.001-05:00

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Does any commuter doubt Hudson River toll hikes would have been lower if Governor Christie hadn't grabbed $1.8 billion in Port Authority funds for state roads?

Are voters supposed to clip out today's Page 1, side-by-side comparison of Democratic Reps. Bill Pascrell Jr. and Steve Rothman, and save it for reference just before the primary election more than five months from now?

Why is that running now? Isn't there anything else happening -- or not happening -- in Washington? Maybe that's the story that should be on the front page of this ho-hum Sunday edition.

And why does Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson give a pass to Rothman?

The Record has refrained from reporting the anger of many Democrats who feel Rothman is ducking out of a fight against an arch-conservative Republican, Scott Garret, the U.S. representative from Wantage.

And where in this long story is the biographical material comparing Pascrell, the scrappy former mayor of Paterson, to Rothman, who is from a privileged background in Englewood?

Finally, have you ever seen a more boring headline? Where was the supervisor of the news copy desk, Editor Liz Houlton, who earned the title "Queen of Errors" when she ran the features copy desk?

Two candidates

separated by style

You can slap that generic headline on any political story for years to come. It's probably on one of Houlton's save/get keys.

GOP bully speaks

More GOP bias is evident in the bully A-1 pulpit interim Editor Douglas Clancy gives to Governor Christie, who told editors he's finally going to do something about the free-spending Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

After all, Christie is partly responsible for the huge Hudson River toll and fare hikes, as well as the recent increases on the turnpike and parkway.

Instead of raising the gas tax on his limousine-riding supporters, Christie grabbed billions in agency funds, shifting the money from the Hudson River rail tunnels he killed to state road and mass-transit projects.

Heat but no light

An A-3 story doesn't explain how higher prices for credits sold by solar-power producers would "come at the expense of ratepayers and utilities."

And the story ignores credits sold to utilities by homeowners (and ratepayers) who have spent tens of thousands of dollars to install solar panels.

Determined to avoid writing about commuters, Road Warrior John Cichowski bases his column today on e-mails from truckers and other so-called professional drivers (L-1). He's boring us to tears recounting all these reader e-mails.

The Local news section continues to report on seemingly endless municipal reorganization meetings.

A jerk reveals herself

Can the editors explain why an unlabeled photo that appears to have been taken in Europe accompanies a column by Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung (Better Living cover)?

The arrogant Ung tells readers how they can get their "money's worth in a restaurant -- without being a jerk."

If anyone is a "jerk," it's the unseasoned reviewer herself, obsessing over dessert and blindly praising the cheap beef, poultry and fish many restaurants serve to fatten their profits.

On the Opinion front, an overly long column under the headline, "Key questions remain after Iowa caucuses," fails to answer the most obvious question -- why has The Record and other media wasted so much time and space covering the Republican nomination campaign?

Headline hype is killing readers

2012-01-07T11:43:00.000-05:00

Image by reinvented via Flickr
The Record's news copy editors and their supervisors have a long way to go when it comes to writing headlines that are more accurate and far less exaggerated.

North Jersey Media Group and other employers shed 8 million workers during the recession, so does the hiring of 200,000 last month really signal that "America [is] getting back to work," as today's big, black Page 1 headline declares?

Of course not. And The Record headline on Thursday calling Burt Ross, a mayor who refused a big bribe in 1974, a "N.J. icon" also was wildly exaggerated. We respect him, but he's no icon.

To sell papers, interim Editor Douglas Clancy and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes are allowing Editor Liz Houlton's news copy desk to get away with headline murder -- and it's readers who suffer.

Accidental editors

Their news judgment also sucks.

On Friday, photos of a flipped truck and a pickup that rolled over were all over A-1 and L-1, respectively.

So, what did they do with a spectacular photo of a burning truck, which trapped and killed the 66-year-old driver, and the account of an 18-year-old student "who collapsed in his teacher's arms" and died later?

Even though these stories are more compelling than anything on the front page, they were banished to the front of Local -- likely displaced on Page 1 by the enormously exaggerated photo-text package on unemployment hitting a three-year low.

A lack of standards

The labor story is actually linked to the poor state of headline writing at the Woodland Park daily, because Publisher Stephen A. Borg shed five veteran news copy editors in 2008, including Nancy Cherry, the co-slot who enforced high standards of accuracy.

Sykes' local assignment desk does a fair job of covering the deaths of Paramus High School junior Eric Micheo, 18, and John J. Mangini, 66, a Wayne man who died in a bread-van fire on Route 80 in Hackensack.

But both stories raise questions that are never answered.

The story at the top of L-1 notes Micheo was a member of the wrestling team "in the heavyweight category," but doesn't raise the possibility his death is linked to his weight.

Nor apparently was any attempt made to talk with the student's relatives, and find out whether there is a family history of heart disease.

New laws needed

At the bottom of L-1, a photo of a fireball accompanies the story, which reports the bread deliverer's van was hit from behind by a 21-year-old driver's car, causing the truck to overturn and erupt into flames, trapping Mangini.

Was the younger driver tailgating or speeding on Friday at 2:50 in the morning? Had he been drinking? Why wasn't he cited for trying to pass on the right?

Of course, the bigger picture also is ignored. Is the Legislature revising traffic laws to hold drivers criminally responsible for their actions when they hit another vehicle and cause a death or kill a pedestrian they claim not to see?

Subscribe for the latest accident news

2012-01-06T16:09:00.000-05:00

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If you're trying to avoid the additive-filled beef served at Sear House-- an expensive steakhouse in Closter -- don't order the swordfish entree, which is high in harmful mercury.

A truck flips on Route 3 and another vehicle rolls over on Route 17, and The Record is all over it today, with big photos plastered on Page 1 and the Local front, bringing readers the latest, ho-hum news.

Nothing tells readers better than these routine, non-fatal accident photos that interim Editor Douglas Clancy, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and their lazy sub-editors are desperate to fill space.

And nothing is a bigger slap in the face to the talented photographers the paper employs than this ridiculous ambulance chasing, which makes the once-great Woodland Park daily look like one of those silly weeklies.

Turn here for senseless

Since taking over as the Road Warrior more than eight years ago, John Cichowski has transformed a column on commuting problems into a column for drivers.

Now, can anyone tell me what he's blabbering about today (L-1)?

See L-8 for Hackesack news -- another long, detailed story on legal troubles in the Police Department.

Where is Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais when you need him to explain why gasoline prices are going up again -- 7 cents overnight at a Shell station in Teaneck on top of a one day, 10-cent hike last week.

Stake in the heart

Staff Writer Elisa Ung knows so little about how beef is raised -- or is just feigning ignorance -- it is irresponsible to allow her to review restaurants, especially in view of her lavish praise today for Sear House in Closter.

On the Better Living cover, Sear is called "a dramatic new addition to the culinary scene," likely a reference to it being one of the most expensive restaurants in North Jersey -- with a $45 rib-eye steak.

What do customers get for their money? Fatty, grain-fed prime beef that is likely pumped full of harmful antibiotics and growth hormones, and possibly raised on animal by-products (kitchen scraps and bits of dead animals).

Ung doesn't say otherwise, so readers also have to assume the domestic lamb chops are raised with antibiotics and growth hormones. The 3-star Sear also serves swordfish, which is high in harmful mercury (Better Living centerfold).

Instead of important details on how the food Ung samples is raised or grown, readers get snappy, meaningless headlines, such as the cover's "Serious Steak."

Seriously unhealthy, that is.

Restaurant owners can get away with serving low-quality beef at ridiculously high prices only when they have complicit reviewers like Ung to help them hoodwink diners.