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| For the print oriented, signs are impossible to ignore, including this one in the men's room of a business in Allendale, above, and another on the West Side of Manhattan, below. Thanks to Rosh Hashana celebrations, there were fewer traffic jams and more seats on NJ Transit trains on Friday. |
By Victor E. Sasson
Editor
I read every inspirational word of today's Page 1 story in The Record about Darryl Dela Cruz, a chef who will be teaching former drug addicts and the homeless in Paterson skills they can parlay into a steady kitchen job (A-1).
Since Publisher Stephen A. Borg folded The Record's Food section in 2007, there have been few such stories, but lots of mindless promotion of so-called celebrity chefs and their restaurants.
I recall in 2009, Staff Writer Elisa Ung purportedly gave readers an inside look at the launching of Bobby's Burger Palace in Paramus, praising the use of "chef's quality" beef.
But in truth, Chef/Owner Bobby Flay was intent on ignoring the welfare of his customers and using low-quality Certified Angus Beef raised on antibiotics and growth hormones to fatten his bottom line.
Ung is still at it, breathlessly reporting on Friday's Better Living cover that the new owners of the Saddle River Inn "take ambitious risks."
But her review doesn't bother saying whether the $42 filet mignon or the $45 sirloin are naturally raised.
More 9/11 lies
Today's front page is weighed down by a Mike Kelly column that appears to kick off the paper's 9/11 anniversary coverage (A-1).
A few photographs would suffice to update readers on the long-delayed opening of the 9/11 Museum, not the thousands of words pushed around by "The Shit-Eating Grin."
A second 9/11 story on today's Better Living cover skillfully ignores the most shameless day in the history of the newsroom on River Street in Hackensack (BL-1).
"The story behind a photographer's iconic image" is the headline over a report on "The Flag," a CNN investigation of what happened to the American flag that was raised over the rubble of the World Trade Center by three firemen on Sept. 11, 2001 (BL-1).
The real story
The Record's story never reports then-Editor Frank Scandale blew it by running Staff Photographer Thomas E. Franklin's photo of the flag raising on the back page of a section -- not on Page 1, as he was urged to do by Rich Gigli, the paper's photo editor in 2001.
That decision likely killed any chance of Franklin winning the Pulitzer Prize for Photography.
It's no wonder Franklin declined to be interviewed for the CNN documentary.
Today's story reports:
"The photo, published first in The Record on Sept. 12, 2001, subsequently ran on the cover [front page] of the New York Post -- without crediting Franklin -- and the cover of Newsweek.
To add insult to injury, the story ends in mid-sentence (BL-3), another great job by Production Editor Liz Houlton, the six-figure "Queen of Errors."
In recent years, Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg has spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to sue anyone who uses the Franklin photo -- even with full credit -- claiming violation of the newspaper's copyright.
That's noteworthy, because higher-ups cited the high cost of remaking the front page on Sept. 11, 2001, as the reason the iconic photo wasn't run on A-1 -- in one of the biggest journalistic blunders ever.
More missing
An editorial on A-11 today reminds readers how The Record has completely ignored the issues in the gubernatorial campaign as it has cranked up the public relations machine for Governor Christie's second term.
Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, apparently took a 3-day weekend, judging by today's Local section.
Readers looking for local obituaries instead find an incredibly long story about a Hitler bodyguard who escaped the firing squad and lived to 96 (L-6).
Error addict?
The Road Warrior column on Friday was filled with mistakes, and a concerned reader suggests Staff Writer John Cichowski -- "The Addled Commuter" -- has become addicted to error:
"In his Friday column, the Road Warrior repeatedly and deliberately misquoted a judge and misrepresented clearly stated assessments and facts in a court decision.
"The case was about whether a remote cellphone texter can be held partially liable in a civil suit if a person who read the text while driving caused an accident involving injuries or property damage.
"The Road Warrior introduced a crazy assessment that implied the texter knowingly promoted addictive texting behavior by the driver, even though the plaintiff's lawyer and none of the four judges hearing the case ever raised such nonsense.
"The Road Warrior's misstatements of quoted text from the court's decision is cause for even greater concern that a reporter is unable to do his job and is intentionally misleading his readers.
"The Road Warrior incorrectly reported or made up figures about the National Safety Council 2011 estimate about cellphone-related crashes.
"Some psychiatrists consider excessive and frequent misrepresentations to be addictive behavior. Is The Record's management encouraging such behavior by the Road Warrior?"
To read the entire e-mail to editors and management, go to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:
Road Warrior can and does tell lies
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