JFK assassination, immigrant students and retail

Most but not all of the residents of Clinton Place in Hackensack took down their Halloween displays today, above and below. From the looks of The Record's front page today, you'd think a zombie editor was at work in the Woodland Park newsroom.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Look out, readers, it's the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy -- one of the saddest days in American history, right up there with the murders of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

Instead of exploring why we still have so much gun violence and such a strong racist reaction to President Obama, The Record's front page asks, "Where were you that day?"

The sub-headline uses this phrase: "JFK's assassination."

Doesn't that mean the assassination belongs to John F. Kennedy? If so, that is incorrect, another Page 1 screw-up missed by six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton. 

50 years ago?

Most of The Record's readers can't remember where they were 50 days ago, let alone a half-century earlier, so what's the point of this journalistic exercise?

The anniversary is on Nov. 22, so it's not clear why The Record is marking it today, 21 days early.

The only other stories on A-1 today are process stories -- the blow-by-blow on allowing illegal immigrant students to pay lower in-state tuition rates, and the public financing of the huge entertainment and retail complex called American Dream.

Is this Editor Marty Gottlieb's concept of breaking news or local news?

Booker and Buono?

The swearing in of Cory Booker as the state's first African-American U.S. senator is on A-3 today, but no one thought to ask him if he will be campaigning for Barbara Buono, the Democratic state senator who is an uphill battle with the GOP bully, Governor Christie (A-3).

In Local, Deputy Assignment Flunky Dan Sforza played trick or treat on readers again, and readers were tricked.

Eight Law & Order or court stories appear in the section.

Simply mediocre

Better Living has another lukewarm restaurant review from Staff Writer Elisa Ung, this time of Bistro du Saigon in Fort Lee (BL-10).

You know the place is forgettable when Ung spends the first half of the review talking about everything else but the food.

There are only two words you need to know to find great Vietnamese food in Bergen County: Simply Vietnamese, a BYO in Tenafly.