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| The air is fragrant in Hackensack, above and below. |
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
Today's front page "ANALYSIS" of the deepening state pension system crisis is good, but Staff Writer John Reitmeyer of The Record could be accused of burying the lead.
Readers who stick with his account -- which begins by saying "Governor Christie is following the well-worn path" of his predecessors by skipping payments -- might be shocked to see what awaits them on the continuation page:
"What all this means is that at some point in the future, according to experts, New Jersey's pension system, currently underfunded by an estimated $52 billion, could become simply too costly to keep afloat" (A-6).
That should have been the first paragraph on A-1 for crying out loud.
Derelict editors
Who was Editor Marty Gottlieb or one of his minions thinking of when they worked on this Page 1 story?
Certainly not public employees or even readers of the Woodland Park daily.
Readers also find out on A-6 the GOP bully basically told another lie:
"Christie ... recently erroneously lumped [former Governor Jon] Corzine among the list of New Jersey governors who made no pension payments during their tenure."
Taxing readers
Now, Christie is facing a $1 billion budget shortfall, because he has refused, among other things, to impose a tax surcharge on millionaires or raise the low gasoline tax to fund road and mass-transit improvements.
Reitmeyer doesn't cite the conservative's inflexible no-tax policies or his past practice of balancing the budget on the backs of the middle and working classes.
In fact, the reporter doesn't even bother telling readers how many public employees are covered by the state's pension system or who they are.
Are they just bureaucrats in Trenton or are they teachers, police officers and firefighters -- in other words our neighbors?
The story says Christie is cutting his planned $1.58 billion pension contribution back to $696 million and, in the fiscal year that begins July 1, a $2.25 billion pension payment would now be just $681 million.
Christie also says he will "put forward new public worker benefit changes in the next few weeks" (A-6).
If I was a public worker who is already contributing more to my pension thanks to Christie, I'd really be worried.
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| Breathe deep. |
Crash landing
Why was a pea-brained former sports reporter assigned to the story on the untimely demise of New Jersey multimillionaire Lewis Katz, killed in the "fiery crash" of a Gulfstream private jet on Saturday night (A-3)?
Staff Writer John Brennan reports "National Transportation Safety Board officials said it was too soon to discuss the cause of the crash."
They always say that less than two days after a crash, but there are usually only two possible causes: Pilot error or a mechanical problem.
Private-jet travel is one of the privileges of wealth, but Brennan doesn't even say whether it is safer to fly commercial.
The Borgs and Main Street
The Borgs' North Jersey Media Group has never had much affection for Main Street, judging by the abysmal lack of coverage of struggling downtowns in Englewood, Teaneck and other communities.
And Hackensack -- where The Record prospered for more than 110 years -- and its Main Street are still trying to recover from Publisher Stephen A. Borg's decision in 2009 to close the paper's headquarters on River Street, and move to the sticks.
Where money talks
Joan Verdon, the paper's retail reporter, writes almost exclusively about North Jersey's malls and highway retailers -- where the Borgs reap millions of dollars in advertising revenue.
You could think of this as journalism pay to play. Do merchants have to advertise in The Record to get coverage?
But the Business page on Monday carries a feature called "Main Street" that appears to be the editors' attempt to fool readers into thinking otherwise.
Today's piece is about North Jersey's pet-walking and pet-sitting businesses. Another recent "Main Street" feature reported on the maker of custom golf pants.
What a farce.
Teaneck police
The lead story in Local today is an upbeat report on the 100th anniversary of the Teaneck Police Department (L-1).
Staff Writer Jim Norman notes the onetime all-male force "now includes seven women, two of whom are lieutenants and two detectives."
But Norman fails to tell readers about the sordid period when women in the Teaneck department filed sexual-harassment lawsuits against their male superiors, resulting in legal fees and settlements that cost taxpayers many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Are local assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza -- veterans who should be familiar with those suits -- deliberately slanting stories so as not to offend the Teaneck police?
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