Travel editor betrays her readers with another free trip

When an employee of Babe's Taxi in Fort Lee complained about the huge traffic jam caused by closure of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge last September, a Port Authority police officer told him to write a letter to Governor Christie. The exit to the company's garage, above, is on Hudson Street, which normally provides three lanes leading to upper-level tollbooths, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Jill Schensul, the perpetually jet-lagged editor of The Record's Travel section, went on another free press junket in search of what might seem like a local story.

Her gushing Sunday cover piece -- delivered with today's paper -- describes an all-expenses-paid trip to a shipyard that is building Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Sea, "which will sail to its home port of Cape Liberty in Bayonne in November" (T-1).

Traffic jams

Schensul should have stayed home and done some reporting on Cape Liberty, which was a traffic and logistical nightmare when I dropped off and picked up cruise-ship passengers this past summer.

In Bayonne, vacationers don't have direct access to the ship.

Instead, they are processed in a shed and then taken to the ship on shuttle buses.  

To drop off or pick up passengers, a long, double line of buses, cars, vans and taxis enter the port and must take a slow, circuitous route to the shed that can consume close to an hour.

What a great start to a vacation: Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Schensul's free trip was to a shipyard in a small German town, raising questions about whether this same yard built warships during World War II.

Why this tremendous amount of publicity for Royal Caribbean? 

With 2,090 staterooms, the new ship will surely be a zoo at sea, complete with hundreds of bratty children. What is the appeal of that?

Correction

The Travel section also publishes an embarrassing correction -- to fix captions on two selfies from Venice that were "inadvertently" switched last week (T-1 and A-2 of today's paper).

Apparently, an Arabic family -- the Sayeghs of Paterson -- were given a Jewish couple's names -- the Kapplemans of Saddle Brook, and vice versa. Sweet.

Production Editor Liz Houlton, who is paid six figures to prevent such mistakes, must have been on vacation.

Last week, no one seemed to notice or care three names were under the couple's photo and two names were under the photo of a family of three.

Today's paper

Editor Marty Gottlieb leads today's paper with another report on Port Authority police officers at the George Washington Bridge "scrambling to deal with a traffic nightmare caused by ... lane closures that clogged Fort Lee's streets last September" (A-1).

Governor Christie is mentioned in passing:

"Christie has denied any involvement [in] or prior knowledge [of] the lane closures," reports Staff Writer Shawn Boburg, swallowing whole the legal whitewash that will cost taxpayers $7 million-plus.

Dumb and dumber

On the Local front, Staff Writer John Brennan reports what the headline calls "signs of activity" on the American Dream retail-entertainment complex, including painters covering the ugly checkerboard exterior (L-1).

Now, readers are waiting for test results showing signs of brain activity in the former sports reporter's head.

Dumber still was Road Warrior John Cichowski's Tuesday column on the anniversary of the lane closures in Fort Lee, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his Tuesday column, the Road Warrior returns to the scene of the crime and continues to compound so many of his grossly mistaken columns about the closures of tollbooths and access lanes for a local Fort Lee entrance to the George Washington Bridge during the week of Sept. 9, 2013.

"The Road Warrior reported that a Fort Lee resident was 'prescient' when he warned the Road Warrior during that week about impending tragedies that would be caused by the associated traffic jams.

"Yet, The Record and every other credible news source over the past year has reported that there were absolutely no tragedies that were directly caused by these closures."

Also, Cichowski and The Record have repeatedly exaggerated the impact of closing two of three access lanes to the bridge's upper level a year ago.

There are other Fort Lee access lanes to both the upper and lower levels, and the latter, dubbed Martha Washington, was largely unaffected during the week of Sept. 9, 2013. 

See:

More irresponsible reporting by the Road Warrior

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Spending PA toll money on mass transit is a good thing

Commuters inching up the ramp to the George Washington Bridge to reach New Jersey on Friday night are a testament to the metropolitan area's broken mass-transit system. A so-called expose in The Record today seems to question hundreds of millions in Port Authority toll dollars that were spent to improve train service between New Jersey and New York.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I applaud the investigative work by Staff Writer Shawn Boburg on Page 1 of The Record today, but is the misleading three-deck headline supposed to be shocking or ignite calls for reform?

"Millions in

tolls spent

on the arts"

Actually, since 2000, hundreds of millions in Port Authority toll money wasn't spent on the arts at all, according to the story (A-4).

"The largest single expenditure by New York over that time ... ($128 million) went to Pennsylvania Station," where thousands of commuters board NJ Transit trains for home.

"New Jersey's largest single payment came in 2001, when James McGreevey was governor -- $250 million for new rail cars for [the same] NJ Transit, the state's mass transit agency" (A-4).

Boburg doesn't menton it, but the Port Authority's "mission" includes running the PATH commuter train system and operating a reverse commuter-bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.

The bistate agency should be criticized for expanding neither, but The Record and Boburg haven't bothered to report that story.

Farewell Genesis

Is there any reason the front page today doesn't carry a photo of Genesis Rincon, 12, in her coffin?

The number of suspects in her fatal shooting is now up to three, and their pictures are bigger than the one of her inside the casket cover at her Paterson wake (A-1).

Amateurish reporting

A related puff piece about Harley Breite, lawyer for Genesis shooting suspect Jhymiere Moore, is a real puzzle (A-6).

The freelance writer is Todd South, a reporter who covers the courts and four other beats for the Times Free Press of Chattanooga, Tenn.

Why is he writing a story about a Wayne lawyer, and what's this nonsense in the lead about Breite "vowing not to bow to the public furor" over the fatal shooting of Genesis?

South makes Breite sound like a godsend for murder defendants and others, but all of the clients mentioned in the story were convicted, and the lawyer even lost a state Assembly primary election (A-6).

South calls Breite "flamboyant" and "media savvy," apparently unaware he is one of the reporters the lawyer has played for a sucker.

Fashion report

The lead paragraph is poorly edited and includes the phrases "pony-tailed" and "pony-tail-wearing" just a few words apart. Hey, we get it.

South also mentions another irrelevant detail, that Breite "wore wide lapels on his blue pinstripe suit."

How does Editor Marty Gottlieb, who had a stellar career at The New York Times, allow this kind of low-quality journalism to run in The Record?

Local yokels

There is a lot of gee-whiz news in Local today -- from a Glen Rock man who suffered minor shark bites to a school bus fire in Englewood (L-1) -- but the section again has too much Law & Order content.

Paterson Mayor Joey Torres held an "inaugural ball" on Wednesday night, according to an L-2 story, the same day the official appeared at a press conference to announce the arrest of a suspect in the shooting of Genesis.

Not even rampant gun violence in Silk City can stop Torres from raising money.

The lead story on L-1 reports LG is threatening to pull out of Englewood Cliffs and take with it a plan to scar the Palisades with a $300 million, 143-foot-high headquarters.

Good riddance, I say.

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Readers care more about deer than slain Paterson girl

The owner of this former Shell gas station property on Cedar Lane and River Road will be receiving a Teaneck Township Council commendation for maintaining an eyesore longer than many others. But The Record's local editors have warned their reporters not to waste their time writing about Cedar Lane or other struggling downtowns in North Jersey. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Editor Martin Gottlieb of The Record goes tabloid today with a Page 1 story on the slaying of a 12-year-old Hispanic girl on the violent streets of Paterson.

But you know he ran the story against the advice of his local editors, who urged him to play up the divisions in wealthy Allendale over 45 deer that are terrorizing residents (L-1).

The account of Genesis Rincon's death "just after sunset on Saturday" doesn't explain why the story wasn't on Page 1 of Sunday's paper.

Where are cops?

And there is a lot missing, including background on Governor Christie's state aid cuts to Paterson and other poor cities and whether police were laid off as a result. 

In fact, there is no mention of what a poor job the Police Department is doing to protect residents of the 4th Ward, which accounted for nearly half of the city's 31 reported shootings in the first four months of this year (A-1).

In 2013, there were 19 gun-related homicides in Paterson, according to the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office, compared to 28 murders on the island of Montreal, which has a population of 1.9 million (A-6).

Today's column on Christie's visit to Paterson -- by clueless Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin -- doesn't even mention whether the GOP bully's aid cuts accelerated gun violence in the Silk City (A-9).

Venison for poor

Meanwhile, in Allendale, residents and officials are divided over a proposal to allow bow hunting in the Celery Farm Natural Area to stop "marauding deer" (L-1).

Why not round up gunmen in Paterson, take them to the Celery Farm and kill the deer to provide food to hungry Paterson residents?

Second look

I hope commuters who read Sunday's front-page Road Warrior column didn't  jump into their cars this morning and start looking for hitchhikers in Fort Lee, hoping to save $6 for carpooling across the George Washington Bridge.

The addled John Cichowski left out a good deal of information on getting the carpool discount, which is far from automatic, even if you have the required two passengers.

First, you have to register your E-ZPass with the agency that issued it, and before you cross the bridge, you have to stop in a CASH/E-ZPass lane and ask for the discount so the toll taker can verify there are three people in your vehicle (dummies and dead bodies might work, too).

You save 24/7

One you have complied with those requirements, the carpool discount is available at any time 24/7, not just during the rush hour.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers for the full rundown on Cichowski's retread:

Beware worthless advice from the Road Warrior

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Despite Christie, justice in New Jersey seems assured

Cross traffic is rare at this red light in the middle of nowhere. Stop signs would work fine. Welcome to the Bergen Town Center in Paramus. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You have to read between the lines of today's lead Page 1 story in The Record to find out Democrats have put the kibosh on Governor Christie's evil plan to remake the state Supreme Court in his own conservative image.

The A-1 headline is awkward and the story is poorly edited, making readers wait until the continuation page for the real news:

"For years, Governor Christie has railed against [Chief Justice Stewart] Rabner and the court he heads, both in New Jersey and at appearances across the country, calling the justices activists and decrying their decisions that disagreed with his" (A-6).

"Their decisions that disagreed with his"? Sheesh. And in the photo caption on A-6, the sitting chief justice is referred to as a "nominee."

Rabner, 53, who was questioned by lawmakers on Monday, appears assured of renomination and tenure until 2030.

Right after he took office in 2010, the mean-spirited Christie got rid of the only African-American on the high court, then set out to eliminate affordable housing and state aid to the state's poorest school districts.

The GOP bully also put forward several turkeys as his own conservative nominees for the high court, but most of them were rejected.

A progressive court

Imagine a high court that catered to Christie's wealthy supporters, and followed the governor's mean-spirited agenda to eliminate all social programs and taxes on the rich. 

That's what we avoid with Rabner at the helm of a progressive court that for many decades has been at the forefront on product liability, housing for low- and moderate-income residents and other important issues.

Unintended hilarity

Again on the front page, would you look at the stark contrast between the photos of aging TV columnist Ginny Rohan and the preening Kardashians, bimbos who probably have spent millions on plastic surgery (A-1).

Rohan's column is silly. Why waste all this prime space on the supposed impact of the two-decade-old O.J. Simpson case on TV reality shows?

That distracts from the sad fact that most TV --including CNN and other news reports -- is just crap. Why doesn't Rohan try to explain that?

50% error rate?

As usual, today's Road Warrior column is filled with numbers, but many of them are probably wrong, given Staff Writer John Cichowski's advancing Alzheimer's disease (L-1).

Is his error rate 50% or higher? With no editing or fact-checking of his column, it's anybody guess.

In his Road Warrior column last Friday, Cichowski said the replacement of upper-level road decking on the George Washington Bridge would take a "few weeks," contradicting a front-page story on the same day that reported the duration of the work as 12 weeks or a few months (Friday's A-9).

"The Road Warrior confuses the hell out of everyone by reporting that the upper-level lanes will be closed overnight for this work, when, in fact, one lane will always remain open in one direction and all four lanes will remain open in the other direction," according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers.

Cichowski also describes the road surface as "slabs of steel decking." That's also wrong.

"The steel deck panels support slabs of pavement," according to the Bloopers editor

See:

Disoriented Road Warrior can't find GWB

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Speeding trucker paralyzes region and editors shrug

Clues on this directional sign can tell you the town in which the intersection is located. The signs can be found all over New Jersey.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

For at least the past decade, The Record's editors have ignored speeding, tailgating and other aggressive drivers, and a dramatic decline in enforcement, especially on highways.

On Thursday morning, hours after a speeding trucker slammed into another tractor-trailer on the George Washington Bridge -- killing himself and paralyzing the region's traffic-- the clueless editors published a column on drowsy drivers. 

Today, even with more than 20 hours to work on the story of the 2 a.m. crash, the front-page map by Staff Artist R.L. Rebach looks like it was put together by a 4-year-old (A-1).

No New Jersey town is shown, not even Fort Lee, where officials coping with the resulting jams on Thursday could be forgiven for thinking Governor Christie was up to more of his dirty tricks.

But on the other side of the Hudson, the map shows the words "NEW YORK" and "New York City" stacked on top of one another.

Did anyone proof Page 1, the most important page in the paper? Where was six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, in bed?

Fat cats

The story on Christie's latest appearance on the "Tonight Show" is way back on A-9, where it belongs.

Should Alfred P. Doblin, editor of the Editorial Page, recuse himself when an important public policy issue affects his boss, Publisher Stephen A. Borg?

Fuhggetaboutit.

Today -- as the state's fiscal morass deepens, no thanks to Christie -- an editorial dismisses a senator's proposal to tax residents who make $350,000 a year or more (A-18).

Winging it

The clueless Road Warrior continues to make it up as he goes along, coining a strange acronym for NJ Transit ("NJT") and calling NY Waterway just "Waterway" (L-6).

In his Page 1 column on Thursday, Staff Writer John Cichowski, the confused reporter who writes the so-called commuting column, also "reported that a 2005 study showed that 18- to 19-year-olds were more likely to drive drowsy than other age groups," according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers. 

"The study actually reported that 18- to 29-year-olds were more likely to drive drowsy than other age groups."

Hey, that's only 10 years off. Maybe, he should get points and a bonus for trying to get it right.

That wasn't the only problem in the overlong column, which was padded with lots of stuff having nothing to do with drowsy driving. See:


 Road Warrior can't help making readers drowsy


Cold shoulder

In Better Living today, freelancer Julia Sexton pans the bistro fare served at Patisserie Florent in downtown Englewood.

Sexton brought a "shelf -temperature" bottle of white wine to the casual eatery, apparently expecting a bucket of ice to chill it, and in her data box, made a point of complaining none was available (BL-18).

At the end, a note informs readers "Elisa Ung's reviews will return Friday," but not whether she is having her stomach stapled or her coronary arteries cleared.

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To Christie and pals, we're all a bunch of outsiders

Today's Hackensack Chronicle reports that on Feb. 18, the mayor and council discussed forming a "snow committee," presumably to address buried bus stops, such as the one on Anderson Street, above, and two-way streets that allow only one car to pass, such as Euclid Avenue, near Main Street, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

There's been a lull in the action since the explosive e-mail -- "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" -- blew open the investigation of George Washington Bridge lane closures and the resulting gridlock in early September.

Now, The Record reports on Page 1 today, newly released messages between Governor Christie's aide and his crony on the Port Authority make a New Jersey rabbi the butt of jokes.

No closer to truth

In August, Bridget Anne Kelly, then-Christie's deputy chief of staff, joked with then-Port Authority executive David Wildstein about causing "traffic problems" at the home of the rabbi, who is the Port Authority's police chaplain, and delaying flights to Tel Aviv.

Readers can plow through thousands of words in today's paper and come no closer to an understanding of whether Christie was aware members of his inner circle were using traffic and Sandy aide as tools to exact political revenge against Democrats.

Brigid Harrison, a political science professor and opinion columnist for The Record, is quoted today as saying the jokes again highlight "a culture of arrogance" that "reflects poorly on the Christie administration" (A-1).

We're outsiders

But the messages also reveal that everyone -- from Democratic mayors to middle-class property taxpayers in New Jersey -- have been treated as mere pawns in Christie's grand conservative scheme to wage class warfare.

In a letter to the editor on A-10 today, retired Paterson teacher Patricia Montalto of Little Falls decries Christie's continuing attacks on the pensions of public employees (A-1).

An editorial on A-10 today again demands that Christie call for the resignation of Port Authority Chairman David Samson -- a father figure to the GOP bully -- and all New Jersey commissioners.

"Christie needs to vent the same anger on ... people he put into power that he has at ordinary citizens who have done nothing more than to disagree with him at public forums," the editorial says.

Black church goers

Another Page 1 story today on a dramatic increase in the number of black church parishioners from Africa and the Caribbean is really old news.

The Church of God of Prophecy, a Jamaican-American congregation in Englewood, recently purchased the West Side Presbyterian Church on Demarest Avenue and other buildings, including one housing the Center for Food Action.

Hackensack news

In Hackensack news, The Record continues to report on the arrest during drug sweeps of Charles T. Williams, a convicted child rapist and murderer who may be linked to unsolved killings (L-1).

But at the Hackensack Chronicle, the big news is the possible formation of a "snow committee" in Hackensack.

The story quotes Mayor John Labrosse and interim City Manager Anthony Rotino, but both try mightily to avoid any suggestion the city's Department of Public Works did an awful job removing snow after a series of storms.

Barricaded bus shelters on Summit Avenue in Hackensack.

Euclid Avenue and Main Street in Hackensack after the nor'easter.

Blocked crosswalk at Anderson and Main streets (Sears).

How Hackensack talks

Rottino apparently was rewarded for his loyalty to the Citizens for Change reform slate that was swept into office last year, not for his command of the English language.

Rottino suggests snow removal could be "a little more organized."

But Labross takes the cake for dancing around the need to assess blame:

"When the storm is over and everything has calmed down, you go back and you do an evaluation of how you handled everything -- not to beat anybody up or to back breath down anybody, but to see what we can do better."

Come to think of it, the editors, reporters and the Road Warrior columnist at The Record also were reluctant to assign blame for sloppy snow removal and slow pothole repairs throughout North Jersey.

Ruining seafood

The Oceanaire Seafood Room, a glitzy mall restaurant in Hackensack, inexplicably gets a "Good" rating today from Staff Writer Elisa Ung, even though she calls a $54.95 steak "the biggest rip-off" (BL-16).

Scallops were "stringy," she says, not criticizing the addition of artery clogging cream and "huge chunks of heavenly bacon" ($41.95).

She found the colossal Thai shrimp "rigid," but doesn't say whether they were previously frozen ($38.95)

In another restaurant appraisal filled with poorly prepared food and mixed messages, Ung ends on an upbeat note, giving in to her obsession and praising the desserts.

In all the years she has been reviewing restaurants, the woman has learned nothing about how beef is raised.

She says the 20-ounce rib-eye she calls a rip-off had little flavor and loses points for not being aged or prime -- the fattiest cut.

Of course, it loses the most points for apparently not being raised completely on grass and without harmful animal antibiotics and growth hormones. 

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Major winter dangers finally get some attention

The light went on in the heads of the editors at The Record, which today breaks new ground with stories about driving and walking challenges amid dangerous mounds of snow that face tens of thousands of readers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

I'm hoping a column and a news story on the hazards of winter driving and walking today represent the past and the future of reporting at The Record of Woodland Park. 

The Road Warrior column on the Local front is more of the same old hand-wringing over the hazards of roof snow that Staff Writer John Cichowski has been peddling for more than a decade, even though the problem affects a minority of drivers (L-1).

If past columns are any guide, Cichowski bases this lame effort on e-mails from drivers and telephone interviews with police chiefs.

Real legwork

But the L-1 news story by Staff Writer Christopher Maag is based on legwork:

Visits to Trader Joe's on Route 17, where piles of snow blinded drivers trying to leave the parking lot and blend into fast-moving traffic; downtown Hackensack, where a pedestrian had to climb over a car-high hill of ice on all fours; and other places where driving and walking are a challenge.

"'This is scary,' said Eboni Rodgers, the driver trying to leave Trader Joe's lot. 'It's ridiculous.'"

"'My God, this is terrible,' said Fred Ball, 58, as he escaped the traffic on Main Street in Hackensack .... 'There is no place to drive. There's no place to walk. It's havoc.'"

Major omission

Maag's story breaks new ground for The Record, but the Page 1 takeout on mounting traffic congestion in Fort Lee -- home to the George Washington Bridge -- lets state officials off the hook for a pathetically weak mass-transit system.

In fact, mass transit isn't even mentioned -- an understandable omission for a newspaper whose survival depends on page after page of car-dealer advertising.

Can you imagine the traffic relief, if NJ Transit's light-rail line was extended north to Fort Lee or officials had the foresight to run a rail line across the lower level of the bridge, affectionately known as Martha Washington?

Crappy hot dogs

The Corner Table column from Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung actually tries to sell readers on the notion that Sabrett hot dogs -- filled with preservatives and mystery meat -- are "gourmet" food truck fare (A-1). 

What a joke. This is just Ung prostituting herself to promote the "Food Truck Mash-Up event last July" that was sponsored by a division of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record (A-11).

Borg's personal stamp

Really, what can you expect from Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who isn't above wrapping Page 1 in advertising, such as today's gallery of Weichert real estate agents?

That only reminds readers of the pathetic Sunday Real Estate section Borg created.

Week after week, the Business editors and staff avoid reporting the many horrors of home ownership -- from greedy banks to record foreclosures to the propensity of something going wrong every day and finding someone to fix it.

No worries 

Borg doesn't worry about any of that, secure in the knowledge he can always get a mortgage from North Jersey Media Group, like the $3.65 million he grabbed in 2007 to buy a McMansion in Tenafly, when his $2 million home became too cramped.

He used a NJMG mortgage to buy that one, too.

Two bits

Another Page 1 story on bitcoin leaves me cold, even if I could understand it (A-1).

Using credit cards may carry identity theft risks, but they also return hundreds and thousands of dollars in cash rebates, airline miles and other rewards.

Fans of Columnist Mike Kelly can catch his photo, complete with an engaging shit-eating grin, twice today, on Page 1 and on the Opinion front (O-1).

The Bridgegate and Governor Christie columns themselves aren't worth reading.

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Christie is at the root of all of those traffic jams

Rush-hour traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel entrance in New Jersey.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The Record has been reporting on The Traffic Jam That Ate Democratic Fort Lee for three months now, but hasn't seemed to notice how Governor Christie's inaction has worsened traffic everywhere in the region.

Today's paper brings a lot of belly aching about the early September gridlock orchestrated by Christie's Trenton aides and Port Authority cronies at the George Washington Bridge (A-1 and L-1).

The befuddled Road Warrior even foams at the mouth about gridlock during a 1971 strike in New York City (L-1).

How can he remember what happened more than 40 years ago, but contradict a column he wrote a few weeks or a few months ago?

Anti-mass transit

Christie's every policy since he took office in January 2010 appears to have worsened traffic and done nothing to improve mass transit.

Killing the Hudson River rail tunnels was bad enough, but then Christie grabbed a couple of billion in leftover tunnel money to repair roads.

The GOP bully put at least three of his cronies in high-paying jobs at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, rubber stamped much higher tolls and ignored the need to expand the PATH commuter rail network and express bus service into Manhattan.

Kelly fails again

Columnist Mike Kelly is wildly inconsistent and his purple prose cries out for editing, as today's piece on the "view from Fort Lee" demonstrates (A-1).

Is "gaze" in the first paragraph the 50th or 51st time he has used that verb in a lead since he started writing columns more than 20 years ago?

The second paragraph merely shuffles around words with little effect, such as "the steep spires of the George Washington Bridge pushed into a weighty curtain of low-hanging clouds."

Since when are clouds "weighty," and what does the description have to do with his report?

That kind of writing has readers gazing at the shit-eating grin in his column photo.

Local front

Staff Writer John Cichowski's rambling Road Warrior column is no winner, either.

Also on the Local front today, Bergen County Democrats could better spend their time getting their own corrupt house in order than in criticizing Republican County Executive Kathleen Donovan for gridlock in Fort Lee (L-1).

This really stinks

The Better Living front carries one of the worst headlines I've seen in months -- an awkward play on words to describe a woman who left the fashion industry to develop her family's online seafood market (BL-1):

The fish-ionista

But the story is even weaker, failing to report on whether the pricey salmon or other seafood sold by ShopFresh is wild caught or farmed raised.

The latter raises the potential use of artificial color (salmon), antibiotics and preservatives.

And why give all this publicity to an online market that charges more than $15 a pound for "Canadian salmon," plus $9.95 for shipping, when there is an abundance of pristine wild seafood offered by Whole Foods Market, Costco Wholesale and other North Jersey retailers?

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In other news -- other sections -- there isn't much

Englewood would do better urging visitors to patronize downtown merchants and restaurants, not visit the city's Web site. The Record has consistently ignored whether Main Streets in Bergen County have recovered from the recession, focusing instead on national retailers who buy full-page ads in the Woodland Park daily, as the editors do on the Business front today.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Readers are in danger of overdosing on Bridgegate coverage in The Record today.

Nearly the entire front page and Opinion section -- editorial, columns and a dozen letters to the editor -- are devoted to the Christie administration's politically inspired plot to tie up traffic in Democratic Fort Lee (A-1, O-1 and ad nauseam).

Page 1 carries a story comparing Watergate and the Christie scandal, but the latter is referred to as "the George Washington lane-closure investigation" -- a clumsy stand-in for Bridgegate.

Road is clear

Since Dec. 1, the befuddled, error-prone Road Warrior, Staff Writer John Cichowski, has been limited to two pieces a week, compared to three or more since he took over and destroyed the commuting column more than a decade ago.

Readers breath a sigh of relief Cichowski doesn't have a column on the Local front today (L-1).

Obesity news

What they do find is a rare story on a support group for over-eaters after years of censorship by obese local editors (L-1).

A positive story on gadflies, including Hackensack's Kathleen Canastrino, now the city's deputy mayor, is in contrast to past stories and columns portraying them as crackpots and mentally unbalanced (L-1).

Funny business

As usual, local merchants get short-shrift in the Business section, which is chock full of stories about big retailers, small businesses in other states and a 4-page Wall Street Journal insert (B-1 to B-8).

Better Living is really unappetizing today with two columns by the unfunny Bill Ervolino, but no column from Elisa Ung, the restaurant reviewer who should join that over-eaters support group on the Local front (BL-1).

More Bridgegate

If you're looking for any non-Christie news on Page 1, all Editor Marty Gottlieb has is another sports column on Alex Rodriguez (A-1).

The first of two Mike Kelly columns on the widening Christie scandal appears on the front page, but it's artificial, as the headline clearly shows:

"Unlikely pair emerges as Christie adversaries"

What's "unlikely" about state Assembly members John Wisniewski and Loretta Weinberg, and haven't they been Christie adversaries long before Bridgegate?

Opinion front

Better is Kelly's second column on the Opinion front, where the reporter with the shit-eating grin says:

"This is Chris Christie's moment .... What happens in the coming months ... will likely determine whether his gubernatorial career will take him to the White House or the dog house" (O-1).

Still, Kelly is much too wordy and sorely needs editing -- a skill that appears to be lacking on the local assignment desk run so ineptly by Editor Dan Sforza or the copy desk under six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton.

'Not a bully'

Also on the Opinion front, a Bloomberg News columnist says Christie's "I am not a bully" will come back to haunt him, just as "I am not a crook" did for Richard Nixon (O-1).

Today's "Storm at the Port" editorial reveals The Record's anti-mass transit bias.

The bi-state Port Authority is described as "a vital organization that oversees bridges, tunnels and airports" -- completely omitting the PATH commuter rail system and bistate bus operations, including two terminals in Manhattan (O-2).

Misses the train

Staff Writer Shawn Boburg, who covers the agency, hasn't written a word about the crying need for a PATH expansion and the addition of a second bus-only lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.

I laughed when I saw the Margulies cartoon, but a Democrat like Jon Corzine isn't much of a consolation prize after more than four years of Christie, a Republican who is the worst governor in the state's history.

Corzine and Buono

The Jon Corzine billboard in the cartoon reminds me of The Record's highly critical coverage of every Democratic governor going back to James Florio (1990-94), and the adoring stories about Christie.

And given the outrage expressed in the letters to the editor (O-3), supporters of state Sen. Barbara Buono can only speculate about the outcome, if The Record and other media had uncovered Bridgegate in the nearly two months before the Nov. 5 general election.

Remember how one of the newly revealed e-mails between Christie's close aides and his Port Authority cronies referred contemptuously to schoolchildren delayed by the early September traffic jams as the kids of "Buono voters"?

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The Record's claim of a 'scoop' is ringing hollow

A ramp in Fort Lee gives drivers access to the lower level of the George Washington Bridge. It remained open during the four days of gridlock in September caused by a Christie administration plot to close two of the three access lanes to upper-level tollbooths.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Amid all of Governor Christie's apologies and firings on Thursday, The Record claimed it had scooped other media on obtaining the shocking e-mails at the root of the politically inspired traffic gridlock in Fort Lee. 

The Woodland Park daily sent out an e-mail to subscribers with this title: "A look behind The Record's big scoop."

The e-mail boasts:

"As you may know, The Record broke the big story this week linking Governor Christie's office to the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge."

Tip to Borg

The e-mail also provided a link to a Washington Post blog that relates Publisher Stephen A. Borg got a call in early September from a friend who complained, "It was taking me hours to get into New York," and that Borg told Editor Marty Gottlieb, who passed on the tip to the somnolent assignment desk.

Although The Record may have been first with news of the lane closures -- in an error-filled Road Warrior column -- it didn't come close to scooping other media on the e-mail exchange between a top Christie aide and his Port Authority crony, who set the closures into motion.

Times weighed in

On Wednesday morning, the Web sites of The New York Times and The Record broke the news at about the same time that Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly told David Wildstein, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

And The Times -- Gottlieb's former employer -- was first to report U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman has opened an inquiry into whether any laws were broken by the closures on Sept. 9-13, 2013.

Today, for the second day in a row, The Record devotes its entire front page to the fallout, Christie's 2-hour news conference in Trenton and his pilgrimage to Fort Lee to apologize to his supposed political nemesis, Mark Sokolich, the borough's Democratic mayor.

Looks guilty?

If I didn't know better, the Page 1 photo of Christie parting a sea of news photographers and cameramen looks a lot like a carefully orchestrated "perp walk," when crime suspects are paraded past the media.

But the two state troopers behind the GOP bully are his bodyguards, and I'm wondering if the butch one has trouble separating her duty to Christie and her feelings about his stance against gay marriage (A-1).

From many angles

Today's sidebars include a lame attempt by Columnist Mike Kelly to profile Bridget Anne Kelly, the aide Christie fired (A-7).

Still, the reporter fails to get what everyone wants to read, an interview with the Ramsey native, who was fired and who will forever be called "Bridge" for short.

Is he believable?

The Record even critiques Christie's performance in front of the national and state media (A-8), but nowhere is there a suggestion of what many observers have concluded:

Christie may have been lied to by Kelly and others, as he claims, but isn't it likely he also is lying about what he knew and when he knew it, as he has done so many times since he took office in January 2010?

Recall his lame explanations for breaking his 2009 campaign promise of a property tax cut, dismissing the only African-American on the state's highest court and failing to win $400 million in federal education funds.

Damage control

Today, Columnist Charles Stile, a well-known Christie apologist, traces the damage control evident in the GOP bully's Trenton press conference (A-1).

Stile concludes Christie "failed to come across as someone who is all that eager to get to the bottom of the fiasco."

An A-18 editorial that likely was written or edited by another Christie lover, Alfred P. Doblin, ends this way:

"The longer it takes to get that information [what happened and why], the greater the odds that the governor's apologies will fail to restore the luster of his reputation."

Footnotes

Despite all the coverage of Bridgegate today, The Record missed an obvious angle: 

Street closings and traffic gridlock in Fort Lee caused by Christie's visit to the Art Deco Borough Hall on Main Street, hounded by a media horde.

Today is also the first time we learn anything about Florence Genova, 91, the Fort Lee woman who died on Sept. 9, likely a victim of emergency response delayed by the Christie administration plot to tie up traffic in the borough (A-7).

Readers aren't surprised, being well acquainted with the laziness of Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, who runs the local-news desk so ineptly.

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes' lead Page 1 story today refers to a traffic jam -- "the most Jersey of life's troubles" -- which has "threatened" Christie's "popularity and clout."

But readers have been disappointed for years by how Gottlieb, Sforza and Road Warrior John Cichowski ignore daily traffic gridlock in North Jersey, and the crying need for better mass transit to relieve it.

The ink wasn't dry on Cichowski's Wednesday column when events overtook him and made him sound like the babbling idiot he is reputed to be in the newsroom:

Road Warrior stalls again at the GWB 

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