Ethics, overtime abuses hide Port Authority's real failure

The Record's editors haven't bothered reporting on all of the unintended consequences of low gasoline prices and their impact on climate change: Cheap gas depresses the sales of hybrid and electric vehicles, and may prompt drivers to hold onto their gas-guzzling SUVs, aggravating air pollution. Those SUVs also take up more room on the road, worsening traffic congestion.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Critics refer to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey -- the behemoth bi-state transportation agency -- as the "Port Atrocity."

Today and Wednesday, The Record has published two front-page stories on overtime abuses by the agency's police officers and the many ethical questions surrounding its powerful commissioners.

But the agency's real failure is its refusal to expand mass transit (bus and rail), and reduce traffic congestion.

Even after the fourth toll hike in as many years on Sunday, few drivers are expected to leave their cars at home, because of limited mass-transit alternatives, including a gridlocked bus terminal in midtown Manhattan.

The Port Authority police have been tabloid fare for decades for collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime; there was nothing new in Staff Writer Shawn Boburg's A-1 story on Wednesday or today's editorial (A-18).

And ethical questions have hounded the commissioners for years before Governor Christie named a powerful lawyer who was his mentor, David Samson, to the chairmanship of the agency's board, which once met in secret before staging monthly public meetings (A-1).

Samson resigned in March after critics noted he cast votes that appeared to benefit his law firm.

Two more embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today; Wednesday's A-2 also had a correction -- of a Page 1 story on state pension funds.

Local news?

The assignment editors are so desperate to fill their Local section almost anything goes.

One look at this stupid headline tells you no resident of Bergen and Passaic counties has the least bit of interest in whatever is being reported:

N.J. won't

allow

Barclays

at Izod

Huh?

On L-2 today, Staff Writer Todd South identifies Richard E. Salkin as "a former city attorney," when Salkin is the former municipal prosecutor.

On L-3, Glen Rock police appear to be informing burglars they have nothing to fear.

Capt. Jonathan Miller is quoted as saying that "if something seems out of the ordinary -- like a car parked that isn't normal -- please call the police so we can check it out."

Is Miller telling burglars that police don't routinely patrol neighborhoods?

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Imagine sick kids wearing hospital gowns to a party

The 5,500-seat auditorium of Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan on Sunday afternoon as ticket holders were being seated for the 2014 Christmas Spectacular starring the high-kicking Rockettes, a huge orchestra, dancing Santa Clauses and much more.

The lobby of Radio City, an art-deco masterpiece that opened on Dec. 27,1932, and was restored in 1999, including the replacement of all seats, carpeting and wallpaper, and the restoration of murals, including "Men Without Women" in the lounge outside the lower-level men's bathroom, below.

After the 90-minute show, we walked less than a block to see the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center and, frankly, we were underwhelmed. The tree is towering, as usual, but this year, they skimped on the lights. Even the smaller Christmas tree on Main Street in Hackensack makes a bigger splash. Imagine that.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

There are reporters at The Record who don't need editing, others who don't get editing and still others who should have their heads examined.

Veteran Jay Levin, who writes the local obituaries after many years of thankless duty on the night copy desk, is a reporter who doesn't need editing, as two of his pieces in today's Local section show (L-1 and L-6).

Levin is at the top of his game, in stark contrast to Road Warrior John Cichowski, a confused reporter who gets no editing and who has committed hundreds of errors, not to mention all the wrong advice he's given drivers, young and old.

Another veteran, Mike Kelly, also gets no editing, and the result is one long, rambling column after another as he pushes around thousands of words in search of a strong opinion, which the reporter doesn't seem to have.

Party for sick kids

Then, there is Linda Moss, a reporter who covers commercial real estate for The Record, according to her Twitter profile.

On Sunday, Moss was on weekend duty when she was assigned to cover the 30th annual holiday party of the Tomorrow's Children Fund for kids who have been treated at Hackensack University Medical Center for cancer and serious blood disorders.

There was so little real news in Monday's paper that I found myself reading Moss' story on the Local front all the way through.

I was shocked at a sentence on the continuation page (Monday's L-3)

A photo showed two of the cutest children you could imagine posing with Santa Claus at a Hasbrouck Heights hotel where the party was held:

"The girls and boys were dressed up in their nicest attire, not hospital gowns, for the party," Moss reported [italics added].

How many editors and copy editors saw that and allowed "not hospital gowns" to get in the paper? 

Where was Production Editor Liz Houlton, who supervises the news and copy desks and is paid six figures to keep such an inappropriate image out of the paper?

Did the children with cancer and blood disorders once attend the annual holiday party in hospital gowns? Why even mention them?

Covering advertisers

The Record's editors may be insensitive to children with cancer, but they bend over backwards to cover their biggest advertisers, such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor, Victoria's Secret and other retailers (Page 1 today and Monday).

The local assignment editors also seem to be ordering more coverage of wealthy communities.

Monday's Local front was dominated by an article and photos about schools districts in Tenafly, Ridgewood and Glen Rock, all of which are reexamining their homework polices.

When is the last time you read a story -- any story -- about Hackensack schools?

Upscale restaurants

The Better Living cover story on Monday recommended eight "great" restaurants, but five of them are expensive.

You have to turn the page to find three that are moderately priced.

The recommendations come from Elisa Ung, the paper's restaurant reviewer, who is lucky enough to have The Record pay for all of those artery clogging steaks and desserts she eats so obsessively.

Maybe she would appreciate value, if she had to pay for some of that food herself.

Today's paper

The Record's coverage of the Affordable Care Act has been largely negative, echoing the complaints of such conservative Republicans as Governor Christie.

Staff Writer Lindy Washburn and her assignment editor also continue to obscure how Christie and Republican governors in 35 other states tried to sabotage what they labeled "Obamacare," a derogatory term The Record and other media love to use.

In more than a year of covering the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act, Washburn and the paper's other medical writers have never actually interviewed the people who applied for health insurance.

Today, The Record's lead story reports that North Jersey residents who bought insurance "came from towns that are rich, poor and middle class, as well as municipalities where a majority vote Republican" (A-1).

Imagine what Record reporters could find out, if they actually interviewed readers and other residents of North Jersey instead of endlessly quoting experts, pollsters and spin doctors, and examining the politics of every issue under the sun.

Red-light cameras

In a letter to the editor, Keith Remland of Lincoln Park says of red-light cameras:

"Their biggest plus is safety" (A-10).

Remland said in a few words what two Road Warrior columns tried to hide from readers as Cichowski foamed at the mouth over "Big Brother," and quoted critics of the $85 fines, which many cash-strapped towns welcome.

Women's news?

Did a male editor lay out L-3 today, hoping to package stories on two different women?

In the bottom right corner, a story about a substitute teacher facing more sex charges appears next to one on Ridgewood's second woman firefighter.

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Editors' one-two punch: Sports and two long corrections

Two-lane Passaic Street is a major thoroughfare through Hackensack, Maywood and Rochelle Park, but it hasn't changed much since the 1950s. On Saturday, the street was packed with a long line of cars heading toward Rochelle Park, above. 

With no turn lane on Passaic Street at Summit Avenue, a turning car, left, will bring trailing vehicles to a dead stop. The SUV, right, is too big to squeeze through.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

One glance at Page 1 of The Record's Sunday edition shows a strong focus on sports above the fold.

The editors consider victims of sexual assault important enough to put on the front page (A-1).

But not more important than a football team at a Catholic high school or the prospects of sports betting in New Jersey -- a subject even more boring than the story on Governor Christie's chief financial booster (A-1).

On A-2, two long corrections are like a slap in the face to readers.

This is what we have been getting for years after Liz Houlton, who earned the sobriquet of "Queen of Errors" when she ran the features copy desk, was promoted to the six-figure job of production editor, whose job it is to keep such embarrassing screw-ups out of the paper.

Local news?

The Local-news section carries stories on Teaneck, Fort Lee and Englewood (two), but nothing about Hackensack, the most populous community in Bergen.

The Road Warrior column claims this week's holiday will have everybody focusing on how to "drive on North Jersey's angst-ridden roads without killing or maiming themselves" (L-1).

Speak for yourself, John.

Isn't that what we do all year around after a dramatic decline in the enforcement of speeding and aggressive driving -- a story you have ignored for more than a decade?

Uncharitable chef

Some chefs give away leftovers to charities that help feed the hungry and homeless, but Staff Writer Elisa Ung is celebrating one who turns them into "popular dishes" (BL-1).

Or, as the chief restaurant reviewer puts it in The Corner Table column, "turning trash into cash."

How appetizing. 

Frugal Chef Al Scazafave's restaurant is called The Twisted Elm. That's not the only thing that's "twisted."

Child abuse?

Given the low quality of the food served to students in public schools, are Garfield school employees committing child abuse when they falsify their income to qualify their kids for free lunches (O-1)?

The great Mike Kelly might want to investigate the crap served at Hackensack High and other schools instead of rewriting news stories and asking a million rhetorical questions.

In my rush to recycle Sports, Real Estate, Travel and other useless sections today, did I also discard Business?

I can't find it. 

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Borgs embrace a downtown they abandoned in 2009

Plans for apartments on North Jersey Media Group's River Street property in Hackensack, once home to The Record, will likely involve an elaborate marketing campaign to attract tenants to a notorious flood zone with a view of a cement plant and, beyond that, the elevated roadway of the New Jersey Turnpike.

The major story in today's Sunday edition ignores why there are so many failed businesses in Englewood, above. The Record cites the small city as one of the Bergen towns that "believe ... adding rental apartments in their downtowns is the key to revitalizing their Main Streets." Rental  and condo buildings on Palisade Avenue in Englewood have done no such thing. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In the years after North Jersey Media Group pulled out of Hackensack in 2009, The Record carefully avoided reporting the impact on the city's already struggling downtown only two blocks from the old newsroom.

Today, readers will find more reporting on Hackensack and other Bergen downtowns than they've seen in years, but Teaneck's depressed Cedar Lane isn't covered (A-1).

The story is by Staff Writer Joan Verdon, the longtime retail reporter who has spent more than a decade promoting mall retailers and highway businesses.

Her premise is that officials in Hackensack and other downtowns believe adding rental apartments will translate into more shoppers and restaurant patrons, revitalizing their Main Streets.

That strategy has already failed in Englewood, where hundreds of units downtown and along Route 4 haven't completely revitalized Palisade Avenue, Engle and other downtown streets.

One issue Verdon doesn't address is high downtown rents, which a pharmacist cites as one reason he is closing his Ridgewood business after 32 years (L-2).

In 2009, Publisher Stephen A. Borg completed a major downsizing and the pullout of The Record from Hackensack, where the paper had prospered for more than 110 years.

The Borg family was responsible for the first wave of apartments in Hackensack when they sold a Prospect Avenue mansion to a high-rise developer.

The Whitehall at 280 Prospect Ave. was completed in 1960.

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He's big news on the front page, misidentified in Opinion

Late for work? On the way to the gym on Tuesday morning, I encountered this driver, who blew through a stop sign in Hackensack, and drove well over the speed limit on Spring Valley Avenue. Here, I was stopped behind the driver on Summit Avenue in Hackensack. One sticker says, "I brake for UFOs." The peace symbol obviously doesn't signal the hippie driver wants to coexist peacefully with other motorists.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's Woodland Park newsroom can't seem to get its accuracy act together.

On Sunday's front page, Bergen County Democratic Chairman Lou Stellato was portrayed as so powerful he could "make or break" a candidate seeking to become New Jersey's next governor.

But in the Opinion section, a photo of Stellato flummoxed everyone from the lowly photographer who took it to the production editor who gets paid six figures to prevent embarrassing errors from getting into the paper.

Lou who?

OK. I wouldn't know Stellato, if I sat next to him on the bus. But he doesn't look anything like James Tedesco, the Bergen County executive-elect.

Yet, the photo of Stellato ran with a caption identifying him as Tedesco, even though Tedesco was correctly identified in a photo caption on A-10 of the same edition.

The editors didn't run a correction on A-2 until Tuesday:

"A caption on Page O-4 on Sunday misidentified a man greeting supporters of Bergen County Executive-elect James Tedesco last Tuesday night. Pictured was Democratic Chairman Lou Stellato."

The problem may lie in how the lazy editors, including Production Editor Liz Houlton, have always relied on staff photographers to provide accurate spellings and identifications of the people in their photos, and have often failed to check the accuracy of the information.

More errors

A second correction on Tuesday noted the paper was wrong in identifying the type of crude oil carried by tanker cars through Bergen County.

The crude is from North Dakota, not Canada, as the L-1 story reported on Monday.

Today, A-2 corrects the misspelling of "the surname" of a high school soccer player that appeared on Nov. 4. "She is Katey Samarro," the editors note.

Bus woes ease?

A Page 1 story today reports the Port Authority has made some changes to ease the delays home-bound North Jersey commuters were facing leaving the antiquated bus terminal in midtown Manhattan during the rush hour.

But the story doesn't address the difficulty of getting to the gridlocked terminal, if you take a North Jersey bus into the city in the late afternoon.

Christie's future

Marc Schaeffer of Wyckoff is a letter writer who provides a perspective on Governor Christie's White House ambitions the editors and reporters are unable or unwilling to provide (A-10).

"Imagine the exuberance of the opposition research teams," if Christie decides to run, Schaeffer writes.

"The first vulnerability that will be exposed is the illusion of the New Jersey economic recovery Christie has advanced."

"Then, they will turn to the cesspool of patronage, cronyism and alleged financial impropriety at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey..."

You get the idea. 

Schaeffer analyzes Christie's chances of success in a way you have never seen in The Record, where the GOP bully has received overwhelmingly favorable coverage since he took office in 2010 and began his war on the middle and working classes.

Dead at 57

The Record's obituary writers can't be bothered trying to explain why so many African-American men die in their 50s, as you can see in today's story on rapper Henry Jackson of Tenafly (L-1).

Korean War veterans passing St. Patrick's Cathedral during Tuesday's parade up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Korean New Yorkers who fought in Vietnam also marched in the Veterans Day parade.

Hackensack news

Staff Writer Todd South didn't have anything to report about this past Monday's City Council meeting.

But today, the Hackensack reporter has an upbeat story on a Veterans Day ceremony for the nearly 30 veterans who now work for Hackenack University Medical Center (L-3).

Like thousands of other residents, I thought about the hospital on Monday, when I made my quarterly property tax payment of more than $4,300 to the city of Hackenack.

How much smaller would it have been, if the non-profit but tremendously profitable hospital made payments in lieu of taxes to Hackensack or returned anything in kind, like a couple of patrol cars or paving Prospect Avenue, which is torn apart by ambulances? 

If South is looking for story ideas, the hospital's not paying taxes on more than $180 million dollars in property could be it.

He certainly can't rely on his lazy local assignment editors to wake up one day and suggest the story.

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Voters largely ignored newspaper endorsements

An Ebola virus advisory from Hackensack University Medical Center urges visitors to the Alfred N. Sanzari Medical Arts Building at 360 Essex St. to "tell a member of our healthcare team if you have traveled to areas in Western Africa."

Meanwhile, the sidewalk was closed in front of Starbucks Coffee and Cosi, the latest phase of construction work that rebuilt the parking lot at the busy medical arts building.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today's front page story on why GOP radical Rep. Scott Garrett was elected to a seventh term goes on and on, but doesn't mention The Record and other newspapers endorsed Democratic Challenger Roy Cho of Hackensack.

In fact, voters on Tuesday also ignored The Record's endorsement of two Republicans seeking freeholder seats, and its recommendations for a larger nature center in Tenafly and against a constitutional amendment to fund open space. 

Even in races where voters followed The Record's endorsements, I'm sure the editors would have a hard time showing they had any influence, and they certainly didn't inspire a larger turnout than in previous elections.

In effect, The Record and other newspapers did an awful job covering the campaigns, spending too much time on politics and too little on issues.

The Woodland Park daily's adoring editors also spent too much time promoting Governor Christie's potential White House run and too little on the mess he has made in New Jersey (A-1 on Thursday and A-3 today).

Wait until Jan. 3

The GOP won't regain control of the U.S. Senate until Jan. 3, but all I've heard since Wednesday is endless jawboning on TV and public radio about a renewed confrontation between the Republicans and President Obama.

The Record's lead story today is a warning from the Republican House speaker, who seems to think he is running the country (A-1).

So, Obama has nearly two full months to implement changes in immigration and other policies through executive orders, the only way he has been able to accomplish anything in the face of gridlock in Washington.

Rep. Donald Payne Jr., the black Democrat from Newark who was reelected on Tuesday, told WBGO-FM news he fears congressional Republicans will try to impeach Obama.

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Editors continue to ignore the issues facing voters

A rare sight at the Lincoln Tunnel: Hardly any waiting at the tollbooths.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

With only two weeks to go before the Nov. 4 election, readers aren't seeing much coverage of the issues -- what the candidates believe in and what they propose to do to help New Jersey and the region.

Stories about candidates on A-3 and L-1 of The Record today reflect the editors' continuing obsession with politics.

Two other stories, on L-3, do involve a rare discussion of issues.

Bare-bones coverage

The Record's editors and reporters have never liked covering elections.

Years ago, coverage of school board elections was reduced to briefs -- four or five paragraphs -- and only contested elections merited a full-fledged story.

Is it any wonder hardly anyone votes in those elections, despite all of the property taxes that go to run the schools?

Cho v. Garrett

The Record didn't bother covering a candidate forum and debate in Ridgewood on Monday night, when Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, was a no-show.

In an e-mail to supporters, Democratic challenger Roy Cho said, "Scott Garrett has millions in campaign funds from lobbyists and special interests, but our campaign relies on grassroots support from people like you."

Garrett, one of the most conservative members of Congress and a Tea Party idol, is seeking a seventh term from the 5th District, which includes Bergen County.

Idiotic editing

A perfect example of the editors' dislike of elections -- and their contemp for voters -- appeared on the front page of Saturday's paper, in the very first paragraph of a story about a Fort Lee man who sells T-shirts that portray Russia's leader in a positive light.

I can't imagine why any editor would approve this introduction:

"NEW YORK -- Julius Kacinskis does not consider himself political -- he does not even vote."

Since when is voting a political act?

Hey Staff Writer Mary Diduch, if you vote for a candidate who believes in equal pay for women, is that political?

How about if you vote for a president who wants all of us to have health insurance to help reduce the charity care burden on the nation's hospitals?

That's not "political," even if you and the other pea brains at the Woodland Park daily say so.

What Marty believes

If you want to know whether elections are important to Editor Martin Gottlieb, take a look at Page 1 today:

Just above the fold we get the breathless news that Saks Fifth Avenue will be closing its store in The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack (A-1).

This is Gottlieb's way of keeping the focus off of the struggling downtowns of many communities, including Hackensack's.

That's especially egregious, given how the departure of North Jersey Media Group and The Record from 150 River St. sent the city's Main Street into a tailspin.

Local goes tabloid

The biggest local news in the paper today?

It leads L-1 -- the arrest of "a Paterson civic leader and former school board member" after police allegedly saw him leave a motel with a 12-year-old boy.

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Practicing jock-itching journalism with the best of them

Two stone horses outside P.F. Chang's China Bistro in Hackensack were painted pink on Thursday in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, above and below. For Chinese food, a better bet is Lotus Cafe, a BYO in the Home Depot Shopping Center just down the street.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Editor Martin Gottlieb -- he's called "Marty" in The Record newsroom -- apparently is obsessed with sports, and he led the paper today and Friday with the rivalry between two jock-itching, ass-slapping high school football teams.

The chart on Page 1 today compares Don Bosco Preparatory High School in Ramsey and Paramus Catholic, revealing a possible racial filter in the acceptance policy of the former.

White students at Don Bosco make up 91.3% of enrollment, and Asians are only 1%. Blacks and Hispanics are 4.4% and 3.3%, respectively.

Does the sports rivalry really deserve this kind of coverage, especially on the front page?

No. This kind of tripe from Gottlieb has little general reader interest.

More corrections

Two embarrassing corrections on A-2 today include an attempt to repair a factual screw-up by the great Mike Kelly.

The veteran reporter drove 41 miles from his Teaneck home to do a column on alleged male-on-male sexual assaults by members of Sayreville's high school football team (Friday's A-1).

Friday's paper

The front page on Friday was wrapped in an ad for The Modern, a controversial, 47-story residential tower that was opposed by many Fort Lee residents.

Governor Christie is rumored to be considering renting a $2,500-a-month studio in the building as a field office for his team of dirty political tricksters, who have targeted Democratic mayors in Fort Lee and other communities.

Christie hopes to get a studio overlooking local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge.

Booker v. Bell

Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson continued to try and interest readers in the limp challenge to Sen. Corey Booker, D-N.J., who is seeking a full term on Nov. 4 (Friday's A-2).

In Friday's Local section, Staff Writer Todd South finally came through with a story from Tuesday night's Hackensack City Council meeting (L-3).

Heart-attack news

The Record's model for restaurant reviews is broken, as you can see from Friday's appraisal of Allendale Steakhouse in the Better Living tab (BL-20).

If Staff Writer Elisa Ung had to lay out $84.95 for the porterhouse for two from her own salary, she might have investigated whether the beef, finished with butter, was pumped full of harmful animal antibiotics and growth hormones.

But The Record paid for this double heart attack on a plate. And the service sucked, too; yet she gave the place 2.5 stars.

That porterhouse is listed as costing $85.95 in the dizzy reporter's data box on the same page -- a dollar more than in the text.

The prime beef used is the highest USDA grade, Ung reports, but she doesn't tell you that cut also is the fattiest, most artery clogging available. 

The restaurant serves frozen lobster tails, and the only fish available is swordfish, which has a high mercury content. 

Steer clear of this place, if you know what's good for you.

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As state economy implodes, Christie tries to hide the truth

A photo caption in The Record's Better Living section on Thursday incorrectly locates the statue of General Enoch Poor "at the Bergen County Courthouse" (BL-8), contradicting the caption on the section cover, which gives the correct location, Court and Moore streets in Hackensack, below, across the street from the courthouse.

For some reason, The Name-Dropper column on the Revolutionary War general doesn't mention General Poor's Tavern on Main Street, a watering hole that was the scene of many newsroom going away parties before The Record left Hackensack in 2009. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today's front-page news that Governor Christie is hiding lagging tax-revenue data follows by one day The Record's lead story on New Jersey's weak job market, lower incomes and higher poverty rates:

N.J. recovery lagging

Yet an editorial today doesn't even mention Christie's name, but urges "New Jersey lawmakers to put politics aside" (A-12).

Nor does the editorial question any of his policies, such as giving hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to wealthy business owners and getting little job creation in  return.

If the Christie administration is hiding "precise figures for how much the state expected to see in taxes compared with what was actually collected" (A-1), then The Record's editorial also seems to be hiding the truth.

We know from a Page 1 story in The Record on Wednesday the GOP bully's conservative pledge not to raise taxes on his rich supporters has made him desperate to balance the state budget:

"Last year, Christie used $147.5 million of the $165 million from two previous Passaic River [pollution] settlements to balance the budget," Staff Writer Scott Fallon reported.

"And since becoming governor in 2010, Christie has taken $1 billion from clean energy money for the general fund."

Here's come the judge

A state Superior Court judge was making $165,000 a year in 2012, but today's story on judges coming in as early as 6 a.m., staying as late as 9 p.m. and working weekends doesn't say whether they are being paid overtime (A-1).

Assignment Judge Peter E. Doyne has blamed the problem on a quarter of the Bergen County judgeships going unfilled.

But what about litigious lawyers clogging the court docket with frivolous cases just to boost their already considerable annual incomes?

Editor dons kilt

Today's story on Scottish independence is a total waste of front-page space in a local North Jersey daily (A-1).

But Editor Marty Gottlieb actually sent a reporter to interview  "expats" in Kearny, way outside the circulation area, and ran another Page 1 story on Thursday.

Gottlieb, who came to The Record from a lofty position as international editor of The New York Times, has never understood the role of a local newspaper, especially in view of saturation coverage of international news by the electronic media.

Stomach turning

The Record's editors have turned their back on the consumer when it comes to covering restaurants and chefs.

Keeping restaurant ad revenue flowing into the coffers of North Jersey Media Group seems to have blinded them to restaurant patrons' many gripes, which I never see in the paper.

Look at today's rave review of Due in Ridgewood, described as "a refined Italian BYO," even though Chef Adam Weiss serves an inauthentic shrimp and grits, and charges $30 for the dish (BL-18).

Staff Writer Elisa Ung devotes two full paragraphs to Due's artery clogging desserts, which many readers avoid like the plague.

And the restaurant's supposed turnaround is actually heralded on Page 1 -- a first. Can the place really be that good?

Clueless food editor

More breathless coverage was published on Wednesday from none other than Food Editor Esther Davidowitz.

On the Better Living cover, Davidowitz's Behind the Kitchen Door praised Andiamo in Haworth and owner Don Dickstein.

On the next page, Davidowitz interviewed John Halligan of Park Steakhouse and Park West Tavern for Coffee with The Chef.

Davidowitz allows Halligan to say "the dish I'm most proud of" are "our steaks," but doesn't dare question him on whether they are raised naturally.

Later, he claims "we don't make a dime on the steaks we serve," and "I spend $100 a day on bread that we give away."

But there is nothing in the interview about the low wages he pays servers, putting the burden on customers to tip well or else, or the outrageous markup he takes on a glass of wine.

On the same page Wednesday, the FYI column appears to reprint a half-dozen restaurant press releases verbatim.

Restaurant gripes

See the August 2014 issue of Consumer Reports on the top gripes of people when they are dining out, including dirty tables, utensils or restrooms, and gratuities of 18% or higher automatically added to the bill.

The Consumer Reports National Research Center surveyed 1,003 adults nationwide in March 2014.

Ung, the paper's chief restaurant reviewer, recently dismissed Consumer Reports as the magazine "many of us use to buy a washing machine."

Hackensack news

On Wednesday's Local front, The Record reported the hiring of David R. Troast, 54, of Hawthorne as Hackensack's new city manager at a salary of $152,700.

The story doesn't say how much Troast's predecessors made, nor does it report that unlike them, Troast won't be commuting in a city owned car.

Former City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono was paid about $167,000.

Todd South, The Record's new Hackensack reporter, published background from previous stories, including errors and omissions.

He describes Troast from 2010 to 2013 as "city manager of Sparta," which is a township (L-1 on Wednesday).

Later, he reports, Troast was a "city planner" for the township of Sparta from 1996 to 2010, instead of the correct "township planner."

South also cites complaints from "many residents," without identifying some of the most vocal critics as being affiliated with the city Board of Education, including two members who ran unsuccessfully against the current City Council in 2013.

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More too-little, too-late coverage of GWB scandal, A.C.

A third story of residential units has been added to the State Street redevelopment project in Hackensack, a building that is expected to have 222 units above a parking garage when it is completed in 2015.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The major takeouts on The Record's front page today raise a lot of unanswered questions about the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal and Atlantic City (A-1).

The so-called Analysis by Staff Writer Shawn Boburg doesn't address the chief question on readers' minds -- why is the federal grand jury investigation of the politically inspired traffic jams in Fort Lee (Sept. 9-13, 2013) taking so long?

Professor Brigid Harrison is quoted as saying the GOP bully's administration no longer controls "the narrative" (A-7).

If that's so, why does The Record persist in flattering coverage, such as the gushing stories on Governor Christie's purely political visit to Mexico last week?

Reporters love quoting Harrison, but shouldn't The Record acknowledge when it does so that she is one of its Sunday columnists? 

Maybe, it's time for the lazy newsroom editors to cast a wider net for experts.

I'm not going to bother with the The GWB Files interactive presentation at NorthJersey.com, but wonder why the nefarious motives for the lane closures weren't discovered before the November election, when Christie won a second term.

Is the photo caption on A-7 correct in saying the lane closures lasted "five days," not four?

Behind 8 ball

Is 36 years after Atlantic City's first casino opened really the right time to report on what the shore resort can learn from Las Vegas (A-1)?

Staff Writer John Brennan, a brain-damaged former sports reporter, doesn't even mention Vegas' $3.99 buffets and all the ridiculously cheap hotel rooms that lure millions to the desert.

Revel, the $2.9-billion boondoggle that just bit the dust, opened with $400-a-night rooms and the smallest casino in Atlantic City, dooming it to failure.

Sending Brennan to Las Vegas is a huge waste of money, and a waste of readers' time.

If you think his report is laughable, check out Mike Kelly's silly, shit-eating-grin perspective on Atlantic City (O-1).

Rich districts

Do school districts in wealthy towns like Tenafly and Fort Lee get more coverage in The Record (L-1 and L-3)?

Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives in Tenafly, but when is the last time the Woodland Park daily covered the Hackensack district, which spends more money per pupil than Ridgewood?

Editors get high

The Business editors couldn't find a North Jersey company that was as interesting as a Denver marijuana store (B-1).

The 4-page section supplied by The Wall Street Journal every Sunday is a testament to how hard the local business staff works to bring readers North Jersey news. 

Readers looking for a discussion of restaurant issues, such as tipping or high liquor prices, will be disappointed in The Corner Table column from Elisa Ung today (BL-1).

Traveling music

The Record's already thin Travel section is devoting less and less space to reporting on the high cost of vacations (T-1).

For years, Travel Editor Jill Schensul has reduced her workload by running a full page of readers' vacation photos on T-2.

Today, the Travel cover is filled with reader selfies (three of the five on T-1 are from Venice, Italy). More appear on T-4.

In the biggest selfie on T-1, Adam Nolte of Wyckoff doesn't look too happy. Did he pay the gondolier?

Didn't any of The Record's black and Hispanic readers send in selfies? 

Evonne Coutros

The byline of Evonne Coutros last appeared in The Record on March 3, 2014, over a story about Wyckoff, one of the towns she covered, according to NorthJersey.com.

Her byline also appeared in The Hellenic Times as far back as 1989, when she also was employed at The Record.

Coutros had a knack of landing interviews with the biggest celebrities, but The Record's editors usually assigned her to cover news from Ridgewood, Glen Rock, Ho-Ho-Kus, Franklin Lakes and other small towns.

A reader of Eye on The Record recently asked if Coutros died. I don't know.

She was 57 and lived in Closter, I believe.

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