LOL: Cops make Page 1 for enforcing traffic laws

A long, elaborate wheelchair ramp connects the Avalon luxury apartment complex on Hackensack Avenue in Hackensack with the Home Depot Shopping Center. The rent for a 483-square-foot studio is $2,165 a month, according to the Avalon Communities Web site. The apartments, built between two shopping centers, are perfect for shopaholics.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's Dave Sheingold seems to have a bug up his ass that the annual police crackdown on seat-belt and child-restraint violators is catching a growing number of uninsured, drunk and reckless drivers (A-1).

Is there something wrong with that or with the extra revenue collected by cash-strapped towns, where property taxes seem to climb inexorably amid declining services?

During the two-week 2013 Click It or Ticket Campaign, Hackensack police issued 1,587 summonses -- triple the number given out in other communities -- but only 17.4% for seat-belt violations (A-8).

Does anybody care but the law-breaking drivers who were undone by the aggressive enforcement of traffic laws that began with the appointment of Police Director Mike Mordaga in February 2013.

Quoting morons

The anal Sheingold, the paper's computer-assisted numbers cruncher, even quotes Steve Carrellas, the moron who calls himself the "New Jersey coordinator" of the National Motorists Association, whatever that is.

"It's turning into a stop-and-fleece program. You're stopping people and taking their money away," claims Carrellas, who proves reporters will quote the most idiotic person they can find just to stir up needless controversy (A-8).

Someone should tell Carrellas driving is a privilege, not a right, and if reckless drivers, speeders, drunks, car thieves and other law-breakers are taken off the road, that's great.

We need the money

And if there is even a small chance Hackensack can use the extra money to help it climb out of the deep financial hole dug by Zisa family allies in the past decade, I say hooray.

As  a property taxpayer, I can't wait for the time when hundreds of red-light and speeding cameras are installed to generate real money for towns.

That's especially the case in Hackensack, where officials have been reluctant to ask Hackensack University Medical Center and other tax-exempt entities to contribute financially to the city, which was fleeced by Ken Zisa, the corrupt former police chief and state assemblyman.

Hackensack should follow Jersey City, which is seeking $400 million from the Port Authority in a federal lawsuit that alleges the bistate agency "is not giving enough financial assistance in exchange for dozens of tax-exempt properties" (A-3).

Lazy reporting

Why does reader Dom Calicchio have to point out problems at NJ Transit's Kingsland rail station in Lyndhurst (A-15 letter to the editor)?

Transportation reporter Karen Rouse and Road Warrior John Cichowski should get off their duffs and give commuters firsthand reports on rail and bus service.

Apparently, they've been infected by the lazy bug that long ago bit Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, who run the local-news assignment desk.

Sykes and Sforza had to fill today's thin Local section with two long wire-service obituaries for an obscure Venezuelan ex-president and a screenwriter nobody knows (L-5).

Read More

Reporters, editors, sources say the stupidest things

Road Warrior John Cichowski is back today, again making excuses for the slow pace of pothole repairs, this time on Route 4 and environs. In the process, the befuddled reporter misspells the name of Hackensack's upscale shopping center -- just one of the errors that sailed past The Record's six-figure production editor, Liz Houlton.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

That apologist, Columnist Charles Stile, is back on Page 1 of The Record today, claiming Governor Christie "successfully" cast himself as a "reformer, fiscal hawk [and] champion of the beleaguered middle class."

"Successfully"? That goes against any objective standard:

The state economy is a wreck, job creation lags, local property tax increases continue to hit the middle class and New Jersey can't even afford to fill potholes expeditiously.

Playing dumb

Stile's column on Christie's second-term "narrative" is among the stupid things that have been coming out of the mouths of reporters, editors and news sources recently.

In Wednesday's paper, another big Christie fan, Staff Writer Melissa Hayes, ended her story on a Sandy aid town meeting in Toms River by saying one questioner asked "how the Affordable Care Act would affect senior citizens on Medicare" (Wednesday's A-6).

Hayes doesn't seem to know the answer: That seniors are unaffected and are still covered by Medicare, and that the act expands the pool of people under 65 who are eligible for Medicaid.

Nor, apparently, does the reporter know or care that Christie accepted federal money to expand Medicaid coverage in New Jersey, while he sabotaged the roll-out of the federal health-care program for everyone else by refusing to set up a state exchange.

So, she allows the GOP bully to take a potshot at President Obama, reporting Christie "suggested voters elect a new president."

Of course, before Bridgegate and Tollgate, Christie likely would have suggested they elect him president.

Cops and doughnuts

Retiring police chiefs continue to get away with murder -- at the expense of taxpayers.

A front-page story today reports the borough of Cliffside Park hid tens of thousands of dollars going to Chief Donald Keane, and it took a lawsuit by North Jersey Media Group to uncover the details -- a total package of more than $262,000 (A-1).

When is the last time The Record blasted Christie for giving a pass to local, doughnut-chomping police chiefs when he placed a ceiling of $175,000 on the salaries of school superintendents?

And the paper could urge towns to follow Hackensack's example and appoint a police director, such as Mike Mordaga, who cracked down on quality-of-life and drug crimes in his first year. He is paid $150,000 a year.

Euclid Avenue in Hackensack.

Holes in his head

Road Warrior John Cichowski is likely one of the stupidest and laziest reporters at The Record, constantly using words improperly, exaggerating reality and failing even to accurately report the MVC regulations that he cites so obsessively.

Today, he writes about "incessant" traffic lights on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Paterson, and "silky" road conditions (L-1).

Is he smoking medical marijuana for his early Alzheimer's?

A photo caption with his column today describes "potholes riddling" the Garden State Plaza parking lot, although only one large crater is clearly visible (L-1).

It's more likely errors are "riddling" today's column.

And on L-7, Cichowski misspells The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack as "The Shoppes at Riverside," an embarrassing mistake given all the copy devoted to mall retailers whose advertising revenue enriches the Borg publishing family.

No apology, no blame

Today, Cichowski reports the state Department of Transportation "offers no apology" for all of the unfilled potholes on Route 4 and other highways.

But none of his three "black hole" columns have explained whether money from the state Transportation Trust Fund could speed pothole repairs, if the fund wasn't bankrupt and Christie didn't refuse to raise the low gas tax that feeds it.

Readers shouldn't hold their breath for Cichowski to act like a real columnist and blast state and local officials for the half-assed job they have done fixing potholes.

A recent editorial approved by Editor Alfred P. Doblin said cavalierly that no one is to blame for unfilled potholes. 

The state and towns don't have the money? Give us long-suffering taxpayers a break.

Sleeping editors

In Better Living today, the editors managed to find a new restaurant that tries to address customers' concerns about the harmful animal antibiotics and growth hormones used to raise beef, pork and other meat (BL-1 and BL-3).

Amore Tuscan Grille in Englewood Cliffs serves a "wild board stew" with polenta ($28).

For that typo, someone should take a board to the ample derriere of Production Editor Liz Houlton, who gets paid six figures to catch such boo-boos.

Read More

Christie plan freezes out commuters, taxpayers

A packed NJ Transit train heading for New York's Penn Station on Tuesday morning. Governor Christie isn't moving to improve or expand mass transit this year.

Property taxes keep going up in Hackensack and every other North Jersey community, but such services as the routine filling of potholes are seemingly neglected. Above, Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, near Summit Avenue.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

A columnist and editorial writer for The Record are so busy interpreting and analyzing what Governor Christie said in his budget address on Tuesday that they completely lost sight of what he didn't say about property taxes, tolls and mass transit (A-1 and A-8).

For the fifth year in a row, Christie won't be lowering local property taxes, as he promised to do in his 2009 campaign.

Nor will he do anything about rising tolls, increasing traffic congestion and packed mass transit.

The economy, stupid

Job creation? Boosting tax revenue and funding the state Transportation Trust Fund? They are not on the GOP bully's agenda.

Today's coverage of the Christie budget plan is superficial at best (A-1, A-6, A-7 and L-3).

The biggest laugh line is Columnist Charles Stile noting that Christie is an "admirer of Ghandi" (A-6).

And Stile continues to struggle with his writing and standard cliches, as in:

"[Christie] didn't call for a broad-based tax cut -- a recognition, perhaps, that the proposal would probably get laughed out of the room."

Not the proposal. Christie would probably be laughed out of room, given the sad state of the New Jersey economy.

Hackensack news

The lead story on Page 1 today is Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga's continuing crackdown on quality of life crimes and violations, in this case, drug dealing (A-1).

Tara Sullivan's column at the bottom of the front page shows the media are intent on covering every athlete who declares he or she is gay, no matter how obscure.

These so-called journalists should ask themselves why fellow staffers who are gay fear coming out, lest they encounter employment discrimination, in Woodland Park and elsewhere.

Locals are yokels

The Record's Local news report today includes a dramatic photo of one truck rear ending another in Fort Lee that injured "at least one person" (L-6).

Congratulations to Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi for this award-winning shot.

In his Sunday column, Road Warrior John Cichowski insisted on calling an obscure traffic circle in sleepy Franklin Lakes a "roundabout."

He also claimed a homeowner backing out of his driveway could see through shrubbery and trees and report on whether other drivers were stopping at a stop sign.

A concerned reader notes the homeowner could drive forward out of his driveway, but insists on the more dangerous maneuver of backing out:

"Unless this person has X-ray vision from his driveway entrance to the High Mountain Road stop line, which is blocked with multiple trees and dense shrubbery, he is not able to see whether cars stop while he is pulling out.

"What is even more outrageous is that his driveway is set up to allow him to turn around so he can more safely exit going forward. Yet, he has chosen for 50 years to back out, which is a much more dangerous maneuver."

See a link to a corrective e-mail to management and the editors on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers: 


Road Warrior's exaggerations go round and round

Read More

Cowardly columnists, sloppy editing and potholes

A pothole on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, where I haven't seen any crews repairing pockmarked streets that bend car wheels and blow out tires, and have drivers cursing their public officials.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Why is Columnist Charles Stile wasting readers' time today by examining what Governor Christie said as long ago as 2011, but never saying whether he thinks the GOP bully is lying about his role in the Bridgegate scandal?

That's what readers want from a columnist for The Record -- an opinion, a point of view, an accusation based on the seasoned Trenton reporter's experience dealing with public officials.

Instead, the best Stile can do is say "Christie's credibility -- and his career -- are in the shadow of a scandal" (A-1).

This "scandal" thing is a variation of what he wrote in his boring column on Friday: 

"Recast by scandal as a bully whose aides closed off part of the George Washington Bridge as a political revenge plot...." 

He's no Breslin

Of course, it's Stile's credibility that is on the line, along with the credibility of the paper's other columnists, including Road Warrior John Cichowski and Mike Kelly, who can't muster any strong opinions, either.

Instead of condemning municipal crews' half-assed job of snow removal and pothole repair in the region, Cichowski's column on Thursday delved into fantasy, based on a single driver's comment:

“'It seems like every street corner has snow piles up to the heavens, making it impossible to turn onto any street.'

"Yet," a concerned reader noted, "there were no reports of regionwide or local traffic gridlock, if it really was 'impossible to turn onto any street.'

"The Road Warrior’s column predicted that 'current accumulations are likely to keep streets narrow and dangerous for weeks' due to freezing temperatures, even though four straight days of temperatures in the 50s and three days of rain would melt a lot of the snow."

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers by clicking on the following link:

Road Warrior puts up factual roadblocks 

Good for transit

What is the big deal about leasing a North Bergen park-and-ride lot to NJ Transit for $1 a year, even if the agency was a client of lawyer David Samson, chairman of the Port Authority (A-1 on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and today)?

NJ Transit is the state's mass-transit agency -- not a profit-making company -- and in giving up $900,000 in revenue from the lot in 2012, the Port Authority was, in effect, making a contribution to the viability of public transit and helping to ease traffic congestion.

The bi-state agency is supported by fees and tolls, not taxes, and operates the PATH commuter rail system, owns hundreds of buses used by NJ Transit and others, and runs the reverse express bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.

No question

Today's Page 1 story by Staff Writer Shawn Boburg actually reports Samson "has been the focus of questions about whether clients of his law firm benefited from his public position."

"Whether"? 

Weeks ago, National Public Radio (WNYC-FM) reported lobbying and legal work boomed at Samson's law firm after Christie named him chairman of the Port Authority.

Those clients know a good thing when they see it -- their lawyer at the pinnacle of power.  

Wasting our time

The front of Local today carries another Road Warrior column -- this one about drivers who run  stop signs at a traffic circle in the Bergen County backwater of Franklin Lakes (L-1).

Drivers run stop signs everywhere. Why waste an entire column on this spot? 

What about an epidemic of speeding and aggressive driving, and the dramatic decline in the enforcement of traffic laws on highways and in many towns.

Why not report on Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga's crackdown on traffic violations? 

Sloppy editing

Also on the Local front today is a beautifully written local obituary for Sidney Kronish, who lived to 101, with an inexplicable flaw in the first paragraph:

"Rozanne Zweig addressed the mourners as she stood aside [italics added] her boyfriend's simple pine coffin."

Shouldn't that be "beside" or "next to" the coffin? Where were the assignment, news and copy editors who went over this obituary? Were they asleep at their computers?

Silence is golden

On the Opinion front, Carl Golden, a former Record reporter who was press secretary to two Republican governors, discusses the stresses of a job now held by Mike Drewniak, Governor Christie's discredited chief spokesman (O-1).

Golden doesn't explain why Drewniak, a former Star-Ledger reporter in Trenton, has such a foul mouth or why he cursed and belittled former colleagues who were looking into the Bridgegate scandal.

Drewniak has laid low in the weeks since his expletive-filled e-mails emerged, and no one has reported whether it is a coincidence his last name rhymes with "maniac."

Jets v. residents

The Business front cover story on increased private-jet activity at Teterboro Airport is a royal F.U. to residents of Teaneck, Hackensack and other towns who are kept awake by all of those noisy planes (B-1).

Nor does it report that Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg is the filthy rich co-owner of one of the unregulated private jets that seem to be screaming overhead day and night. 

Read More

Driver who killed Jerome Some is charged with DUI

On Tuesday night, Hackensack businessman Jerome Some left his building at 151 Prospect Ave., above, to attend a meeting across the street at Bel Posto Restaurant, below. Some's building, a co-op called the Eiffel Tower, is being renovated.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The driver who struck and killed a prominent Hackensack businessman on Tuesday night has been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol.

Jerome S. Some, the founder and owner of Some's Uniforms on Main Street in Hackensack, was crossing Prospect Avenue when he was struck by a woman who was driving to her job at Hackensack University Medical Center, Eye on The Record has learned.

The woman is said to be in her early 60s.

Some, who lived in a high-rise at 151 Prospect Ave., was crossing the street to attend a meeting at Bel Posto Restaurant, where he was a regular customer.

On Tuesday night, Some was lauded as a "pillar" of the community after Police Director Mike Mordaga informed officials about his death just before a City Council meeting.

Today, The Record reported Some, 87, was killed crossing Prospect Avenue "in the middle of the street, and not at an intersection."

Many questions

The story said the accident occurred at 7:30 p.m., but provided few other details, including where Some lived and where he was going at the time.

Mordaga referred questions to the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, which took over the investigation of the fatality.

The Record's story didn't say whether Some has survivors, but employees of Bel Posto at 160 Prospect said he had dinner there about two times a week with relatives.

Should Prospect Avenue have crosswalks mid-block, considering the street is lined with many of the city's high-rise apartment buildings?

A crosswalk or lighted traffic cones would be a good idea for residents of Prospect Avenue who cross the street to patronize Bel Posto, a fine-dining restaurant with a sushi bar.

This afternoon, people who live or work along Prospect Avenue said the driver who killed Some didn't see him and did not brake before the impact.

Some was thrown onto the hood, then rolled off onto the pavement and was run over, they said.

Buono-Christie debate

The Record's coverage of the race for New Jersey governor continues to baffle readers, especially today's Page 1 report on the first debate between Governor Christie and Democratic challenger Barbara Buono.

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes, the reporter assigned to cover Christie, seems to have thrown objectivity out of the window.

Unwilling to say whether Buono or Christie had the edge in the debate, Hayes reports in the first paragraph that they merely repeated "what they have said again and again in appearances across the state."

Here's the first time a reporter has admitted publicly to being bored with an election campaign.

Read More

More Hackensack news, but is all of it accurate?

The Bergen County homeless shelter in Hackensack serves three free meals a day, inviting the homeless to stay in the city, walk the streets and use the parks all day long, Police Director Mike Mordaga says. And, he says, 95% of the homeless encountered by police have criminal records.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The victory of a reform City Council slate in the May 14 municipal election has brought a renewed focus on Hackensack news at The Record of Woodland Park.

But as today's Page 1 takeout on the Police Department and the homeless demonstrates, readers don't always get the full story (A-1).

The homeless have been a problem in Hackensack for decades, even before Bergen County built a shelter on South River Street, between the county jail and Costco Wholesale.

Free meals

Now, the shelter Hackensack fought but couldn't stop serves three free meals a day, inviting the homeless to hang around all day, Police Director Mike Mordaga says.

Mordaga says he has asked Hackensack University Medical Center to staff a room at the shelter to cut down on his officers having to be involved in transporting the homeless to the emergency room.

Not new

Today's story reports Mordaga is cracking down on quality-of-life crimes "at a time when the city is investing in a major downtown rehabilitation." 

But it doesn't say the disturbing presence of the homeless on Main Street has been a problem for many years before he assumed the job in February.

And the story doesn't even hint at the high level of criminality in the homeless police are dealing with, Mordaga says.

Mordaga estimates 95% of the homeless whose backgrounds are checked by police have criminal records.

Major crimes include murder, kidnapping and sexual assault, he says, noting the homeless use city parks where children play.

No comparison

And comparing Hackensack's homeless to the cities of Englewood and Passaic, as the story does, is faulty: 

Those communities don't have anywhere near the number of homeless in Hackensack.

Errors in story

Mordaga says there are errors in today's Page 1 story.

Meanwhile, 2 recent stories about Hackensack contained other errors, prompting readers to ask whether they can trust the reporting and editing at The Record.

Reporters like Staff Writer Hannan Adely have an added burden to be accurate:

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, her supervisors, spend all their time indoors in far off Woodland Park, and know little or nothing about Hackensack.

And the paper's copy editors have long been discouraged from fact-checking and fixing poorly written stories and columns.

Their job is to spell-check and slap a headline and photo caption on whatever they are working on, and go on to the next story.

Governor Money Bags

The A-3 story on Governor Christie and Superstorm Sandy TV commercials raises a lot of unanswered questions -- primarily, why isn't this scandal on Page 1 and why didn't The Record's own staffers uncover it?

The Record files numerous public records requests, but apparently sat on its hands after an Oradell ad agency lost out on a contract for the "Stronger Than the Storm" TV commercials.

The state contract went to MWW, a politically active public relations agency in East Rutherford, and a subcontractor, even though their bid was more than $2 million higher than the Sigma Group in Oradell.

A photo of the TV ad that runs with the story -- from the Asbury Park Press -- suggests that New Jersey has the nation's fattest and ugliest governor -- great public relations for the shore.

'Dad' mystery

Today's Road Warrior column focuses on Staff Writer John Cichowski's "Dad," who is 97, but who is not named (L-1).

Cichowski interviewed his father to jazz up a dry rewrite of an AAA survey.

 

Read More

Chris loves Sandy, but hates the rest of us

The new City Council, led by Mayor John P. Labrosse Jr., third from right, meeting at Hackensack City Hall on Monday night in an atmosphere of optimism for the city's future. A sign inside the 3rd Floor men's bathroom, below, seems to show the city has been conservation-minded, though it is just getting around to installing solar panels on its buildings, lagging behind Teaneck and other communities.

By Victor E. Sasson

Editor

Just imagine how Governor Christie is getting off every night thinking about Sandy -- the devastating superstorm he disguises as a siren who is luring unwary voters into giving him a second term.

The GOP bully is knocking himself out to convince voters he should be judged only by what he's done since Sandy -- and not on all of the promises to the middle class he has broken since he took office in January 2010.

And The Record of Woodland Park can't do enough to help him, continuing to run Sandy recovery news on Page 1, as it does today, or all over the Local front, even though more than 9 months have passed.

I have yet to see a story contrasting Christie's stand on the issues with that of Democratic challenger Barbara Buono.

As the bottom of today's front page shows, that's because Editor Marty Gottlieb continues to portray the contest as one that will go to the candidate who raises the most money (A-1).

Making babies

Gottlieb wastes more space today -- stories on A-1 and L-1 -- about the birth of the royal heir in Britain.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' pathetic attempt to localize the story omits the names of any of the women who gave birth at North Jersey hospitals on the same day or the names of their babies (L-1).

Assume the position  

Filmmaker Michael Moore is a genius who has the courage to make documentaries no one in Hollywood would undertake.

But his well-known weight problem makes some readers wonder how Kathleen Glynn, his colaborator, managed to survive 21 years of marriage to him, unless he allowed her to be on top (A-2).

Some staffers have wondered the same thing about Sykes' husband, a tall, thin graphic artist who once worked at The Record.

Hackensack news

Today's Local front is dominated by a suspected gang member who tried and failed to take on the re-energized Hackensack Police Department early Monday (L-1).

Robert Leonardis, 22, fired one shot that narrowly missed Officer Joseph Ayoubi, but was severely wounded when four officers fired back, Police Director Mike Mordaga said.

At a Hackensack City Council meeting on Monday night, one resident said she now calls the police when she sees something amiss in her neighborhood, and they actually respond.

In the past, she said, she didn't bother to call because she knew police working under the corrupt police chief, Ken Zisa, would do nothing.

Solar-power lesson

A resident asked the council and City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono why no solar panels are being installed on city schools.

Lo Iacono said the profligate Board of Education has refused to meet with the council to discuss solar power.

The systems being installed on city buildings cost taxpayers nothing.

Coffee is hot and cheap

Sykes continues to rely on photos of minor accidents in place of legitimate local news, and continues to supply readers with no information on the cause.

Clues in today's L-3 photo suggest an older driver (Mercury Marquis, blue license plate and handicap space) couldn't wait to get a morning cup of coffee McDonald's sells to seniors at a special, low price, so he crashed his car into the fast-food restaurant.

Read More

Editors reflect North Jersey's ingrained racism

A multi-car collision in the center lane, above, slowed northbound Garden State Parkway traffic to a crawl on Friday evening. Traffic was unusually light, so speeding, tailgating or aggressive driving might have triggered the crashes. Once past the wreckage, many drivers accelerated to 20 mph or more over the 55 mph speed limit or resumed racing and cutting off each other.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor


The Record today provides North Jersey reaction to  President Obama's personal remarks about racism and violence -- his first extensive statement since a Florida jury cleared George Zimmerman in the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager (A-1).

But the Woodland Park daily has always kept readers in the dark about the diversity of its own newsroom.

It wasn't very diverse when I left in May 2008, and I doubt Publisher Stephen A. Borg has bothered to recruit many minority editors or reporters since then.

Newsroom massacre

Who could forget how then-Editor Francis "Frank" Scandale fired the paper's only black and Hispanic columnists, and demoted its only female news columnist, when the paper was still in Hackensack.

They were never replaced. A Hispanic reporter also left when Scandale was editor.

For many years, Miguel Perez, the Hispanic columnist, was derided as "El Excremente" by veteran news copy editor Ed Reiter, who is now retired.

Cuba no!

At one time, The Record had so few reporters who were fluent in Spanish, it was forced into making the bad choice of assigning Perez and another rabidly anti-Castro reporter to cover stories about Cuba and their impact on North Jersey's exile community.

I'm sure The Record's policy of requiring letter writers to provide their names and phone numbers is the only reason we haven't seen some readers expressing their joy over the verdict in the slaying of Trayvon Martin.

This blog received one anonymous comment -- "GREAT VERDICT" -- which I am publishing just now.

I've routinely received anonymous e-mails from a wealthy Saddle River resident, dumping on Paterson, Hackensack and other communities with minority populations.

Suicide coverage

The Record doesn't routinely cover suicides, so it's no surprise the editors are having a hard time explaining the death of former Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy, who shot himself in the head on Wednesday (today's Local front and Friday's Page 1).

Today's story names Fahy's wife and mother, and reports he has 9 siblings, but apparently no reporter has attempted to interview any of them.

In fact, none of the stories has explored whether Fahy was having marital, financial or serious health problems.

Friday's A-1 story about Fahy was especially bad -- from the "Death out of the blue" headline to several bewildering paragraphs contrasting his beautiful home to the littered underpass where his body was found (A-8).

Who edited this story? Was it head Assignment Guru Deirdre Sykes? And what drone on the copy desk handled it?

The lead parapgrah says, "Jay Fahy left his home Wednesday afternoon, carrying a piece of paper and a gun."

The "piece of paper" is never mentioned again, even though the story goes on and on. The underpass where his body was found is called a "bridge" in the A-8 photo caption.

Other news

Also on Page 1 today, a federal jury had the good sense to convict a sexual abuser who blamed the victim. Bawar Aksal of North Bergen was found guilty of molesting a New Jersey woman as she slept in the airplane seat next to him.

The photo caption on A-4 today leaves readers guessing about why commuters are using paper fans in the Secaucus Junction waiting room.

Friday's paper

As usual, the Road Warrior column on Friday was filled with e-mails from clueless readers, most of whom sound delusional (L-1).

A state police ticket blitz on major highways? Silver Alerts that produce traffic backups? They are pure fiction.

Hackensack news

Also on Friday's L-1, Staff Writer Hannan Adely reports for the first time on Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga's quality of life initiative.

During the heat wave, a trio of officers are out, ensuring the safety and hydration of the many homeless who gravitate to the county homeless shelter on South River Street, where they can get three free meals a day. 

Mordaga took over in February, accelerating the number of arrests and moving violations; pairing county sheriff's officers and city cops on crime patrols; and calling on Hackensack University Medical Center to staff the homeless shelter.

But The Record's editors have tried to ignore the initiatives.

The reason might be the hundreds of thousands of dollars the editors spent financing two fruitless investigations of Mordaga, who was a decorated Hackensack cop and onetime chief of detectives at the county Prosecutor's Office.

Movie mania 

Better Living's Friday entertainment tabloid continues to devote a huge amount of space to movies the majority of readers won't ever leave the house to see.

The detailed coverage of all of the crap being churned out by Hollywood comes at the expensive of restaurant reviews, which get much less space than before.

In Friday's Eating Out on $50 review, freelancer Jeff Page reports the owner of Riviera Lebanese Cafe believes that "Syrian and Lebanese cuisines are pretty much identical."

Gee, Jeff. Could that be because the two countries were once part of the same French mandate?

Hackensack Chronicle

Friday's Hackensack Chronical reported the ousting of school trustee Kevon Larkins -- without exploring the ulterior motives of the Zisa family allies who rule the Board of Education.

The sub-headline on Page 1 says, "Board seeks new replacement" [italics added].

Second look

On July 9, The Record ran a front-page Road Warrior column that appeared to describe the mayhem caused by the no-cash policy on the GWB's  lower level after 11 p.m.

But in lashing back at a reader on July 17, Staff Writer John Cichowski called the confused drivers a "distinct minority," contradicting his sky-is-falling scenario.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers for a concerned reader's e-mail to the editors, detailing Cichowski's hype and exaggeration, and his  insults to those who challenge him: 

John Cichowski: Never mind


 

Read More

Don't expect a focus on the causes of heart disease

Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga got some good news today from a federal judge, who threw out a lawsuit filed by a dead mobster's family against Mordaga, who was then chief of detectives for the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, according to a front-page story in The Record.

Hit men couldn't bring down Tony Soprano, but the actor who portrayed him on TV was killed prematurely by "a massive heart attack" on Wednesday in Italy.

The Record apparently tore up the front page on Tuesday night to report the unexpected, late-breaking death of James Gandolfini, 51, who was from Bergen County.

How times have changed.

On 9/11, The Record's editors -- citing the extra expense -- refused to remake Page 1 for Tom Franklin's unusual photo of firefighters raising the American flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center -- a potential winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Photography.

The photo ran on a back page. Now, North Jersey Media Group spends tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees to sue outsiders who use the copyrighted photo.

Poor coverage

The Gandolfini coverage is full of holes.

I hate the headline -- "Jersey's family man" -- a play on the Jersey Mafia stereotype.

It's especially bad because "The Sopranos" never rang true. Leave it to television to turn a mob boss, one of the lowest forms of life on earth, into a likable guy.

Editors in denial

I don't expect to see any coverage in The Record of the causes of heart disease or whether Gandolfini's diet and weight had anything to do with his death.

The Woodland Park daily has at least two obese editors who are in denial, and a bunch of food writers who obsess over bacon, dessert and other unhealthy dishes.

Staff Writer Mike Kelly waited 7 long months before writing a column about his heart problems, but couldn't bring himself to do so in the first person.

And just try to follow today's editorial on the classification of obesity as a "disease" (A-8).

Real mobster

The Gandolfini obit runs today next to an A-1 story about a real-life mobster, Frank Lagano of Tenafly, whose family tried to pin blame for his unsolved 2007 rub out on county law enforcement officials.

Mike Mordaga, Hackensack's civilian police director, was the last defendant in the suit, which was dismissed Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Faith S. Hochberg.

The notoriously inaccurate copy desk and Production Editor Liz Houlton strike again with the headline:

"Lawsuit

against

officer

tossed"

Mordaga wasn't an "officer" when the suit was filed and he isn't an "officer" now.

Read More