Stupid headline hides truth about GOP-led Congress

A sign in the unisex bathroom at Pushcart Coffee on Ninth Avenue and 25th Street in Manhattan.

Shivering tourists on a walking tour of Manhattan's Theater District on Saturday, another frigid, sunless day.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A headline declaring "deep divide in D.C." certainly is familiar to anyone who has read a newspaper in the last few years.

But after months of hysteria in The Record and other media about Tea Party radicals and other Republicans taking full control of Congress and dismantling President Obama's health care law and other initiatives, reality has set in.

On Monday's front page, more than two months after the 2014 election, Columnist Herb Jackson reports voter turnout was pushed down "nationally to its lowest point since World War II," and ending gridlock is "overly optimistic, to say the least."

Jackson blames voter apathy on a "bitter election," but the media also are at fault for ignoring issues in favor of conflict and sound bites, and failing to reveal the lies in GOP attack ads.

However, the main headline on his column used the old "deep divide in D.C." and ignored the real truth -- no end to gridlock in the new Congress, despite Republican majorities.

Monday's A-2 carried another long correction of a story in the Local news section, the one on Sunday about Brendan Jordan, 7, the New Milford boy who died in a school accident.

Today's paper

Page 1 today is dominated by Staff Writer John Cichowski's Road Warrior column -- based on press releases, phone interviews and fatal accident reports (A-1).

If the past is any guide, Cichowski likely has committed a number of errors in citing state police data, and he continues to refer to pedestrian deaths as "crashes."

Weak laws

Cichowski should be calling for stronger laws to hold drivers criminally responsible for killing a pedestrian.

Now, drivers can use the excuse that they "didn't see" the pedestrian as a get-out-of jail card.

Older drivers

The challenges facing older drivers is another issue the lazy, demented reporter has neglected in the more than 11 years he has been writing the column.

That can be plainly seen today in the two photos that run in Local, where head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, hold up another older driver to ridicule.

Look at the helpless expression on the white-haired woman's face -- as captured by an ambulance-chasing freelancer -- after she drove her 2009 Honda Civic "over a guardrail and retaining wall and down an embankment at a condominium complex" in Ridgewood (L-3).

Of course, the woman didn't "drive" her car through the guardrail on Monday afternoon.

She likely mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal, a common error for elderly drivers.

Is driver retraining available for older drivers such as this woman? 

Cichowski could care less, and Sykes and Sforza fear any such public service stories would deprive them of the filler accident photos they so desperately need to complete their weak local news report.  

Second look

On Sunday, Columnist Mike Kelly criticized Governor Christie for not attending the funeral of another pedestrian, Cliffside Park Special Police Officer Stephen Petruzzello, who was killed by a driver who claimed she didn't see him (Opinion front).

But Kelly gets absolutely no editing, and thinks readers have nothing better to do than plow through a dozen long introductory paragraphs about Christie the football fan and a gubernatorial vacation.

The criticism appears on the continuation page, and many readers may have been so bored by all the background they never saw it.

It seems silly to tell someone who has been a columnist for more than 20 years: Put your criticism in the first paragraph and leave the background for later.

But it's necessary with Kelly, one of the paper's chief word pushers.

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A fading Christie lacks the temperament to be president

On Saturday, The Record reported twice on the front page that Hackensack University Medical Center's mobile treatment unit for potential Ebola cases is "behind" a McDonald's on Essex and South Newman streets in Hackensack. But that's not the case. The hospital-owned lot is actually between the McDonald's and NJ Transit's Essex Street Station.

In today's paper, a front-page photo caption says the mobile treatment unit is "near a McDonald's." City officials want the hospital to move the unit, above. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

"Sit down and shut up."

With those words, Governor Christie dismissed another protester, even though everyone but The Record thinks the GOP bully has bungled the recovery two long years after Superstorm Sandy (A-3).

"Why isn't he [Christie] in Ship Bottom today?" protester Jim Keady of Spring Lake said. "Why isn't he in Ortley Beach, where people aren't back in their homes? He's got to finish the job."

Keady held up a sign -- "STAY IN NJ & FINISH THE JOB" -- an apparent reference to Christie's travels raising money for conservative politicians like himself who have been waging war on the middle and working classes. 

Well, is there really any chance Christie will even get the nomination, given his far-from-presidential temperament and his low approval ratings in New Jersey?

If he can't veto bills, he just tells his critics to shut up and sit down.

Voter apathy

He was elected to a second term last November, but the turnout was the lowest for any gubernatorial election in state history.

Christie won, because droves of voters stayed home.

In fact, none of the election coverage so far has addressed how much voters are turned off by the partisanship in New Jersey and Washington, and the Woodland Park daily's relentless focus on politics.

Take today's Page 1 column on the challenge to Rep. Scott Garret, R-Wantage, in the 5th Congressional District, which includes Bergen County (A-1).

Columnist Charles Stile and other staffers give the most coverage and credibility to the candidate who raises the most money, but never say why that is so important.

And this year, I haven't seen one analysis of the distorted and false attack ads big campaign money buys.

Even such an eminence as Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson left out damaging information about Garrett in the first front-page piece on the challenge posed by Democrat Roy Cho, an attorney who lives in Hackensack.

What The Record reported as Garrett's initial opposition to federal Sandy aid is now being called  "raising questions about the potential for wasteful spending" (A-11).

Wednesday's paper

High school football has such a grip on Editor Martin Gottlieb that he ran a two-year-old story about a Paramus Catholic player and his mother all over Wednesday's front page.

Gottlieb again led the front page with lots more on Ebola, even though not a single case has been confirmed in New Jersey.

Two more embarrassing corrections appeared on A-2.

In Wednesday's Better Living section, clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson continues to recommend recipes that turn healthy ingredients into artery clogging nightmares (BL-2).

Her Lobster Frittata includes five whole eggs, a half-cup of cream, 2 ounces of cream cheese and 4 ounces of Swiss cheese.

Jackson should visit a hospital cardiac ward, and talk to patients who have had heart attacks from clogged arteries before she pushes another unhealthy recipe.

Third look

How can Road Warrior John Cichowski be so wrong about so many things in column after column, escaping even basic fact checking by his assignment editor, the copy desk and six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton?

In last Friday's column, which I discussed on Tuesday, Cichowski was relating the history of George Washington Bridge construction.

Then, the clueless transportation writer said:

"Until the Holland Tunnel was completed in Hoboken in 1927, the main method for drivers to get their cars across the Hudson River was by ferry...."

Of course, the New Jersey entrance to the Holland Tunnel is in Jersey City, not Hoboken.

And, of course, no correction appeared.

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Editors in no hurry to know what causes voter apathy

The First Reformed Church in Hackensack also is referred to as Church on the Green. The plaque notes, "Early records of this pioneer Dutch church, dated 1686, mark it as the second oldest in New Jersey."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The front page today marks a new low in The Record's we-don't-know-what-else-to-write-about coverage of New Jersey.

Three years and a month before the next election for governor, Columnist Charles Stiles does his best to bore Sunday readers with speculation on who will run to replace Chris Christie.

But, as far as I can tell, The Record has ignored the contest for the 5th District seat in Congress that will be decided on Nov. 4.

Last November, according to NJ.com, the GOP bully won a second term "in a landslide, but the election drew the lowest voter turnout ever for a governor's race: 39.6 percent." 

The special election that sent Cory Booker to Washington "recorded the lowest voter turnout of any statewide election, at 25.4 percent," according to the Web site.

Local apathy

In Hackensack, City Council elections draw less than a fifth of the 19,000-plus registered voters, and school board elections are decided by even fewer residents.

Fairview Mayor Vincent Bellucci Jr., a veteran, wrote a letter to the editor to express his concern "over low voter turnout election after election."

The letter, which appeared on Saturday's A-13, said:

"This Election Day, rather than being apathetic, or lazy, wouldn't it be great to show our veterans that we truly appreciate their service and that the ultimate sacrifice of giving their lives is not forgotten by exercising our right to vote?"

Editorial apathy

Bellucci doesn't explore the cause of voter apathy, but just one look at the front pages of Saturday's and Sunday's papers show the editors of The Record are far from blameless.

Page 1 on Saturday was dominated by the NFL domestic violence "scandal," and two other major elements explored a surplus of deer and the sentencing of an ex-diner manager who tried to hire a hit man (A-1).

Today's front page has an equally ridiculous mix of stories -- football, parking meters, White House security and spanking -- just seven weeks or so before the next election (A-1).

Meanwhile, Stile and other members of The Record's Trenton staff, have written endlessly about the political impact of Christie's war on the middle and working classes in New Jersey.

Most editorials discuss the dying New Jersey economy without mentioning Christie policies or even his name.

Scott free

Has The Record covered the second attempt in recent years to unseat Rep. Scott Garrett, the deeply conservative Republican in the 5th District, which includes Hackensack, Fair Lawn and parts of Teaneck, among other towns?

The last challenger, then-Teaneck Mayor Adam Gussen, had a hard time getting his photo in the paper, let alone a profile.

In 2012, The Record's Herb Jackson decided the winner in a story reporting that Garrett, a Tea Party sympathizer who has helped bring Congress to a standstill, raised the most campaign cash.

Now, I can't recall a recent story about Roy Cho, a Democratic lawyer from Hackensack, who is Garrett's opponent in the Nov. 4 election.

What does Garrett stand for? How about Cho? What are the issues in the campaign, and how will New Jersey be affected?

Lazy, bored editors

Do The Record editors even know their proper role in an election?

In the last couple of decades, the lazy assignment editors have reduced coverage of local and school board elections.

If seats are not contested, The Record ignores the race, not even bothering to discuss the issues at stake.

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Governor Christie's mouthpiece makes boss proud

This full-size pickup at 24 Hour Fitness in Paramus makes me question whether a driver who can climb up into the seat is, in fact, disabled. One morning last week, every vehicle parked in handicapped spaces in front of the gym was an SUV or large pickup, below. What a racket.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today's Page 1 story in The Record speaks volumes about why Michael Drewniak makes the big bucks as Governor Christie's chief spokesman and spin doctor.

As he has been doing since the GOP bully was elected in 2010, the former Star-Ledger reporter skillfully crafts Christie's image for a mostly compliant media.

Drewniak turned in a masterful performance on Tuesday in front of the legislative panel investigating the George Washington Bridge lane closures, backing up Christie, who has repeatedly expressed ignorance of the dirty tricks perpetrated by his closest aides.

Lacks credibility

It almost makes you forget the contempt he has for some of his former colleagues in the so-called Fourth Estate, and how he has used obscenities to describe them.

Of course, Drewniak's credibility is suspect, even though that seems to escape Staff Writers Shawn Boburg and Melissa Hayes (A-1), and Columnist Charles Stile (A-6). 

Check out the first paragraph of Boburg's and Hayes' front-page report: 

It's wordy enough to choke a horse, even though the media swallow it hook, line and stinker.

Word pusher is back

Another stinker on Page 1 today is Columnist Mike Kelly.

Kelly, the burnt-out reporter who lives in Teaneck, attempts to interpret the harsh police response to a senior prank by "mostly non-white" high school students that came close to the 50th anniversary of voluntary school desegregation (A-1 today and Tuesday's A-1 and L-1).

In his first paragraph, Kelly says "messages that cascaded from two meetings in Teaneck the other night could not have been more different."

Do readers really need The Record to tell them that, let alone on Page 1? Does Kelly think we're all morons?

It gets worse, with Kelly comparing "the social and political ebbs and flows in Teaneck" to a "meandering whirlwind."

What a meaningless phrase. Do whirlwinds meander? Kelly doesn't write; he pushes words around to little effect.

Voter apathy?

Today's coverage of local elections in Teaneck, Ridgewood and Paterson give vote totals, but don't tell readers how many people are registered in the respective communities (A-1 and L-1).

Voter apathy likely had a lot to do with the outcomes, but The Record's incompetent local editors are too lazy to tackle the subject or try to explain it, lest many would point to the media's lack of interest in issues that could engage readers.

For example, I can think of a lot of issues in Hackensack that deserve coverage, and settlement of a bizarre lawsuit isn't one of them (L-1).

And why aren't readers told the attorney expects to receive a third of the $50,000?

Readers fume, too

In Better Living today, Food Editor Esther Davidowitz manages to publish a long interview with Thomas Fume, the executive chef of Sear House in Closter, and never ask him how the cattle are raised for the expensive steaks he serves (BL-2).

You can bet Fume and his boss are putting profits over his customers' welfare, if they are serving beef raised on grain, harmful animal antibiotics and growth hormones.

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Clashing accounts of Christie's town hall meeting

This poor soul on River Street in Hackensack, and a counterpart on Cedar Lane in Teaneck, have been trying to steer business to a tax-preparation business during the bitter winter, including days with sub-freezing temperatures. How desperate do you have to be to take that thankless job?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The Record's front page today carries conflicting accounts of Governor Christie's community meeting in Mount Laurel, the South Jersey town at the center of court mandates on affordable housing the GOP bully continues to defy.

Editor Marty Gottlieb dispatched Staff Writer Melissa Hayes and political Columnist Charles Stile to Thursday's meeting -- in a familiar double teaming that accomplishes little more than to confuse readers (A-1).

Stile, with his endlessly boring analysis of Christie's every word, and other political columnists are probably most responsible for the voter apathy that led to the lowest turnout in a gubernatorial election in history last November.

Inconsistencies

More troubling are the clashing accounts of the meeting:

Christie is "losing the fight to control the message," according to the headline over Stile's Page 1 column today.

But Hayes reported:

Police removed student activists shouting questions about Bridgegate and bungled Sandy aid; Christie refused to address affordable-housing and environmental advocates, and the governor received "raucous" and "thunderous" applause.

Doesn't that sound like Christie still is firmly in control?

And the photo on the continuation page shows perhaps three dozen of his biggest supporters, presumably well-heeled residents, smiling broadly, with hardly an African-American, Hispanic or Asian Indian in sight (A-8).

Poor editing

The story is poorly edited: Bridgegate, the scandal over the George Washington Bridge lane closures in Fort Lee, is rendered as bridgegate, with and without single quote marks; and a word appears to be missing in a quote from Christie claiming the demonstrators only want "attention" (A-8)

Also on Page 1, I'm looking forward to the day when a photo of rifle-totting Shyanne Roberts, 9, lands back on front pages after she wipes out a middle-school class in Gloucester County (A-1).

Three more corrections appear on A-2 today.

P.R. octopus

An editorial on A-18 notes that Thom Ammirato, the $78,000-a-year spokesman for the city of Hackensack, also holds two other jobs, paying him more than $56,000, and does public relations for the Passaic County Republican Party and two Republican state legislators.

Now that's multi-tasking in the great New Jersey tradition of holding many public jobs at the same time.

Utility pole news

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza again managed to squeeze in a gee-whiz photo of a utility pole shearing, by the same photographer who took the first (L-6).

As usual, the cause of the accident in Paramus is missing from the photo caption, as is the driver's name or whether he received a summons.

Stomach turning

With the rise in organic and naturally raised or grown food, readers want to know more about the origin of the meat, fish, vegetables and fruit they eat.

But since he took over as publisher, Stephen A. Borg has given them less, first killing the paper's award-winning Food section.

Then, he hired three lazy food editors in succession and a dessert-obsessed restaurant reviewer who spend most of their time promoting celebrity chefs and cookbooks.

Inviting Heimlich

In today's lukewarm, 2-star review of Vale Bar & Grill in River Vale, "thick, ropy calamari got caught going down my throat," wrote Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung, who apparently was so ravenous she didn't stop to cut the squid into bite-size pieces.

Last week, Ung didn't bother to report that the short ribs and other meat served at Terre a Terre in Carlstadt are naturally raised or organic and free of harmful animal antibiotics.

And the sea bass and shrimp she said "smelled and tasted past their prime" might have been smoked by the chef, Todd Villani, who worked in the kitchen of Aquavit in Manhattan, where smoking and pickling of seafood is common.

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An indictment of Record Columnist Mike Kelly

The aftermath of a minor accident on South River Street in Little Ferry on Monday. I expected to see a photo of the crash used as filler in The Record's Local section on Tuesday, but the editors got excited over a trash fire in Westwood instead.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Columnist Mike Kelly takes the prize for most irresponsible journalist at The Record with his third attempt to smear the name of Richard Shoop, 20, the Teaneck man who chose a crowded mall on Nov. 4 for his very public suicide.

I recoil every time I see Kelly's dated column photo with his shit-eating grin, as I did on Tuesday's front page, which was dominated by his account of the funeral at a Teaneck church (A-1).

This was Kelly's third column about Shoop, who didn't intend to harm anyone but himself and even looked shoppers in the eye and told them "they were not his target," The Record reported on Page 1 last Wednesday.

Apparently inspired by statements from Prosecutor John L. Molinelli that Shoop had extra ammunition on him, as well as in his car, Kelly claimed in Tuesday's column the man was "seemingly intent on mass murder."

Isn't Shoop's story sad enough without Kelly linking him to the mass shootings at Columbine High School and Newtown, Conn., as he did in this and two previous columns?

Time to retire

Could it be that Kelly completely missed other angles -- the incredible show of force by police that set off panic at the Paramus mall and the total lack of meaningful security provided by the Australian owners?

On last Thursday's front page, a story reported the mall reopened amid "heightened security and assurances that New Jersey's largest mall is safe."

Unfortunately, the only evidence the editors could provide was a large, laughable photo of two Paramus cops patrolling inside, without automatic weapons or body armor, one with his hands in his pockets.  

In more than 20 years of column writing, Kelly has demonstrated one thing only: He does a superb job of filling space with his long, rambling, sensationalized accounts. 

Sadly, his lame reporting is as dishonest as that dated column photo. Few readers would miss him, if Editor Marty Gottlieb busted him back to reporter or simple fired his sorry ass.

Why taxes are so high

Today's front page is dominated by the story of James Brady, the formerly homeless man in Hackensack who was denied welfare benefits because he failed to report $850 he found in the street (A-1).

Brady, who appeared at Tuesday night's City Council meeting, said the homeless shouldn't be targeted unless they are doing something wrong -- a pointed reference to city Police Director Mike Mordaga's policy of cracking down on those with criminal records.

Mordaga has blamed the homeless -- attracted by three free meals a day at the county shelter -- for street crime, drug use and other problems.

Brady's undoing by the city bureaucracy has revealed that Agatha Toomey, the head of the Hackensack Human Services Department, is making an astounding $133,000 a year and has the use of a city car (A-6).

Governor Christie is paid $175,000 a year. No wonder my Hackensack property taxes are so high. 

More liabilities

Kelly isn't the only thing that's rotten in Woodland Park, as a letter to the editor from Dianne Douthat of Wayne shows.

She criticizes Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin for using his Nov. 8 column to pin voter apathy on people, but not accept "the role the media played"  (A-8).

"You could fit the amount of fair, balanced and unbiased reporting in this [gubernatorial] election from New Jersey's newspapers and periodicals on the head of one computer keyboard key," Douthat wrote.

Radio and TV news have been "obscenely biased for many years -- now it seems our local newspapers are following suit. No wonder so few people came out to vote," her letter said.

She called on Doblin and other journalists to examine their consciences and accept responsibility for their role in turning voters off.

Don't hold your breath, Dianne.

You may want to read my Nov. 5 post on voter apathy:

In New Jersey, apathetic morons stifle real change

Road litter

Another major liability at The Record is Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski, whose idea of a major commuting issue is a piece on gas station renovations (L-1).

He focuses on ExxonMobil stations, even though millions are boycotting the oil company responsible for environmental damage in Alaska from the Exxon Valdez spill.

Today's column is the latest based on e-mails from readers who pepper him with questions instead of going to accurate sources of information, hoping they will see their names in print.

In his Sunday column, Cichowski reported that drivers "submitted" to testing for blood-alcohol concentration in fatal accidents, but failed to mention that the drivers were dead.

Read about the other flaws in the column on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Spotlight on the clueless Road Warrior

More sloppy work

Two more corrections ran on Tuesday's A-2, but today's paper has a few problem captions and at least one out-of-focus photo, suggesting that it wan't a good idea seven or eight years ago to stop checking the first copies off the press:

A story and photo of a new streetcar in Kenosha, Wis., has a caption that tells readers power comes from "overhead" (A-5).

At the bottom of L-1 today, a photo of two men is cropped so tightly neither is shown completely. The photo on L-2 has an out-of-focus background.

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