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| A BRIDGE TOO FAR: This is what the project to replace the Midtown Bridge linking Hackensack and Bogota looked like on Saturday, above and below. |
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| NOVEMBER OPENING: Officials of Bergen County, owner of the bridge, closed the two-lane Hackensack River span on March 16, and said the work would take about 242 days. The new bridge is scheduled to open "on or about" Nov. 13. |
Gannett lays off a dozen more
at The Record, other papers
-- HACKENSACK, N.J.
I've updated this report with a comment about Montvale's controversial decision to approve a zoning change for the construction of a Wegmans supermarket, first proposed more than 5 years ago. See "comments" section at the end of the post.
EDITOR
I'm still shaking my head in disbelief over The Record's double-barreled assault on Hillary Clinton, and her book on the 2016 presidential campaign she lost to serial liar and con man Donald J. Trump.
The Opinion front of my local daily newspaper was covered on Sunday with two negative pieces on Clinton, one by Carl Golden, who is identified as a "guest writer," and the other by Columnist Mike Kelly.
Golden's piece is no surprise coming from a former journalist who served as the mouthpiece for two of the worst governors New Jersey has ever had -- Republicans Tom Kean and Christie Whitman -- but the Woodland Park daily concealed his background.
New low for Kelly
Readers already know about Kelly's deep conservatism, and his persistent criticism of then-President Obama in pieces he wrote during the 2016 campaign based on interviews with unemployed factory workers.
But his Sunday column is a new low in misogyny for Kelly, who likens the Democrats to the fictional Corleone crime family.
What a laugh riot.
Inexplicably, Kelly compares Democrats to family patriarch Michael Corleone, saying they "want out of the Clinton 'family'" just as the gangster wanted out of plotting murders and bribing politicians.
Nonsensical
Hillary Clinton is never going to run for office again, so his premise makes no sense.
"And just as the party is trying to reshape itself, here comes Hillary Clinton with a memoir that practically demands Democrats stop and look backward at the goat rodeo that was her campaign, " Kelly insists (Sunday's Opinion front).
"Goat rodeo"? What the F is that? We know Kelly is no prose master, but how obscure can you get?
Clinton has plenty to complain about -- from Russian meddling in the election to millions of Democrats and Bernie Sanders supporters either not bothering to vote or voting for Trump.
Then, there was her victory in the popular vote, but her loss to Trump in the antiquated Electoral College.
Yes. She was robbed.
Grocery wars?
The Record's two-part series, "GROCERY WARS," on Page 1 today and Sunday is just window dressing for shameless pandering to Wegmans, a supermarket chain that is expected to advertise heavily in the newspaper.
On Sunday, Staff Writer Joan Verdon reported breathlessly that Wegmans, which is opening a store in Montvale next week, has a "cult-like following," but could face tough competition in Bergen County.
Verdon's first three paragraphs are just bad journalism:
First, she reports company Chairman Danny Wegmans "fell in love" with the family farm on the site, and "dreamed" of the DePieros continuing to run the farm and its "down home" store even after the new supermarket opened.
But Verdon knows that hasn't been in the cards for a couple of years, so why does she try to soften readers' hearts with this sentimental claptrap?
Far-off Montvale
If you read to the end of her story, you find out the chairman of Wegmans picked the borough on the New York State border, instead of central Bergen County, because "I was trying to get near my sister," who lives in Suffern, N.Y., and "wanted a store near her."
Give me a break.
Does Danny Wegmans really expect residents of Hackensack to drive nearly 17 miles on the congested Garden State Parkway and pay tolls to shop at a 108,000-square-foot behemoth he put near his sister's house?
I visited an even bigger Wegmans in Woodbridge in 2011 and 2012, and was shocked at the high prices for fresh, wild-caught fish, and at the mediocre prepared food:
Do we need a Wegmans in Bergen County?
Truth is, we already have two Costco Wholesales, two Whole Foods Markets and plenty of ShopRites and H Marts in Bergen County, and we don't really need Wegmans.
The long-delayed opening of Wegmans might be a shot in the arm for the paper's advertising department, but it's a non-event for tens of thousands of food shoppers.
The Montvale Wegmans was first proposed more than 5 years ago.
More flawed coverage
Sunday's paper also included a special section called "New Jersey Eats" or what the cover said are "51 restaurants you must try."
This is hardly an exhaustive list, missing many of my and, I am sure, your favorites.
Bergen County, the paper's home, is lumped into "North Jersey," and only 7 Bergen restaurants are featured.
But Morris County gets two full pages in the 12-page section.
Dumb column
Staff Writer John Cichowski has been banging out the Road Warrior column for 14 years, and he long ago ran out of anything to say about his commuting beat.
More evidence of his column being on life support was Sunday's pathetic piece on "parking karma."
He claims a Maryland woman, Beverly Silverberg, can "almost always find a parking space" near where she and her husband are going, whether in Rehobeth Beach, Del., or even Manhattan.
What incredible B.S.
More layoffs
Unfortunately, Cichowski and Kelly survived the latest layoffs at North Jersey Media Group, which publishes The Record, Herald News, (201) magazine and about 20 weekly newspapers.
"Newspaper giant Gannett staged a 'mini bloodbath'" at NJMG last Thursday, Keith J. Kelly reported in the New York Post.
About a dozen people were laid off at The Record, the second-largest daily in New Jersey, and other newspapers.
Among them was John Brennan, a news and onetime sports reporter with 30 years' experience who covered the Meadowlands, including the incomplete Xanadu shopping and entertainment complex.
Two editors, Debra Lynn Vial and Carla Baranauckas; and Heather Zwain, a fashion writer, also were laid off.
Those layoffs are on top of about 350 others in two previous waves since Gannett bought NJMG from the Borg family for $40 million in July 2016.
See: A 'mini bloodbath'
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