Omitting, rewriting or fudging Christie history is lowest form of journalism by far

President Trump's attempts to derail the Russia investigation by firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller and demonizing the FBI are reflected in cartoons by Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, above, and freelancer Milt Priggee, below.

IN DAVOS, FOREIGN PRESS

 BOO 'FAKE NEWS' TRUMP

 --HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

In the nearly three months since Phil Murphy was elected governor of New Jersey, my local daily newspaper has been rewriting the eight years Chris Christie reigned as the worst chief executive in state history.

Editors, columnists and reporters at The Record, a Gannett-owned daily, seem to have been struck with amnesia.

A week ago, a front-page column ran under this headline:

"Gov. Murphy
must earn his
$175,000 salary"

In just his third paragraph, burned-out political columnist Charles Stile penned this fiction:

"Voters gave [Governor] Christie, and his penchant for lavish perks and his colorful, sometimes abrasive behavior, a wide berth because he was on the job, getting things done. He was earning his pay."

Getting things done?

Like destroying the environment? Like executing more than 600 vetoes to kill a tax surcharge on millionaires, a $15 minimum wage and other progressive bills approved by the state Legislature?

Violated Constitution

On Page 1 the very next day, readers of the Woodland Park daily learned Christie borrowed nearly $1 billion to renovate the State House and two other projects -- "all without asking permission from voters, as required by the state's constitution."

We need more debt like we need a hole in our collective heads.

The day after that an editorial blasted Christie for seven years of "head-in-the-sand thinking" -- pulling New Jersey out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, "a coalition of nine New England and mid-Atlantic states that require utilities to buy credits for each ton of carbon they emit." 

The goal of the multi-state coalitions is to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and slow climate change.

Destroyed transit

Also last week, a front-page story reported Governor Murphy ordered a comprehensive audit of the state's troubled commuter rail and bus agency, NJ Transit, which has raised fares, cut service, and neglected maintenance and safety improvements.

Remarkably, reporters Curtis Tate and Dustin Racioppi never mentioned Christie, who put the agency on the ropes beginning in 2015.

How could they forget Christie cut the direct state subsidy to NJ Transit's operating budget to $33 million in 2015 from $348 million in 2009, the year before he took office, according to The New York Times' New Jersey Transit, A Cautionary Tale of Neglect.

See: Good riddance to Chris Christie


Local news?

One of the biggest impediments to stronger penalties against drivers who kill pedestrians in crosswalks is John Cichowski, who has written The Record's Road Warrior column for more than 14 years.

On Thursday, he devoted an entire front-page column to praise "traffic reform" after graduate student Weiqi Wang, a native of China, was fatally injured crossing the street in November 2016 in front of Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Cichowski doesn't call for stronger, criminal penalties against drivers who kill pedestrians.

Nor does he mention that Carlos A. Poole, 49, of New Milford, identified by police as the driver of the car that struck her, was issued only three motor-vehicle summonses for violating a 2010 law that drivers must stop for pedestrians in crosswalks.


Food coverage

Like coverage of local news, The Record's food coverage is going from bad to worse:

On Jan. 20, a Better Living cover story on "top cheese shops in North Jersey" ignored Jerry's Gourmet & More, the Englewood store that has one of the best selections of cheese in North Jersey as well as numerous free samples. 

Then on Wednesday, the Better Living cover puzzled readers with this headline:

"14 FOOLPROOF KITCHEN HACKS"

Kate Morgan Jackson, a food blogger also known as the Queen of Cholesterol, offered a "few smart [kitchen] tricks and tips," such as using a "vegetable peeler to dot butter" (3BL).

The word "hack" was never defined; one definition is "a writer or journalist [like Jackson] producing dull, unoriginal work."

Despite Russian meddling in the 2016 election and the chaos of his first year in office, President Trump is expected to claim during his State of the Union speech on Tuesday the country is stronger and better than ever before, as shown in this cartoon by freelancer Dave Granlund. 

Trump booed

I doubt cowardy White House reporters or others in the United States will follow the lead of members of the foreign press who booed President Trump in Switzerland last week.

Trump was complaining about the news media again, and lamenting how "mean," "nasty" and  "fake" the press can be.

You can hear the boos in this piece from the Huffington Post:

Trump booed at Davos