Large and small news media are killing us with political conflict, sowing voter apathy

Evangelicals supporting President Trump are relieved the porn star he screwed didn't get pregnant and have an abortion, says Jimmy Margulies, a nationally syndicated cartoonist. On Friday night, satirist Bill Maher noted she was the first porn star paid to keep her mouth closed.

Here, Margulies expresses skepticism about the overweight 71-year-old's clean bill of health, given that the New York billionaire's favorite foods are cheeseburgers, steaks and huge slices of chocolate cake.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

Editor's note: The end of this post has been updated to include mention of a flawed article about Hackensack that ran in The New York Times' Real Estate section.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

For as long as I can remember, the most overused words in news media coverage of government are "Republican" and "Democrat."

The media know partisan conflict makes headlines, and there is nothing more infuriating than those TV sound bites from President Trump, Mitch McConnell and Democratic leaders.

Newspapers and TV anchors reduced to a blame game the chaotic government shutdown on the first anniversary of Trump's inauguration as the illegitimate president.

Saturday's Page 1 headline in The Record, the Gannett-owned local daily newspaper, couldn't be clearer:

"CONGRESS

"Midnight deadline passes

after Democrats block

GOP's stopgap plan"

The media -- large and small -- seem incapable of covering government by discussing issues, and taking a stand on what is good for the nation, New Jersey and their people.

And the relentless focus on partisan politics causes widespread voter apathy; tens of millions of Americans, many of them Democrats, simply don't vote, which is how the Liar-In-Chief got into office in the first place.

Coal and fish

The other night, I watched Major Garrett, White House correspondent for CBS News, struck dumb when Trump's environmental protection administrator said he refuses to favor renewable solar and wind energy over other forms, including coal.

Garrett could have pointed out that emissions from coal generating plants kill people prematurely or that they are linked to mercury in fish, but didn't.

What would EPA Czar Scott Pruitt say to that? I guess we'll never know.

Governor Murphy

Phil Murphy was sworn in as New Jersey's 56th governor last Tuesday.

But by Thursday, his pledge to raise the minimum wage to $15, and his executive order tightening rules on disclosing gifts weren't considered front-page news in The Record.

In fact, the Woodland Park daily has been running a series of news stories and columns suggesting Murphy might be "too liberal" for New Jersey -- echoing the lie-filled gubernatorial campaign of Kim Guadagno, who was lieutenant governor under Chris Christie, the worst governor in state history.

And The Record, often referred to as The Wretched, ignored Governor Murphy's non-partisan tweet on inauguration day:

Governor Phil Murphy‏Verified account @GovMurphy Jan 16

I urge you to join us on the road forward. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. We all share a common destiny. We must undertake a common cause. #NewDayNJ

39 replies 46 retweets 229 likes

 

Tarnished, not golden

Take a look at today's Opinion page (1O), which is dominated by a guest columnist, Carl Golden, who claims: 

"One essential truth emerged from Gov. Phil Murphy's inaugural address on Tuesday: It will be a metaphysical impossibility to get to his left. New Jersey has not been governed in modern history by a chief executive so unabashedly and unapologetically left of center."

Golden is a onetime Record reporter who went on to become chief spokesman for two of New Jersey's most conservative governors, Tom Kean and the other Christie -- Christie Whitman -- so the column about Murphy, a Democrat, is no surprise.

And The Record takes pains to hide Golden's conservative past by identifying him at the end of the column only as "a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University" (4O).

Golden; Charles Stile, The Record's political columnist; and Staff Writer Dustin Racioppi, who was assigned to cover Murphy after years of covering Christie, know "left" and "liberal" are loaded descriptions for progressive Democrats like Murphy.

They seem only interested in creating conflict and making headlines in their coverage of the new governor -- lots of heat, but no light. 

Food coverage?

The Record's Better Living cover today claims "one of the season's best dining deals" is Hudson Restaurant Week (Jan. 22-Feb. 2), when restaurants offer three-course lunches and dinners "for $40 and under."

But there is no mention that a far better deal can be found across the Hudson during New York City's Restaurant Week (Jan. 22-Feb. 9), when hundreds of restaurants offer three-course lunches for $29 and three-course dinners for $42.

Saturday's Better Living cover purported to report on the top cheese shops in North Jersey, but Food Editor Esther Davidowitz somehow omitted the incredible selection of cheeses -- as well as free samples -- at  Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood.

Taxing hospital

Friday's Record brought some good news for home and business owners in Hackensack, where property taxes are unusually high because of all the tax-exempt property located in the city of 45,000.

The City Council is renewing its attempt to get one those non-profits, Hackensack University Medical Center, to "pay some of the estimated $19 million" in taxes it would owe every year, if HUMC wasn't tax exempt, The Record reported.

In a 2015 settlement, the hospital agreed to pay Hackensack $4.5 million over three years, resolving several issues, including tax appeals on four hospital properties.

Upbeat article

Many Hackensack residents were pleased last week after The New York Times published an upbeat profile of the city under this headline:

Hackensack, N.J.: Small, Ethnically Diverse and Affordable

But in the comments section, others noted flaws in the piece, including absolutely no mention of the high property taxes home and business owners pay to make up for the tens of millions of dollars in revenue withheld by such non-profits as Hackensack University Medical Center.

That omission was especially glaring because the article was published in The Times' Real Estate section.

Noisy jets

There also was no mention of the biggest quality of life issue: 

Endless noise from the business and celebrity jets at Teterboro Airport that pass over the Fairmount section and Prospect Avenue high-rises.

The article was written by Jay Levin, a reporter at The Record who was laid off last year.

Levin spent many years crafting expanded obituaries of prominent local residents, but his flawed Hackensack article shows he may be out of practice writing about the living.

9/11: Trump apologists are everywhere; photog has bittersweet memories of attack

Cartoonist Michael Ramirez mixing images in commenting on the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the deadliest on America soil. The title of his cartoon is "9/11-Never Forget."

From Brooklyn Heights, cartoonist Sean Delonas says "the real Twin Towers" were the police officers and firefighters who lost their lives trying to save others after the collapse of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

 HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

You'd think the reporters and editors of The Record, my local daily newspaper, would know why America is so divided 16 years after we swiftly came together to heal our wounds from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

But in marking last Monday's anniversary, Columnist Mike Kelly wrote on Page 1 of the Woodland Park daily:

"In the months after the 9/11 attacks, the nation seemed remarkably united -- no 'red' or 'blue' states, just red-white-and blue America.

"But then, we sank back into our angry, divisive ways.... What happened?"

Kelly must have been kidding or maybe he was just desperate for something fresh to discuss in what was his third 9/11 column in three days (two Kelly columns ran on Sunday's front page and Opinion front).

Obama, Trump

I'll be glad to answer his question:

What happened, of course, was the election of our first black president, Barack Obama, in 2008 and his reelection in 2012.

What happened, of course, was New York billionaire Donald J. Trump's years-long campaign to demonize Obama as a Muslim who was born outside the United States, and, thus, allegedly was an illegitimate president. 

What happened, of course, were Republicans in Congress who vowed to oppose every Obama initiative, and the news media ignoring health care, the environment and other important issues to focus relentlessly on politics and partisan conflict and gridlock.

And what happened, of course, was Trump's 2016 presidential campaign of endless lies that swept him into office riding the greatest tide of racism and white supremacy since the Civil War.

Kelly, who was a persistent critic of Obama, ignores virtually all of that (1A and 6A in Tuesday's Record).

Again on Thursday, "Trump thrust himself back into the racial storms of Charlottesville," The New York Times reported, "repeating his charges that those resisting the neo-Nazis and white supremacists were as much to blame as the alt-right crowds who marched on the Virginia college town last month." 

A U.S. postage stamp used Thomas E. Franklin's famous photo.

Tom Franklin

Every anniversary of 9/11 must be bittersweet for Thomas E. Franklin, the onetime Record photographer who captured the iconic image of firefighters defiantly raising the American flag over the rubble of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Instead of winning the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, Franklin is listed as a finalist.

The Pulitzer, long the most prestigious award in journalism, went to the staff of The New York Times "for its consistently outstanding photographic coverage of the terrorist attack on New York City and its aftermath."

No one can know why Franklin lost, but the decision by editors against remaking the front page of The Record for his remarkable photo likely was a big factor.

On the biggest story The Record has ever covered, the editors -- including Frank Scandale and Vivian Waixel -- argued it would cost too much to tear up Page 1, so the photo ran on a back page of one of the sections of the paper on Sept. 12, 2001.

In doing so, they completely overrode Rich Gigli, the photography director at the time, who saw Franklin's photo as The Record's chance to publish a unique Page 1 image unlike what every other paper had.

What The Record and every other paper published on the front page the next day was the Twin Towers smoking after terrorists flew two commercial airliners into them.

How close was The Record to the story?

On Sept. 11, 2001, reporters and editors in the Hackensack newsroom only had to glance up from their computers and look out the large windows to see the ominous black column of smoke rising from the ruins of the World Trade Center in Manhattan.

Franklin is now an assistant professor at Montclair State University.

See: 2002 Pulitzer Prizes

Jimmy Margulies, who once was the editorial cartoonist at The Record, seems to be reaching here.

Cartoonist Joe Heller on the 9/11 anniversary debate over "Never Forget" or "Always Remember." A woman holding photos of victims says, "Actually, they're forever on my mind."

Thursday's paper

On Thursday, a front-page story on NJ Transit's "crazy funding" reported that "15 years ago," the state's mass transit agency began receiving $350 million a year from the state's general fund.

But by 2015, "that amount had dwindled to $33 million" (6A in Thursday's Record).

The reporter, Curtis Tate, doesn't identify Governor Christie as the culprit who slashed state aid to NJ Transit by more than 90%.

Slighted in death, too

As I noted last Sunday, Elaine D'Aurizio of Wayne was mistreated badly in her last years as a columnist and reporter at The Record, where she worked for more than 30 years.

Elaine, who left the paper in 2010, died on Sept. 6. She was 76.

She was the paper's first and so far only female news columnist, reporting and writing a column called Above and Beyond for about a decade. 

The column celebrated the heroics of first responders and ordinary people who risked their lives to save others during emergencies.

But Scandale, the editor at the time, stripped her of her column, and also took away the only columns written by black and Hispanic staffers.

$10,000 pay cut

Elaine's pay also was cut by $10,000 a year on the orders of then-Publisher Stephen A. Borg.

A couple of her former colleagues wrote condolences on NorthJersey.com that I published last Sunday.

But inexplicably, former copy editor/reporter Jay Levin agreed to send me a tribute to Elaine, but asked me to withhold his name, even though he worked with her and edited many of her columns.

He did use his name in writing a condolence that appeared on a Facebook page called "Bergen Record Cast of Characters," which is closed to the public, including readers of the paper who knew Elaine or her work.

Levin, who wrote expanded local obituaries for The Record, was one of about 50 reporters and editors laid off in March by Gannett Co., the paper's new owner. 

See: Male editors made life miserable

 for female columnist

Trump presidency has reached crossroads, but no hint on front page of The Record

In this cartoon, freelancer Trevor Irvin quotes President Trump saying, "I have No Problem Testi-Lying Under Oath" about his conversations with James Comey before he fired the FBI director.

Cartoonist Randall Enos pits Comey against "Over Comby."

 -- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Last week's top story is what the national news media are calling President Trump's pushing back against the damning testimony of fired FBI Director James Comey.

But on the front page of The Record of Woodland Park today, there's no mention that Comey's account of his interactions with Trump "could present a prosecutable case of obstruction of justice," as The New York Times puts it.

Record Editor Richard A. Green, the Gannett Co. hatchet man who has dispatched 350 employees so far, had only three main elements to play with on the front of the Sunday edition.

Selling out

So, many readers question the Page 1 play for a multi-million dollar makeover of a mall that is one of the paper's biggest advertisers (1A).

Staff Writer Joan Verdon, who has covered the retailing beat for more than a decade, notes that construction doesn't begin until the mall closes at 9 p.m.

Of course, Verdon can't describe The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack -- with Tiffany, Louis Vuitton and other ultra-high end retailers -- as the ghost town it is during the week.

Instead, she notes, "the floors are polished to a shine, the storefront windows are gleaming, and the mood is quiet and serene" (1A).

Jeff Sessions

But back on Page 4A today, an Associated Press story reports Attorney General Jeff Sessions has agreed to appear before the same Senate intelligence panel that heard Comey on Thursday -- as tens of millions of Americans watched on TV.

Sessions was forced to recuse himself in March from the Justice Department probe of Russian meddling in the election after lying about his contacts with Russian officials during the campaign.

Comey raised additional questions at Thursday's Capitol Hill hearing, "saying that the FBI expected Sessions to recuse himself weeks before he actually did," the AP reports, adding Comey declined to elaborate in open session. 

Hole in one

Below that story, USA Today reports Ed Russo, Bedminster's Planning Board chairman, "lectured Trump about the thickets of regulations designed to make it almost impossible to build a golf course" on the 500-acre estate once owned by automaker John DeLorean (4A).

"I'm worth 6 billion dollars and no little town ... is going to tell me what to do," Russo remembers Trump roaring back at the meeting nearly 20 years ago.

The president is playing golf at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster this weekend -- the equivalent of fiddling while Washington, D.C., burns.

Opinion columns

Today's Record does carry two opinion columns about Comey (Opinion section).

Columnist Mike Kelly says Comey wasn't "Captain Courageous" in his conversations with Trump.

Comey testified the president directed him to drop the probe of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's contact with Russian officials, and sought assurances he wasn't personally under investigation.

"He was Willy Loman -- the ordinary guy who just tried to plod ahead in the face of problems," Kelly says of Comey (1O).

I'm sure readers overwhelmed Google with "who is Captain Courageous and Willy Loman?"

However, editorial writer Bruce Lowry said in his column, "Comey came across as decent, intelligent, and most of all, credible" (2O).

"Indeed, the more I watched, the more I listened, the more I wished it was Comey occupying the White House, and Trump the one on the outside looking in."

Expanded obituaries

Fully half of Page 3A today is devoted to Adam West, who played Batman on TV in the 1960s.

In addition to running his obituary from USA Today, the editors asked Staff Writer Rodrigo Torrejon, normally assigned to cover Hackensack, to contact fans and comic book lovers for reaction to West's death at 88.

The deaths of prominent North Jersey residents were once accorded this kind of attention, but only a couple of those expanded obituaries have appeared since Staff Writer Jay Levin was laid off in March.

He wrote those expanded local obituaries for more than a decade.  In the months before he was laid off, Levin also began writing tributes to residents who have remained active into their 90s.

Local news?

The front of the Local news section today is dominated by a story on "wonder dogs" and "all things canine" at the Meadowlands Expo Center in Secaucus (1L).

Although there are nearly 90 towns in the circulation area, only eight are mentioned in other stories.

Five of those stories are from Bergen County, which has 70 towns and the vast majority of the paper's readers.  

The Record cut expanded local obits, now praises 'towering figure' in running world

This AP photo shows President Trump greeting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni as he arrived at the White House on Thursday. Later, Trump called Italian opera legend Luciano Pavarotti, who died in 2007, "a great friend." 

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In the latest round of layoffs about a month ago, The Record let go of the only reporter who was writing expanded obituaries and profiles of other prominent local residents who are still active in their 90s.

Yet, in the first local obituary since the departure of Staff Writer Jay Levin, Editor Richard A. Green wastes half of Page 1 today on the death of a track coach whom the vast majority of readers never heard of (1A).

Tom Fleming, 65, also was a two-time winner of the New York Marathon when the race was run in Central Park -- more than 40 years ago. 

How does that make him a "towering figure" in the world of running?

And he lived in Bloomfield, which isn't even in The Record's circulation area.

The Fleming obituary, written by a part-time sports reporter, includes the use of a euphemism, "he passed away" -- which has long been banned by newspapers -- instead of "died" (1A).

Trump senility

It's bad enough a senile President Trump called a dead opera singer "a great friend" on Thursday (5A).

After the Rolling Stones, Adele and R.E.M. told Trump to stop using their music during the 2016 campaign, the family of Luciano Pavarotti in Italy made the same request regarding an aria.

Pavarotti died in 2007 at the age of 71.

Background checks

A letter to the editor on Thursday noted April 16 marked the 10th anniversary of the mass shooting at Virginia Tech University, where a gunman killed 32 people, including a student from Holmdel.

"There have been more than 250 school shootings in America in the last five years alone.

"How many [more] must die because lax background-check laws allow the dangerously mentally ill to legally obtain guns," said Brett Sabo, the letter writer.

"We must keep guns out of the wrong hands."

In an online column Thursday, Mike Kelly wrote about the shooting of a Cleveland grandfather by an "angry man" -- captured live on Facebook -- and called for the cleanup of the social networking site.

Kelly makes no mention of the need for universal background checks.

In a Sunday column, Kelly inexplicably compared the doctor who was dragged off a United Airlines flight to Rodney King, who was beaten by racist Los Angeles police officers after a high-speed chase in 1991.

Perhaps this veteran columnist has a screw or two loose.

Wrong-way CEO

Amtrak CEO Charles W. Moorman had Staff Writer Paul Berger eating out of his hands in a Page 1 story on Thursday.

Berger reported Moorman rode "in a special carriage on the back of an Amtrak train" and looked at the Northeast Corridor rail line receding in the distance.

Berger, who was seated next to the rail executive, didn't question why Moorman was staring at where Amtrak has been -- including two major derailments at New York Penn Station in recent weeks -- instead of where the passenger railroad should be going.

The reporter also didn't question the choice of Moorman to head Amtrak after spending four decades at a "freight railroad operation."

Food Editor Esther Davidowitz calls a hummus restaurant in Englewood "this darling, tiny spot."

Kosher-food scam

In today's Better Living section, Food Editor Esther Davidowitz perpetrates bait-and-switch with a feature on kosher restaurants in Bergen County (1BL, 10BL and 11 BL).

Davidowitz never explains why food prepared according to Jewish religious and dietary laws costs so much more than non-kosher food.

There is nothing in her article that would justify the high prices. She never says whether the kosher meat and poultry served in the restaurants she praises is organic or even naturally raised.

Apparently, the cut taken by rabbis and ritual slaughterers gets added to the bill.

Which explains why you'd have to fork over $11 for humble hummus at Hummus Elite in Englewood or pay an outrageous $49 for an entree of veal medallions at NoBo Wine & Grill in Teaneck.

Just imagine how those poor calves suffered to fatten the bottom line of kosher restaurant owners.

FBI, NSA say Obama wiretapping is just another BIG LIE from President Trump

Cartoonist Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News is referring to proposed Republican cuts to the Public Broadcasting System, left, and the endless stream of falsehoods and baseless nonsense from President Trump.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Trump administration is singing "Gloomy Monday" after FBI and NSA officials testified there is no evidence that Barack Obama wiretapped Donald J. Trump's campaign headquarters before the election.

In effect, intelligence officials liken President Trump's tweets to so much bird poop.

As the president's approval rating hits a new low, Page 1 of The Record runs down all the bad news for the Liar-In-Chief:

"The FBI and Justice Department do not believe Obama wiretapped Trump.

"The FBI is investigating whether Russia interrfered with the 2016 election.

"The FBI is also looking into links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

"The U.S. did not seek help from the British to conduct surveillance" (1A).

According to the The New York Times' opinion page today:

"He lies the way no American politician has lied before. The occasional untruths that other recent presidents have spoken — often unwittingly — do not compare with the frequency, intensity and deliberateness with which Donald Trump offers falsehoods.

"Monday brought the remarkable spectacle of the director of the F.B.I., James Comey, calling out the president of the United States for being untruthful. Even more remarkable, Comey acknowledged that the F.B.I. was investigating possible collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government."

Front page

The rest of The Record's front page is a waste.

Readers wonder why Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson is reporting for the umpteenth time that Sen. Bob Menendez "expects to be vindicated of corruption charges when he goes on trial in September" (1A).

After all, Jackson has no independent knowledge of the evidence against the senior New Jersey senator; he's just parroting a defense attorney who is paid hundreds of dollars a hour to say just that, as long as he can fool gullible reporters like Jackson to quote him.

Menendez, a Democrat, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he took $1 million in bribes in return for using his office to benefit his long-time friend, Florida eye specialist Salomon Melgen.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Menendez's bid to overturn the indictment.

Melgen is on trial in a Florida federal court for allegedly bilking Medicare out of as much as $105 million.

Dog of a story

I'm for keeping animal stories off of Page 1, such as today's piece on Rocco, a dog that calms seniors with dementia.

Human news is far more important.

Today's story is by Jay Levin, the local obituary writer who is one of the 141 North Jersey Media Group employees Gannett is laying off this week.

Levin also was assigned to an "aging beat."

On Monday, most of The Record's front page was taken up by two large photos of a Teaneck father and his son, who were both ordained as rabbis.

But that was just a teaser for the actual story and a third photo, which appeared on the Local news front.

Many readers are wondering whether the Reinsteins got so much attention and space, because Gannett editors were desperate to fill huge holes in their news pages as more and more newsroom employees are let go.