The Record calls Trump tweets stressful, but week-long series fails to look inward

Costa Rican cartoonist Arcadio Esquivel commenting on Russian Dictator and Syrian War Criminal Vladimir Putin's latest stunt -- claiming his new "invincible" missile can pierce U.S. defenses. President Trump didn't comment directly on the assertion by his BFF.

White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, a former model, is leaving after testifying she told "white lies" for Trump, including "Your hands are so big and strong," "Your tweeting is bringing the country together" and "You are making America great again," says cartoonist John Darkow of the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune.

 -- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

The Record's weeklong series -- "EVERYBODY IS EXHAUSTED" -- identifies the "non-stop barrage of Presidential tweets" as among the chief causes of "why we're stressed."

"The chaos of life and its collision with technology and tragedy has more of us feeling drained, frazzled and emotionally overrun," Staff Writer Jim Beckerman wrote on Page 1 a week ago.

The series in my local daily newspaper examined the causes, and what we can do about it.

"Politics may actually be stressing you out," The Record reported last Sunday in a Better Living cover story appearing under this headline:

"The Trump effect"

A therapist is quoted as saying some of her patients point directly to President Trump as a major cause of their stress.

Often, his tweets are hateful, and they are always filled with lies, yet the news media seem to take delight in repeating them word for word.

#Gannettruinedmypaper

But the Woodland Park daily left enormous holes in this weeklong report: 

For example, the Gannett Co. takeover in July 2016 has played a big role in stressing out readers -- from the widespread layoffs that deprive them of a full local-news report to the $75-a-year hike in 7-day home delivery of the print edition.

Also missing is how The Record reports almost exclusively on political conflict in Trenton and Washington, ignoring issues and what is good for the people, their state and their nation.

Web going dark

Now, Executive Editor Rick Green has informed readers that starting on Tuesday, "only subscribers" will be able to have full access "to our digital content anytime and anywhere."

"We are limiting access to content on our website [New Jersey.com] and apps for people who do not subscribe," said Green, a Gannett goon who showed no hesitation in axing more than 350 staffers at North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record.

Many readers, who are retired, won't miss smartphone alerts telling them NJ Transit trains are delayed or about the usual 45-minute wait at Hudson River tollbooths.

Nor will they miss NorthJersey.com rewrites of CNN bulletins or Breaking News emails from The New York Times.

Web emphasis

The previous owners put into motion the biggest downsizing in the paper's history in 2008.

About a year later, then-Publisher Stephen A. Borg moved The Record and NJMG headquarters to Woodland Park from Hackensack, where the Borg family had prospered for more than 110 years.

Gannett bought the paper from the Borgs in July 2016, and focused most of its resources on redesigning the lame website.

Meanwhile, Gannett editors gutted the staff of the print edition, and reduced the space devoted to local news from the 90 or so towns in the circulation area, as well as closing about 20 NJMG weeklies.

A redesigned NorthJersey.com shut out the mostly older readers of the print edition, many of whom don't use a computer or smartphone, and wouldn't know an app from an appetizer on an early bird menu.

Doblin leaves

Alfred P. Doblin, who was editorial page editor of The Record, left to take a job with New Jersey Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney, says David Wildstein of NewJerseyGlobe.com (yes, that David Wildstein, who was the feds' star witness in the Bridgegate trial).

Meanwhile, NorthJersey.com's Facebook page
has been revised, and readers will no longer be able to post bad "reviews" of the fading daily or complain about not being able to reach anyone to cancel the paper.

See: What the Borgs started at The Record...

See: Readers slam daily as 'junk'

Lindy Washburn

Lindy Washburn, a veteran reporter who survived the layoffs, continues to do meaningful reporting on her medical beat.

Her byline appears today over a Page 1 investigation of deaths at New Jersey surgery centers (includes reporting by Kaiser Health News).

In January, Washburn exposed the nearly 2 times higher risk of death during childbirth of New Jersey moms, compared to those in other parts of the country, and the even higher risk if they are African-American.

Cartoonist Paresh Nath commenting on the many countries that have intervened in the never-ending Syrian civil war, propping up the regime of President Bashar Al Assad, a war criminal who reportedly is using chemical weapons against civilians.

Cartoonist Dave Granlund envisioning the natural evolution of President Trump's call to arm teachers after a former student killed 17 students or staff members at a Florida high school.

Editors blocked health-insurance success stories until Trump moved to repeal law

Staff Writer John Cichowski, The Record's so-called commuting columnist, rarely ventures far from his computer, preferring to rewrite press releases, as on today's Local front, or publishing emails from readers. He's too lazy to ride trains and buses to report on the quality of service. Above and below, NJ Transit's double-decker rail cars at Newark Penn Station.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

"HOPE, DREAD, UNCERTAINTY"

This headline on Page 1 of The Record today does a great job of summing up the emotions of roughly 800,000 New Jersey residents after President Trump started the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act.

Still, many readers are questioning why the Woodland Park daily is only now publishing success stories about former President Obama's signature health-care law (1A and 8A).

Staff Writer Lindy Washburn, the paper's veteran medical writer, doesn't report how many of those 800,000 New Jerseyans have health coverage for the first time.

Nor do readers learn how many want to see the law repealed or expanded.

A poll released in December by the Kaiser Family Foundation found only 26 percent of Americans were in favor of full repeal of the law, while 30 percent favor expanding it, according to NPR.

The poll found Americans continue to be divided along partisan lines about the law.

"Few brag about having Obamacare," Washburn writes, using the pejorative favored by Republicans who have repeatedly tried but failed to repeal the law since 2010.

Success stories

The story is filled with photos of smiling people whose coverage pays for care in their battles with breast cancer, debilitating heart disease and other conditions.

As in her past coverage, Washburn doesn't mention much of the confusion in New Jersey resulted from Governor Christie's attempt to sabotage the law by refusing to set up a state marketplace for purchase of insurance policies.

Instead, New Jersey residents were thrown onto an overburdened federal marketplace, and their choice of heath insurers has been severely limited. 

However, Christie did take credit for expanding Medicaid for low-income New Jersey residents, but relied completely on federal funds to do so.

Refugee ban

Another Page 1 story today reports Christie called the "rollout" of Trump's executive order temporarily blocking refugees from entering the country "terrible" (1A).

What the story doesn't mention is that after the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, Christie sought to bar all Syrian refugees, including children, from entering the United States.

That was followed by Record stories reporting that churches and social service groups defied the GOP thug, and settled Syrian refugees in North Jersey.

Free electric charging stations in the municipal garage in downtown Englewood.

Local news?

The Record today publishes three stories about Englewood, all by Staff Writer Michael W. Curley Jr. 

Two of the stories explore the many vacant storefronts in downtown Englewood, and a rise of bullying in the small city's public schools (1L and 6L).

But Curley -- and the editors who handled the first story before it was published -- downplay high rents as a leading factor in business vacancies.

The story on bullying in the schools doesn't mention that a bigger problem is segregation -- Englewood's elementary and middle schools are attended by few white students, and desegregation efforts apparently have been focused solely on the high school. 

For past commentary

 on The Record, see:

Eye on The Record