N. R. Kleinfield’s tick-tock of the Chris Christie/George Washington Bridge scandal looks at how a massive traffic backup became national news:
As a news story, the bridge backup seemed minor. After all, if you were going to write about traffic jams in New Jersey you might as well also report on someone getting a cold sore or the fact that a man had his driveway paved.
But at The Record newspaper in Bergen County, the publisher heard from a friend that it was taking hours to cross the bridge, a tidbit that found its way to John Cichowski, who writes the paper’s “Road Warrior” column. His first thought was, “Oh gosh, the George Washington Bridge is tied up every day.” On the other hand, he reasoned, “I tend to follow up the dumbest things.”
