The thinnest of papers

Image by birdphone via Flickr

One thing that jumped out at me after looking over today's thin paper is continued -- even redundant -- coverage of everywhere except Hackensack, Teaneck and Engelwood, the three most diverse towns in The Record of Woodland Park's circulation area.

Do readers really need a second, detailed sob story about wealthy Ridgewood's downtown (photo) on the front of the Local section? What about Cedar Lane merchants and Palisade Avenue merchants and the businesses on Main Street in Hackensack -- the last hit particularly hard by the absence of hundreds of newspaper employees scattered to the wind by the Borg family's North Jersey Media Group?

At least this Ridgewood story tells how greedy officials raised parking meter rates -- a crucial detail left out of the previous story, as we learned from outraged letters to the editor. Was this story intended to correct the earlier story, which I believe ran several months ago, without making the omission more obvious?

On Page 1, I read over a puzzling sentence a couple of times before I realized the news copy editor and the desk supervisor just passed it over on autopilot. In the guilty plea of a hedge fund manager, Staff Writer Andrew Tangel wrote the defendant "didn't face the roughly 40 people in court." Duh. Of course, anyone who has attended a court hearing knows the defendant faces the judge -- not the audience -- but in a sense still comes face-to-face with his accusers. What was the point of saying he didn't "face" the FBI agent, attorneys and investors? It only confuses readers. To add insult to injury, a fact box with a photo of the moron is topped with the words, "Day in court," a phrase usually associated with hard-pressed plaintiffs, not greedy, thieving financiers.

A story promoted on the front page under the headline, "Health care bill could raise costs," reveals that 33 million uninsured Americans would finally be covered. Wouldn't that add to our health-care expenses? The story makes it sound controversial, instead of just common sense.

The Business, Editorial and Better Living pages are throwaways today.


See earlier post: "A modest proposal"