The media's enduring arrogance

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Don't you hate it when the media decide what is important to you or go on and on about themselves? Today, The Record of Woodland Park has the arrogance to tell readers they were riveted to the computer or TV to hear Tiger Wood's apology, then takes up more valuable space on Page 1 to cover how the media covered the story.

This is nonsense. It must have been a slow news day on Garret Mountain if the Tiger Woods story is all the lazy, desperate, incompetent editors could come up with. The reporting staff must have been in weekend mode, guarding better stories for the Sunday paper -- if they even had better stories -- like so many mice hiding a juicy morsel of cheese.

Sure, Woods is one of the greatest and wealthiest athletes of our time. But he also is a sex-addicted husband with the means to make his fantasies real. The poor schmuck needs help, not the judgment of so-called journalists. Editor Frank Scandale should be ashamed of himself, running gossip on the front page, while his editors and reporters neglect day after day to tell readers what is going on in their towns or hold municipal officials accountable.

There's only one other story on the front today, about the health problems of Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who is 86 and undergoing chemo for stomach cancer. I am sure older readers, who are probably in the majority, are more interested in Lautenberg's health, because they all know people facing the same problems or are heading there themselves.

The thin Saturday paper has little to offer elsewhere. Local has a dramatic story about a police officer who used his cruiser to guide the car of a stricken man to a halt on Route 208, but there is also a lot of Passaic County news and no real news from Bergen County.

Teaneck reporter Joseph Ax can't come up with anything better than a follow on the double murder that was all over the front page yesterday. You'd think Ax, who went to Haiti and spent a week or more away or writing about earthquake victims, would have a backlog of Teaneck stories to report.

Do you think Scott Fallon or another reporter should look into whether a developer gave campaign contributions to Hudson County or North Bergen officials to get approval for a shopping center at the base of the Palisades? Fallon today reports on a court ruling that doesn't stop excavation.

Staff Writer Elisa Ung omits giving prices for the hot drinks promoted on the front of Better Living today, and apparently isn't aware the sake used by Sushi Lounge owner Joe McCafferty -- Yaegaki Dry -- is a really cheap, California-brewed rice wine more suitable for cooking than drinking. Ung describes McCafferty's Tokyo Hottie drink as "crafted" and a "sake-based play on the classic hot toddy." What hype.