Not on list of Pulitzer finalists this year

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The Asbury Park Press and Star-Ledger were finalists this year in the Pulitzer Prize journalism competition, but The Record of Woodland Park wasn't -- despite sacrificing local news to carry on investigations that stretch on and on under the unsteady guidance of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, whose weird and constant  laughter in the newsroom drives coworkers crazy. (Photo: Pulitzer Prize.)

The 2010 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting went to a series that sounds suspiciously like an investigation The Record did in 2005 or 2006 about a privately run preschool program for minority children led by Jean Rimbach, a reporter whose byline appears infrequently -- a two-year gap in not unusual. (Rimbach led the pathetic, Sykes-inspired vendetta against Michael Mordaga that took nearly three years and resulted in a single, weak L-1 story.) Here is the citation:

Awarded to Raquel Rutledge of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for her penetrating reports on the fraud and abuse in a child-care program for low-wage working parents that fleeced taxpayers and imperiled children, resulting in a state and federal crackdown on providers.

 I was on the news copy desk and edited Rimbach's series. The first of three parts ran under my headline:

"PUBLIC MONEY, PRIVATE GREED"

I had to make the headline strong because the stories were so weak and full of holes, despite the many months devoted to them. I recall going to Sykes with questions and concerns about the stories, and her replying, "We didn't get that." or "We're not going there."

When the series won a minor journalism prize, a story in The Record never gave me credit for my role -- typical of how Sykes and her assignment desk treated copy editors like shit. Even my supervisors, Vinny Byrne and Nancy Cherry, failed to mention my several days of work on the series in my performance review.