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| Hackensack and Bergen County. |
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
How much more evidence do we need that head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes is squandering the time and salaries of three reporters at The Record of Woodland Park, chasing allegations against Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa but never publishing the blockbuster everyone expects?
This recalls the nearly three-year pursuit by these same reporters (the paper's three blind mice) of Michael Mordaga, who was chief of detectives for Zisa before he took a similar job with the Bergen County prosecutor.
What did the expenditure of an estimated $500,000 in staff salaries on the Mordaga vendetta produce? A single story Dec. 16 -- not even good enough for the front page -- more than two years after Mordaga's alleged conflict ended.
The Zisa story -- charges of insurance fraud leveled by the prosecutor -- also comes more than two years after an accident invovling the chief's then-girlfriend.
And former Breaking News Editor Jerry DeMarco makes a good argument that his CliffviewPilot.com beat The Record to the story and ensuing developments Thursday and Friday.
With three reporters chasing Zisa, the actual story by Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado was botched in typical Record fashion:
It was crammed into Page 1 under a clunky, two-column headline that didn't even contain Zisa's name -- next to a gee-whiz photo of a toppled crane that was cropped so tightly, it was difficult to make out.
A photographer should have accompanied the reporter who spoke to Zisa, and gotten a photo of the chief leaving police headquarters Thursday evening.
And the story should have been spread across the top of A-1. Only the lazy, incompetent editors -- Sykes is chief among them -- can say why it wasn't.
Maybe it would have cost too much to remake the front page -- just the reason cited when boneheaded Editor Frank Scandale relegated Thomas E. Franklin's incredible 9/11 flag-raising photo to a back page -- likely sinking Franklin's chances for a Pulitzer Prize.
A paragraph that should have appeared on Page 1 (high in the Zisa story) doesn't appear until the end on Page A-8 -- above tag lines for Staff Writers Shawn Boburg and Jean Rimbach, two of the least-productive reporters in the newsroom:
"[Ken] Zisa is a member of a Hackensack political dynasty. His family members have served, at various times, as mayor and deputy mayor, deputy police chief and city counsel."Why hasn't The Record -- even during all its years in Hackensack -- ever published an expose of the Zisa family, the nepotism and the police chief's alleged use of police officers to conduct his private business?
Did the powerful Borg and Zisa familiies come to some understanding? Is this the kind of "responsible journalism" North Jersey Media Group claims to be so proud of? (Map: Hackensack.)
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Might it be a onetime-ally-turned-foe, one whose rep has never been smudged by the RSR's newsprint? (Oh, wait; they're on Squirrelwood Road now.) Might this person have found the right tool to carry out vendettas vs. these men? (Bonus points if you can figure out the agitator & the editor who got played.)
ReplyDeleteYes, Vicster, if you want to lay it, you just might find a pattern -- an agenda, if you will -- the kind of thing that, in other quarters, leads to whispers of conspiracy.
Sure, I could ask: What does it that a single 52yo pro can beat you not only to the biggest story of 2010, if not the past several years?
Ask ANY reporter who ever worked for me -- there were plenty -- and they'll tell you I had a single hard/fast rule: Don't get beat in our backyard....I guess the Woodland Park chief would have to be arrested for that to be considered here.
But there's a much more important distinction, & you've finally begun to expose it, Mr. Sasson: That is, exactly who is serving whom here?
"Friend of the people it serves"? More like "Friend of the a-hole buddy" who, in the end, still got the preferred heads on a platter -- except for Mordaga's -- thanks to honest, hard-working, patient, fair & deliberate law enforcers.
Maybe that's why they changed the slogan.
I say change it again: "If it's news, it's news to us."
I'm goin' away for awhile, my friend. Gonna put some genuine energy into the site. Maybe I'll continue to have weeks like this, & I won't end up with Sunday stories about volcanic ash or other developments my readers consider important.
While I'm gone: Give 'em hell, brother....
"Competition is good for business," someone I highly respect told me recently.
ReplyDeleteIt's also extremely satisfying when you enter a race as a single long-distance runner vs. a squadron of sprinters -- and STILL win. Got the timestamps to prove it, too.
Sure, they get their share of firsts. But shouldn't that be the standard when you have such resources?
I agree with you. But I believe the "understanding" isn't with KZ.
They went after Coniglio, but the feds got him first. Same with Ferriero.
Then came Mordaga -- oh, how they went after the former friend of the family, the "Clint Eastwood" of cops, jokingly known in the old newsroom as "the house dick" (that's a noir-era term for detective, young'uns). But Mike retired & they found no evidence of any wrongdoing. Boy, would I love to be HIS lawyer.
Running out of targets, they had one more crawdad hole left to find that big fish that so long has eluded them, the one that would get them some kind of cred in the industry -- which they don't seem to realize doesn't translate into ad revenue, & matters less to readers than Charlie Sheen leaving "2 1/2 Men."
Molinelli is squeaky clean -- and, boy, can he take a punch: Remember, he survived the cruise fiasco without a scratch (My "pal"? So what about it? Bring what he & his staff do every day & maybe I'll consider buying you lunch). So he wasn't an option.
The only target left was an old stand-by. They had the sources at their fingertips (they love to make phone calls instead of actually talking face-to-face). They even did a rimjob on Bobby Egan, KZ's sworn enemy & a crackpot from the word "go." Still, they couldn't pull the trigger.
So what happens? Molinelli's crew, w/ a little help from his feds, got Zisa first. And when Kenny blurted it out to staff, who immediately got calls? Yep: me.
So what did all the "investigative reporting" produce? The kind of work both Clints -- Taplin & Riley, newshounds who span generations -- would have laughed at. The kind Ritt/ McGarvey/ Cunnigham would've Jackson Pollock-ed with a grease pencil.
They didn't even explain to us how "Charles" begets the nickname "Ken."
So what say we raise a question: What do all these "targets" have in common?