Maya Angelou via last.fmWhat messages are the lazy, incompetent editors at The Record of Woodland Park sending to readers when today's most important story is a sordid, statutory rape case involving a once-great athlete -- a day after the front page highlighted pedophiles in Thailand? Are their minds in the gutter in their desperate bid to sell papers?
The large photo of handcuffed ex-Giant Lawrence Taylor in court only reinforces the impression that to get on Page 1 of The Record, a black man has to be charged with a crime (unless you are President Obama).
After all, the former Hackensack daily has drastically reduced coverage of the three most diverse communities in Bergen County. Yet, a trio of reporters were assigned to the Taylor story.
Wouldn't the celebration of women staged by renowned poet Maya Angelou at Fairleigh Dickinson University have been a far-better choice for the centerpiece on A-1 today (instead of a mere promotion at the bottom of the page)? Or what about the protest by librarians over huge state aid cuts?
Are Editor Frank Scandale and Just-Managing Editor Frank Burgos obsessed with sex crimes? This is what the Borgs and their North Jersey Media Group must mean when they proudly proclaim their commitment to "responsible journalism."
Is their anything redeeming in the Local news section? Check out the ridiculous headline at the bottom of L-1:
Light rail line to use electric cars
Of course, NJ Transit's light-rail system uses electricity, so the headline is the equivalent of saying:
Cars will have gasoline engines
Headline writing at the paper has deteriorated to the point where the only object seems to be getting the paper out, no matter what the stories and headlines say -- or don't say.
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I've been reading your blog for awhile without commenting. But here goes, at the risk of
ReplyDeleteyour retaliation: You make excellent points. It would be a great blog to read every day, IF you left out the name-calling. That gets tiring and I have to brace myself for it and wean out the good stuff. To label people "lazy and incompetent" every single day is a brutal attack on the soul of a human being. No one is perfect and no one can be completely described by the names you can so carelessly fling at them. Leave that out and you are doing a good service, maybe a subscriber will actually write to the Record in agreement with you. It would be hard to do that now, because thoughtful folks might not want to be associated with relentless personal attack.
I really wish you the best.
Many people agree with me that the editors are the weakest part of the operation, and that with them gone, the paper could again achieve greatness. The editors' goal is a newsroom that jumps at their command and never challenges assignments, story play and long-term projects -- no matter how inane. I doubt you or anyone can point to any competency in the editors, from Frank Scandale on down. They always take the easy way -- sex and sensationalism on the front page -- and they fail day in and day out by being unable to inspire their reporters. If the editors were competent, you could not explain the nearly three years wasted on the Michael Mordaga investigation, the laughable Ken Zisa investigation, the anti-light rail tirades from transportation reporter Tom Davis, the broken record Road Warrior John Cichowski has become, and Mike Kelly's inane columns. I could go on, but you get the idea.
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