Editor has blood on his hands

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A cardboard display advertises "Call of Duty: Black Ops."

Isn't it likely that Editor Francis Scandale saw visions of another blood-stained Pulitzer Prize in his future when he heard about the Columbine-like threats at a high school in Demarest? After all, Scandale was one of the editors who helped the Denver Post win the ultimate journalism award for its coverage of the original massacre in 1999.

Is that why the story is all over Page 1 in The Record of Woodland Park today? How credible was the threat at Northern Valley Regional? There is hardly anything more in the story than an anonymous tip that "four Asian males had been overheard discussing a planned school shooting."

Let's hope the discussion wasn't about "Call of Duty: Black Ops," the violent video game that sold 7 million copies on Tuesday.

The rest of A-1 is dreadful. Governor Christie apparently remained barricaded in his office for a second day without commenting on federal officials' demand that NJ Transit repay $271 million, plus interest and penalties, already spent on the Hudson River rail tunnels he killed.

To make matters worse, the story regurgitates seven or eight paragraphs of the Christie administration's line on the state's "fiscal challenges" -- with absolutely no reference to the hundreds of millions of dollars lost because the Republican refuses to impose a special tax on millionaires or raise the low gas tax a few cents on his wealthy, gas-guzzling buddies to rescue the Transportation Trust Fund.

The third A-1 story is another well-reported piece by Staff Writer Elise Young, but does anybody in North Jersey give a hoot about the Union County Improvement Authority or a low-income housing project in Elizabeth. Oh, wait a minute. Scandale worked at the Elizabeth Daily Journal, too.

All Scandale has done in nearly 10 years at The Record is talk about what he did in Denver and as a business reporter for Reuters wire service -- while failing at just about everything he tried in Hackensack. 

Sykes falls on her face again

If A-1 is much ado about nothing, what explains today's Local section, the pride and joy of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes?

There are four major stories about development here and there, but I have seen nothing about several residential or commercial construction projects in Hackensack. The most prominent story on L-1 recounts testimony at a murder trial. 

The lead paragraph of the Closter Plaza story on L-1 could have been done in a sentence instead of weighing down readers with the stiff formality of a court ruling: 

"Closter won't be getting a Whole Foods Market any time soon." 

But, of course, Sykes' lazy, incompetent assistant assignment editors are incapable of such clear and concise journalism.

Also on L-1, Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski writes about pedestrian safety in Tuscon, Ariz., and Woodbridge, but nothing about North Jersey. And he ignores a two-day forum the National Transportation Safety Board opened on elderly driver accidents.

Downplaying Teaneck merger

Why does Sykes bury the unraveling of the biggest consolidation move in years on L-3, where Staff Writer Joseph Ax reports Teaneck is bowing to opposition from the police union on the approved merger of the Police and Fire Departments? 

That would have saved taxpayers $250,000 a year, and could have been replicated in Englewood and Hackensack, though the paper's lazy editors never explored those possibilities.

Silence of the lambs

In Better Living, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill's "In Your Kitchen" column dissects a long cookbook recipe for lamb chops, but provides absolutely no guidance on finding meat that has been raised naturally. 

"In my household ... we love lamb," she tells readers. Isn't that nice?