Paper turns back on readers again

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Will New York City's No. 7 subway be Lucky 7 for North Jersey commuters?

The news copy desk at The Record of Woodland Park is in disarray. The stupid headlines are bad, but it's the inaccurate ones that annoy most of all. The copy desk, where I worked for 19 years, once had high standards, and copy editors who didn't meet them got poor performance reviews. Now, anything goes.

And the safety net -- proofing the early, so-called good copies of the paper just off the press -- was ripped away by Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who moved printing from Hackensack to Rockaway Township more than three years ago.


Stupid headline of the week

Virtually all of The Record's circulation is in North Jersey, so what do you make of the moronic streamer above the masthead on A-1 today? What dummy wrote it, what dummy approved it?

TAKE THE SUBWAY TO SECAUCUS? IT'S ONE IDEA ON THE TABLE. A-4

That streamer is of no interest to North Jersey residents. You wouldn't be able to "take the subway to Secaucus" unless you live in Manhattan, because the plan is to extend the subway from Manhattan to Secaucus, so North Jerseyans arriving at the huge transfer station by rail or car have another way to get into the city. 

After all, the new subway plan would use federal funds left over from the Hudson River rail tunnels Governor Christie killed based on his wife's complaint. She moaned and groaned that after getting off the train at a proposed new station under Macy's, she'd have to walk too far to catch a subway in Manhattan.

Are there any other exciting, mass-transit proposals to replace the rail tunnels? Who knows? You wouldn't know mass transit is the only solution to the region's infamous traffic congestion, because not one but two transportation reporters today are all worked up over airport scanners.

First, Staff Writer Karen Rouse has what amounts to a huge graphics package on Page 1 about the scanners, accompanied by two sidebars on A-6. Then, Road Warrior John Cichowski tries to gain altitude with an entire column about them on the front of Local. 

Rouse is Editor Francis Scandale's pet (he brought her all the way from Denver, site of his glory days), and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes thinks Chick is the cat's meow. Often, she can be seen stroking his hair as he turns another phrase.

Airport security is working

I dislike airport security as much as anyone, but in return for the inconvenience, I get to live in a country where planes aren't blown up; hotels and other buildings aren't destroyed by terrorists and I can shop for food without updating my will.

What really troubles me is how both Rouse and Cichowski disdain commuters, especially the poor souls who are stuck with NJ Transit's decrepit local bus system, which uses decades-old white elephants that are literally falling apart -- in stark contrast to buses on Manhattan routes that are changed every decade or so.

Rouse is especially disappointing, because as an African-American journalist, she has turned her back on fellow blacks and a sizable number of Hispanic residents who can't afford cars and must rely on local buses. Cichowski, under pressure to fill space, is just lazy.

Scandale is a joke

Scandale today, for the second day in a row, squanders more A-1 space on the Meadowlands Racetrack, when New Jersey Network, which is far more important to state residents, faces extinction (A-3). 

Someone must have lit a fire under Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano, who has two more Englewood stories on L-1 and L-3 today -- her 10th and 11th stories since Nov. 5. She actually had three in Tuesday's paper. 

Unfortunately, she tends to ignore what's really going on in Englewood, including schools with few  white students, an embarrassing number of empty downtown storefronts and traffic tie-ups worthy of Manhattan.

Sykes' Local section today includes a blown-up accident photo by staffer Tariq "Crash" Zehawi on L-3, and a good number of municipal stories and crime news, but no stories about Teaneck, Ridgewood or other major towns. 

Hackensack news is a proposal to replace an abandoned gasoline station. Does everyone know where East Kennedy Street is? Is that the station near Route 80? You're guess is as good as mine, because the story doesn't say.

Editors should read this

Former Managing Editor James Ahearn is a sane antidote to all the fawning editors do over Christie. In his OpEd column today on the governor's battle with teachers (A-21), Ahearn concludes: "He looks more like someone fixated on getting his own way."