Volcanic ash, ripe mangos and brown bats

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The official portrait of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada.

What an inspiring front page in The Record of Woodland Park. Is there any real news for North Jersey readers today? Did Editor Francis Scandale and his sidekick, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, run off together Thursday night, leaving A-1 to their incompetent minions?

Do they think readers are stupid? Just read the embarrassing letter to the editor on A-11 today:

Focusing on

the irrelevant

Reader Mary Ann Gerney of Oakland criticizes the paper for a front page that focused on Nevada and California races on Election Day, while ignoring races in North Jersey. Here is more from her Nov. 2 letter:

"Would it have taken a genius to do a montage of the Bergen and Passaic candidates?


"The local newspaper is invaluable to the community as long as it recognizes the community it serves.


"In case you need a civics lesson, New Jerseyans can't vote for Harry Reid, but we can vote for people who will help pull New Jersey out of the morass it has gotten into."

Are you listening, Francis, Deirdre and Publisher Stephen A. Borg, wherever you are? Who will pull The Record out of its morass? Certainly none of the editors, who somehow keep their cushy jobs no matter how bad the paper gets, while "Greedy Stevie" Borg is off in La-La Land.

In a related matter, isn't it strange how strong job-growth figures were released after the Nov. 2 election, in which candidates across the country blasted the Obama administration for not doing enough to rebuild the economy (A-10)?

This is what happens when The Record and other media wait for the news release and the wire-service story, rather than question the claims of candidates.

Today's front page

Look at that big, A-1 element and the banger headline on the "worst eruption in [a] century" of a volcano in Indonesia, where the death toll "soared" to 122. Look at that blah photo of men with masks walking in line and the caption that calls them "rescuers searching for survivors."


Look at those mangos on Page 1 with the speculative story on the move of the Hunts Point produce market to North Jersey. Why are there no little brown bats on A-1 with an update on their disappearance?

Unpaid parking tickets on L-1


Among the major news on the front of Local today is Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado's detailed story on a hearing for a police officer whose license was suspended over unpaid parking tickets. 

She is so bored with this and all the other disciplinary hearings she has covered -- and she assumes we have read every one of the thousands of words she has written on them -- we have to plow through the story before learning the female officer is one of more than 20 cops who sued the chief, and that she allegedly broke off a relationship with his brother, who was deputy chief.

Alvarado really worked hard on Friday, producing a second story on a delay for tenants who want to move back into their apartments in the Prospect Avenue high-rise where the garage collapsed July 16 (L-3).


To fill the space of stories Sykes' local staff didn't file, there are three non-fatal accident or fire photos by staffer Tariq "Crash" Zehawi, and a huge story and photos on L-3 about a model train exhibit at the Paterson Museum.

Sucker punched by 'Chick'
 
It's obvious I read Friday's lavish, front-page coverage of a low-cost ride program for elderly drivers too hastily. There are absolutely no plans for such a program in North Jersey. 

Scandale, Sykes, Columnist John Cichowski and whoever the moron is who edited the story before it was sent over to the copy desk took pains to conceal its irrelevance to local readers, yet they still plastered it all over A-1.