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What's all the fuss on the front page of The Record today about the constitutionality of mandatory health insurance in 2014? Automobile insurance has been mandatory for decades, though you won't see anything about that in the Associated Press story. Is that unlawful, too?
Another issue not raised in the lead story is whether parents who do not buy health insurance are endangering the welfare of their children.
Another ass-slapper
Even if you don't question Editor Francis Scandale's decision to put a big photo of football fans on the front page, you'll wonder why the news copy editor mentioned Viking or Vikings three times in three sentences.
How many asses did Scandale slap in the news meeting Monday afternoon in Woodland Park after ordering layout editors to put that photo on A-1?
Here is how Scandale's peculiar male editor-bonding ceremony goes: "I got the Giants on the front again, Gary." (Smack!) "I got football on the front again, Randy." (Smack!) "I got rabid fans on the front again, Ron." (Smack!)
Here is how Scandale's peculiar male editor-bonding ceremony goes: "I got the Giants on the front again, Gary." (Smack!) "I got football on the front again, Randy." (Smack!) "I got rabid fans on the front again, Ron." (Smack!)
The three stories on Page 1 are process stories -- a federal judge's ruling on health-care reform that doesn't change anything, despite the AP's attempt to create a crisis atmosphere; a stalled bill to provide more access to defibrillators and an upcoming state referendum on sports betting that flies in the face of federal law and Christie administration policy. My eyes are glazing over.
On A-2, two embarrassing errors are corrected.
No municipal news
Has head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes ever produced a Local section before today that is so completely devoid of municipal news? Readers get a mix of police and court news, two local obituaries, a sob story and other tripe.
The major L-1 story reports suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa, his ex-girlfriend and two others pleaded not guilty in Superior Court to official misconduct charges.
Zisa's attorney, Patricia Prezioso, is the law partner of Bruce Rosen, who has represented North Jersey Media Group, which publishes The Record, and Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg.
Wrong-way Stile
The Political Stile column on L-1 has Staff Writer Charles Stile foaming at the mouth over New Jersey Supreme Court Associate Justice Roberto A. Rivera-Soto being paid for not doing his job, but Stile himself is getting paid for not doing his.
He not only calls the justice "Soto-Rivera," an error picked up by the news copy editor who wrote the incorrect last names under the L-1 photo.
But he fails to identify John E. Wallace, the justice bounced by Governor Christie in May, as an African-American or report that the woman the governor tried to replace him with is white or that some observers called Christie's decision racially motivated.
In a Page 1 story on Saturday, Staff Writer John P. McAlpin also failed to report that Wallace is African-American and was the court's only black member.
I had the same initial reaction to the health care. However, I believe the courts view driving as a revokable privilege in which the driver, after passing a test, gives up some basic rights in exchange for being allowed to drive on government-built and -maintained roads.
ReplyDeleteYou pretty much don't get the whole sports thing on A-1. It's true Scandale is a wannabe who through appalling ignorance and massive ego has ruined a sports section that a decade ago used to break news against larger papers. However, Giants-Vikings belonged out there, and the NYT concurs.
Even if what you say is true, parents have to buy insurance if only for their children, and I don't have a problem with making all adults buy it.
ReplyDeleteYes. I follow Formula 1 racing -- football, baseball, etc., leave me cold, though I watch an occasional game.
Mandatory health insurance, what a concept. Can't wait for the conservative response, the S word.
ReplyDelete