More words, but not always the right ones

Image via Wikipedia

Artist's conception of the new World Trade Center.

The Record's overwhelming coverage of 9/11 in the Sunday paper is followed today by more overwhelming coverage of the 10th anniversary of the attack on America.


The top half of Page 1 carries an unusually large photo of one of the memorial pools and victims' names under a headline shaped from a few eloquent words: "Sorrow etched in stone."


Though well-written, the headline isn't accurate. 


The victims' names are carved in bronze -- not stone -- as noted in both the A-1 story and photo caption.


Only two stories appear under the photo, and if you compare them, Staff Writer Shawn Boburg's well-written news reports puts to shame Columnist Mike Kelly's trite, gimmick-filled column.


Boburg's first paragraph describes a "reborn World Trade Center ... and the transformation of a place that for a decade spoke of horror and destruction," while Kelly's lead seems to be delivering a weather report:

"NEW YORK -- Once again, it was a perfect morning, with a golden dawn streaking through Manhattan's canyons and a quiet seamless azure sky overhead like a protective canopy."

His second paragraph mentions "the threat of another attack scratching at our collective fear." 


Scratching???? I stopped reading there.


Kelly puts his foot in his mouth so often, he must be a favorite of Editors Francis Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who seem to care nothing about the poor reader who has to plow through his turgid prose.


Most of Sykes' Local section is filled with coverage of 9/11 ceremonies closer to home -- 36 of them.


Then, readers are jolted by a story on L-7 about drunk Jets football fans tailgating at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford and waving American flags.


Why is this in the local-news section, and why is it juxtaposed with all that 9/11 coverage?


The story -- from Staff Writer John Brennan -- includes two uses of the phrase "just like usual."