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| Governor Christie was scheduled to speak today at the Reagan Library. |
Do you read to fall asleep? Grab the front page of The Record today.
The only fresh, new element Editor Francis Scandale could come up with is the weather photo package at the top of the page. The other three elements are rehashes, remixes and reboots.
The lead story on overtime paid to Paterson Mayor Jeffrey Jones and three salaried aides is a follow, and reports on a development from Friday -- four days ago. Yawn.
Next, bears are out gorging for hibernation -- just like last year, the year before, the year before that and ... I'm getting sleepy.
Finally, a package at the bottom of A-1 reports more presidential rumors as Governor Christie girds his loins for a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
Now, is there some subliminal message in the bear and Christie photos? The black bear and the governor look to be about the same size, and both their heads are turned a little to the left.
What Christie does best
On A-3, a story reports Christie pulled a $420,000 tax credit from "Jersey Shore," but I doubt he's going to distribute that money to readers like Edwin Kinderman, a Fair Lawn man who wrote a letter to the editor today (A-12).
Kinderman is 71 and cares 24/7 for his severely disabled wife, who has been hospitalized 23 times in the past three years. Alas, Christie cut her Homestead rebate for renters -- $1,800 -- "money that we greatly need to pay medical bills and other living expenses."
Kinderman admits, "We are at the lowest spectrum of our society and have no political clout."
Hasn't Christie done so many wonderful things since he took office, and saved taxpayers so much money, like Kinderman's $1,800?
And wouldn't Christie make a perfect Republican presidential candidate -- his mouth crimson from chewing up and spitting out people like Kinderman's wife, so the rich in New Jersey don't have to pay higher taxes?
Doblin or douche bag?
Another letter today blasts a column from Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin, who has such a cute writing style, full of plays on words and references to Hollywood and Broadway (A-12).
The reader, Dan Ludwig of Pompton Lakes, wonders what might have inspired Doblin's thinly veiled "racist attack" on poet Amiri Baraka.
Doblin "uses a toilet metaphor for the series of events that led to the ouster of Baraka as the poet laureate of New Jersey and directly compares that man to 'something you want to flush away.'"
Sleeping editors
The lead story on the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section reports a 53-year-old Englewood man and his 3-year-old son were found dead.
Police speculate the father had a heart attack and fell on his son, who was on a bed.
The reporter's assignment editor sent the story on to the news copy desk without finding out whether the father had a history of heart disease or any other information about the health of a man in his early Fifties.
Sykes had so little other local news, layout editors were forced to fill space by running two big photos and a map with a story on a "controversial" highway ramp redesign in sleepy Washington Township (L-1 and L-6).
If you were a reporter, Victor (which I understand from your appeal, you were), how would you get the dead man's health history into a story?
ReplyDeleteAfter quoting the police officer who speculated he had a heart attack, ask the family member who is quoted extensively in the story whether he had a history of heart disease and print what she says.
ReplyDeleteIt's simple, basic journalism.
What if you talk to the family member, then talk to the cop, then can't reach anybody else?
ReplyDeleteIt's simple, basic, realistic journalism. Sometimes you can't ask the questions in the time constraints you have. Especially when you're dealing with a grieving family and information that otherwise is private.
Not everyone volunteers their health information - rectal exams, say - as you.
Hmm. That question must have come from a weekly reporter. A Record/Herald reporter would have know that.
ReplyDeleteIf you're an editor or reporter, you're the worst kind imaginable -- lazy and always ready with an excuse about why essential information is left out of stories.
ReplyDeleteThe mother of the man who died is mentioned or quoted in nine paragraphs, even discussing family history and telling the reporter her son "was the best father in the world."
It wasn't a question of time. No editor connected the dots and thought to ask the question.
To be clear, my previous comment was addressed to the first Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteTo the first Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteI've never volunteered anything about a rectal exam, but you should have you head examined -- it's clearly crammed way up your asshole.
This is you, right?
ReplyDeletehttp://doyoureallyknowwhatyoureeating.blogspot.com/2011/07/good-excuse-to-go-food-shopping.html
Yes.
ReplyDelete