Editors remove heads from assholes

Image via Wikipedia
"The Republicans were protecting fat cats from higher taxes,"a Rutgers University political scientist comments today in The Record.

To Editors of The Record:


Tell us something we don't know, for crying out loud.


"Politics" doomed deficit-reduction talks? Really? Where has Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson been? Living in a cave?


Politics have paralyzed Congress for more than a year. Why does interim Editor Doug Clancy even think it's necessary to label Jackson's Page 1 story today as an "Analysis"?


Clancy had his head buried in newsroom budget books for far too long, trying to figure out new ways to screw the news copy editors and pamper the digital news group, which puts out the clunky NorthJersey.com.


And is it news to anyone who lives in North Jersey that the region is pockmarked with failed chemical cleanups or that the system is broken (A-1)?


What about the "broken" flood-control system, the "broken" home-rule system of local government and the "broken" property tax system?


Failure of government is evident all around us, on the national, state and local levels, but the editors can't stop defending the status quo -- inside and outside the Woodland Park daily.


Even a third front-page story -- on the dangerous chemical BPA in can liners, drink bottles and other metal containers -- is at least a year late.


Of heads and holes


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes continues to cover court motions relating to suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa more than she does the city's municipal affairs (L-3).


Although there is no Hackensack municipal news in the paper today, Sykes found room for two stories from Ridgewood (L-2 and L-6), plus stories from Northvale (L-1) and North Arlington (L-3).


An editorial on A-18 today blasts Republicans in Congress for blocking new, healthier school lunch guidelines, despite an obesity epidemic that seems to have escaped the attention of Sykes and the other editors at the paper.


Chewing the fat


In a talk on Monday to a class of seniors at Bergen Community College, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill noted she also is in charge of health and fitness coverage, but didn't explain why that doesn't extend to healthy food.


Sherrill didn't mention that many of the recipes in her weekly column call for inordinate amounts of artery clogging heavy cream and butter.


Or, that the restaurant reviews she edits rarely mention that most of the poultry and meat served contains harmful antibiotics, growth hormones and animal by-products.


She spoke about consumers' fondness for swordfish, tuna and other large fish, but not that they contain the most mercury or that wildly popular farmed salmon is artificially colored.
  
Isn't it the responsibility of Sherrill, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung and other food writers to supply this information to readers, so they don't have to rely solely on menus, supermarket ads and TV food shows?