Headline hype is killing readers

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The Record's news copy editors and their supervisors have a long way to go when it comes to writing headlines that are more accurate and far less exaggerated.

North Jersey Media Group and other employers shed 8 million workers during the recession, so does the hiring of 200,000 last month really signal that "America [is] getting back to work," as today's big, black Page 1 headline declares?


Of course not. And The Record headline on Thursday calling Burt Ross, a mayor who refused a big bribe in 1974, a "N.J. icon" also was wildly exaggerated. We respect him, but he's no icon.


To sell papers, interim Editor Douglas Clancy and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes are allowing Editor Liz Houlton's news copy desk to get away with headline murder -- and it's readers who suffer.


Accidental editors


Their news judgment also sucks.


On Friday, photos of a flipped truck and a pickup that rolled over were all over A-1 and L-1, respectively.


So, what did they do with a spectacular photo of a burning truck, which trapped and killed the 66-year-old driver, and the account of an 18-year-old student "who collapsed in his teacher's arms" and died later? 


Even though these stories are more compelling than anything on the front page, they were banished to the front of Local -- likely displaced on Page 1 by the enormously exaggerated photo-text package on unemployment hitting a three-year low.


A lack of standards


The labor story is actually linked to the poor state of headline writing at the Woodland Park daily, because Publisher Stephen A. Borg shed five veteran news copy editors in 2008, including Nancy Cherry, the co-slot who enforced high standards of accuracy.


Sykes' local assignment desk does a fair job of covering the deaths of  Paramus High School junior Eric Micheo, 18, and John J. Mangini, 66, a Wayne man who died in a bread-van fire on Route 80 in Hackensack.


But both stories raise questions that are never answered.


The story at the top of L-1 notes Micheo was a member of the wrestling team "in the heavyweight category," but doesn't raise the possibility his death is  linked to his weight. 


Nor apparently was any attempt made to talk with the student's relatives, and find out whether there is a family history of heart disease.


New laws needed


At the bottom of L-1, a photo of a fireball accompanies the story, which reports the bread deliverer's van was hit from behind by a 21-year-old driver's car, causing the truck to overturn and erupt into flames, trapping Mangini.


Was the younger driver tailgating or speeding on Friday at 2:50 in the morning? Had he been drinking? Why wasn't he cited for trying to pass on the right?  


Of course, the bigger picture also is ignored. Is the Legislature revising traffic laws to hold drivers criminally responsible for their actions when they hit another vehicle and cause a death or kill a pedestrian they claim not to see?