Monday, January 30, 2012

Round-ups are replacing local news

Demarest Farm
Image by roboppy via Flickr
A column by the restaurant critic listed only two restaurants that serve local, naturally raised food.


Although The Record's editors are ignoring local news from Hackensack and many other communities, they continue to assign round-ups and trend stories, with several appearing in the past two days.


But casting a wide net doesn't always catch all the news, and if readers don't see their towns mentioned in the regional stories, they're invariably disappointed and left in the dark.


And recently, the editors have been unable to resist linking local events to those that have roiled the nation, as they do today, comparing sex-abuse cases in North Jersey schools to the far-larger scandals in the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts of America.


That's a real stretch, as was Sunday's comparison of the Bergen County synagogue firebombing suspect to the Unabomber.


Editor is Queen Bee


Two more trend stories appear on the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section today -- one on falling property values in Bergen County and another on towns merging planning and zoning boards.


Sykes' assignment desk is responsible for generating local news, but also turns out all the regional and trend stories, and edits stories from staffers in Trenton and Washington, D.C.


She and her assistant assignment editors also are responsible for much of the atrocious writing and flawed reporting that have appeared in the Woodland Park daily in the past decade, including all the sub-par columns by John Cichowski and Mike Kelly. 


When Francis "Frank" Scandale was the editor, Sykes' minions turned out numerous regional stories. At one point, Scandale even banned stories about a single town from the front page.


Last week, a story on towns moving their school elections to November didn't mention Hackesack, so residents don't know if that's the final word or whether the city is planning such a change.


In today's Local section, there is so little municipal news from reporters at The Record, the layout editors ran a Demarest story by Amanda Baskind, a reporter at one of its affiliated weekly papers.


Second look


On Sunday, a strong consumer-oriented column from Travel Editor Jill Schensul was far more welcome than her silly musings on global homogenization or her cover story on a lavish cruise vacation she apparently took for free.


Also on Sunday, I enjoyed Better Living's upbeat "12 reasons to love New Jersey" by Staff Writer Virginia Rohan.


Below that on the Better Living front, The Corner Table column by Staff Writer Elisa Ung listed only two restaurants that serve local, naturally raised food.


Ung is the main restaurant reviewer, so is she saying there are so few restaurants that serve quality food, she had to fill the rest of the column with Whole Foods Market and similar stores, as well as winter farmers' markets?


Maybe her column should be renamed The Kitchen Table.


However, she does rhapsodize about the "beautiful dark-yellow/orange yolks" of fresh eggs from local free-roaming hens, so maybe the dessert obsession she displays in every review is easing just a bit.


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4 comments:

  1. What's with the Demarest Farm picture? It's not even open this time of year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah that will help with my food buying in winter, thanks Victor.

    ReplyDelete
  3. See my food blog for help in that regard. Cheers.

    ReplyDelete

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