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| Image via Wikipedia The meals served at public schools in Bergen County are due for an overhaul, but you won't find any quotes from students or food-service workers in The Record today. |
With my son's complaints about the food at Hackensack High ringing in my ears, I stared in disbelief at today's Page 1 wire-service story about a major overhaul of school meals nationwide, searching for any mention of Bergen County or North Jersey.
The changes won't go into effect until September, so readers would have appreciated an assessment of the meals served in any of the hundreds of schools in the region, and what students have to look forward to.
The Associated Press reporter visited an elementary school in Alexandria, Va., where students met first lady Michelle Obama and ate food made from recipes of celebrity Chef Rachel Ray.
This is the kind of story that would appear in The New York Times, where Martin "Marty" Gottlieb worked for many years before taking over this week as editor of The Record.
But he should know better than to settle for a national story on the front of a local newspaper.
Let's do lunch
Why not send Mike Kelly or another reporter to have lunch at Hackensack or another big high school, and report on the fare? I'm sure it would be an eye opener, given the high school taxes North Jersey residents pay.
Instead, Kelly was assigned to write a column on the arrest of Anthony Graziano in a firebombing and arson at two synagogues.
Kelly is a columnist who struggles to form the strong point-of-view readers expect, so his L-1 column today asks lots of rhetorical questions, and in a desperate bid to fill space, actually duplicates the reporting in an A-1 news story on the suspect's not guilty plea.
Kelly wrings his hands over "this unexpected invasion of hate." He says he is searching for "the emotional cleanser to wash" that hate away.
Meanwhile, readers are searching for the phone number to cancel their subscriptions.
Another story on L-1 was long on the experiences of workers or volunteers tallying the homeless in Bergen County and short on interviews with the homeless themselves.
Hackensack readers get a political story and a police story, both on L-3, but no municipal news.
Another great job by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions.
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To cancel, no need to search:
ReplyDelete201-646-4444
You should try it Victor and CANCEL THE PAPER THAT SO AGGRAVATES YOU.
LOL.
ReplyDeleteCancel this.
ReplyDeleteTalk about guilty until proven innocent, what exactly was Kelly's motivation in that article? Everything I have read thus far about this Graziano guy just doesn't add up.
ReplyDeleteWhy not send the numb-nuts food writer out to the schools? Might be a reality check.
ReplyDeleteAnd, by the way, if Victor cancels, the circ number would go down by one. Not many more to go until we reach the magic zero.
Kelly is often out of ideas, but he has to write a column three times a week. Same for the Road Warrior. That's a lot to expect. The columns have become space fillers.
ReplyDeleteThe paper needs fresh voices in its columns. It's time for Kelly, Cichowski and Ervolino to take early retirement and jerk off in privacy, instead of doing it journalistically.
On school meals, that's a great idea. She'll get some idea what they are going to be feeding her kid when he gets to school age.
ReplyDeleteOf course, she is probably feeding him and her husband all those artery clogging restaurant desserts she can't stop eating.
Kelly was picked by David Hall during Campbell's reign. Long enough...
ReplyDeleteWhy not send the numb-nuts food writer out to the schools? Might be a reality check.
ReplyDeleteAnd, by the way, if Victor cancels, the circ number would go down by one. Not many more to go until we reach the magic zero.
Oh? Lets see some circulation figures for the Star Ledger; the Asbury Press, the Morristown Daily REcord; even the esteemed NY Times.
I really believe, if Vic says he is just sooooooo good, he should find some moneyed backers and begin his own daily paper for Bergen. Hell, even a Bergen website.
By the way, whatever happened to Garden State Journal? Published right in your back yard in forgotten Hackensack? Those hungry-for-local-news residents really gobbled it up!
Day-to-day journalism is a real disappointment. I wouldn't waste my time running around getting Bergen news for a daily or Web site.
ReplyDeleteThe real problem is how people in the business for 10 or 15 years or more are simply bored out of their gourds, working for editors who don't have half the smarts they do.
That's especially the case at editor-driven papers like The Record, where the incompetent Sykes, Nostrands, Houltons, Sforzas and McGarveys stay around forever.
Wow, Victor, it seems you've got a big fan in upper management at the Record, maybe even Steven or Jennifer themselves, who is/are so rattled by your commentary that they finally feel compelled to try and put you in your place.
DeleteMy, my, is Dear Leader that sensitive about descending to the coveted zero? It doesn't matter what happens to anyone else, troll, it only matters what happens to you.
ReplyDeleteNo need to look for more moneyed backers to throw at dinosaurs...the competition is now all around you...slowly, slowly nibbling away the revenue and profits. Tick...tick...tick.