Family: Black teen was shot in the back

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No changes in the local-news operation have been apparent since ex-Timesman Marty Gottlieb took over about three weeks ago as editor of The Record of Woodland Park. 

The biggest news on the front page of The Record today also serves as a sad commentary on the supremely lazy assignment desk working under the dead weight of Editor Deirdre Sykes.


In the two months since Malik Williams, 19, of Garfeld was killed by police, Sykes and her flunkies have merely regurgitated all of the questions surrounding his death without making any attempt to go beyond the prosecutor's handout.


Columnist Mike Kelly, who wrote a book about a similar police shooting in Teaneck, merely pushed hundreds of words around, shedding no new light on the death of Williams, who had an infant son.


Shot twice in back


Now, according to a story on Page 1 today, the family's attorney says Williams was shot twice in the back by the two police officers involved. The teen was shot a total of "five to six times."


However, today's story, like past accounts, doesn't go beyond details released by Prosecutor John L. Molinelli, who said Williams "had armed himself with unspecified tools."


Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi, who Sykes has reduced to an ambulance chaser, came up with a potentially prize-winning photo of a distraught woman standing in front of a multi-family home destroyed by fire (A-1 and L-3).


Of course, Zehawi also has covered scores of fender benders and other minor accidents that Sykes used as filler when her sniveling sub-editors couldn't come up with legitimate local news.


Quote of the week


Hackensack readers will find only a story on the front of Sykes' Local section on the closing of a building's parking garage after city officials expressed safety concerns.


The story does contain the quote of the week from Construction Official Joseph Mallone, who noted one city engineer put his hand right through a rusted steel beam:


"They [building managers] said everything was all gumdrops and rainbows and everything was OK," Mallone told Staff Writer Stephanie Akin (L-1).


That's funny. This is exactly what Sykes has been telling Editor Marty Gottlieb about her local-news operation since he arrived about three weeks ago after many years at The New York Times.


Smell the coffee


Let's hope Gottlieb wakes up and smells the coffee, especially when it comes to local news and the lame columnists who work for Sykes, including Kelly and Road Warrior John Cichowski.


Does the large graphic on the "angle of the sun" really add anything to another L-1 story -- a report on a 74-year-old crossing guard knocked down by the car of a driver who said he was blinded by sun glare?


What a waste of space. But I guess there was no other news available to fill the hole.


A third L-1 story today reveals federal taxpayers have to shell out $18 million to soundproof Henry P. Becton Regional High School from the roar of business jets, including the sleek machine that cossets the rear ends of Chairman Malcolm A. Borg and his pal, real estate mogul Jon F. Hanson.