Editor jumped ship, landed in rowboat

Jumping off The Times' building in Manhattan might have done more for Marty Gottlieb's career than taking over the dysfunctional newsroom at The Record of Woodland Park.

Marty Gottlieb, a suave and sophisticated Paris-based editor for The New York Times, jumped ship and landed in a leaky rowboat called the S.S. Record.

Now, it seems, The Times is paying him back by scooping the relatively new editor of the Woodland Park daily with an expose of escapes, sex assaults, drug use and gang activity at halfway houses (A-1 on Monday and today). 

They are managed by a company with "deep ties" to Governor Christie.

Hard times

The Times broke the story on Sunday after a 10-month investigation that began before Gottlieb left the New York-based paper.

The Record's local-news rowboat continues to spring leaks and bail water under the ponderous weight of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her incompetent bosun's mate, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza.
 
Locals are yokels

Local, the section that is supposed to be filled with local news, was pathetically weak today, Monday and Sunday.

Today, so many of the stories on the Local front and elsewhere in the section are based on court rulings or sentences and lawsuits.

Where is the municipal news from Hackensack, Englewood and many other towns?

 

Living dead

Make sure you look at Staff Writer Denisa Superville's bright feature on FDU Professor John Edwin Cowin reading poetry at Louie's Charcoal Pit in Teaneck (L-1).

Her story only serves to remind readers how little they see about interesting local residents -- until they are given a sendoff by Staff Writer Jay Levin, the local obituary writer.

Food for thought

A story on the Better Living cover today delivers a hard-sell for krill oil, a supplement from a small ocean crustacean that helps give wild salmon their deep red-orange color (BL-1).

The story appears after Consumer Reports and other publications found little benefit from a wide range of dietary supplements. 

On Monday's Better Living front, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill praised "American Grown," the book by Michelle Obama, who started a kitchen garden at the White House as part of the first lady's focus on healthy eating and childhood obesity.

Of course, Sherrill doesn't acknowledge all the cookbooks she has promoted by publishing some of the unhealthiest recipes under the sun -- filled with lard, butter and heavy cream.

 
What Kelly missed

On Sunday's front page, Columnist Mike Kelly's opus on Garfield included a discussion of the city's demographics, but he somehow forgot to mention its large Polish population.

There is nothing like Page 1 play to reveal just how weak Kelly is as a reporter and writer.