Editors are learning to walk before they can run

Hackensack residents are awaiting a story reporting the cost of fixing the roof of the Engine 5 firehouse on Main Street. That's Hackensack, not New Mexico.

With overall pedestrian injuries down in Bergen and Passaic counties, as well as in the state, it's hard to understand why the editors and their so-called commuting columnist are devoting so much space to the issue, including today's Page 1 takeout.

They continue to ignore much bigger issues -- from all of the maniacs on the road to paralyzing rush-hour traffic jams to challenges facing older drivers to Governor Christie's lack of commitment to mass transit.

Many of those pedestrians can't afford to own cars, but has Road Warrior John Cichowski or any other transportation reporter ever assessed the quality of local bus service?

It's a puzzle why Cichowski and his boss, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, identify so strongly with pedestrians, the subject of numerous Road Warrior columns in recent years.

The former abhors the legwork any good reporter must do and the latter can barely move under her own power.

Did they or didn't they?

Another front-page story today -- this one on whether two Catholic high school employees can be charged in Bergen County for allegedly having sex with students on a trip to Germany -- appears to convict them in the sub-headline:

Can pair be tried for

sex with girls overseas?

A letter to the editor on A-14 today reports one commuter's experience with aggressive drivers that seems to escape the notice of the Road Warrior and everyone else at the paper, including Editor Marty Gottlieb, until someone is killed.

Holes in their heads

There is so little local news today, Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza had to plug a hole with two long wire-service obituaries, and an 8-paragraph story on a firehouse-roof repair contract in Moonachie (L-6).

Readers can only be thankful they haven't been burdened by stories on firehouse-roof repairs from the 90 or so towns in the circulation area. 

Hackensack alone has at least three firehouses with roofs that may have needed repair.

Ignoring Main Street

Also on L-6 today, a 7-paragraph story reports Hackensack has launched a Web site so residents can monitor the progress of Main Street rehabilitation.

The Record pretty much ignored Main Street before it moved out of Hackensack in 2009, and continued to ignore it from the Woodland Park newsroom.

Printing of The Record and Herald News was moved out of the city a few years before that.

North Jersey Media Group and its flagship paper pulled out hundreds of employees, but the editors  have never reported the fallout.

Nor has Publisher Stephen A. Borg kept city residents informed about what will happen to The Record's landmark building and 20 acres along River Street.

A photo caption on the Better Living front today says singer Katy Perry is shown "in action onstage," but it certainly doesn't look anything like that (BL-1).