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| In today's paper, Staff Writer John Brennan weighs the significance of a licensing deal at American Dream Meadlowlands, a project he is trying mightily to bury. |
New look at teen's shooting
The lead, big, black headline on the front page of The Record today promises a "new look" at the police shooting of Malik Williams, 19, of Garfield.
But the story delivers nothing of the kind, and focuses instead on an internal affairs probe of three Garfield police officers, including Sgt. Jose Brito, one of the cops who shot and killed Williams last Dec. 10.
This is third major story focusing on the point of view of the authorities since a grand jury in June cleared the two cops who killed Williams, who was 7 feet to 8 feet away and holding a hammer and saw.
Unpublished correction
Today's story says Williams "came at" the officers with a hammer and a saw, dropping the inaccurate use of the word "charging" to describe the suspect's behavior.
The Record still hasn't questioned the version of the confrontation provided by Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli or even why deadly force was needed to stop a man standing 7 feet to 8 feet from two officers.
What was the threat to their lives? Williams had only one hammer to throw. Did the officers seriously think he would walk up to either of them and start sawing the arm holding a gun?
Shocking journalism
The mistreatment of Williams by Editor Marty Gottlieb, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza shocks the conscience, especially in allowing stories to misquote Molinelli at least twice on what Williams was doing before he was shot, and never running a correction.
Sykes and the other editors likely are piling on the dead man's memory because Williams, 19, was African-American and an unmarried father.
Ambulance chasing
The huge front-page photo of a train derailment and explosion in far-off Ohio makes you wonder why Sykes has talented staff photographers chasing ambulances and not producing enterprise shots for Page 1.
Japanese people who deny accounts of soldiers kidnapping and forcing women to be their sex slaves in Korea, China and Japan sound just like the Turks' annual denial of the Armenian genocide (A-1).
Can anyone make sense of the A-1 story on a licensing deal to bring Shrek and other cartoon characters to American Dream Meadowlands (A-1)?
The story was written by John Brennan, a former sports reporter who everyone in the newsroom refers to as Goofy.
Cartoon madness
Readers will find another bewildering cartoon from the overheated mind of Margulies, who links President Obama's attempt to preserve middle-class tax cuts to the unemployment rate (A-18).
Fare hike?
On the front of Sykes' Local section, a story on NJ Transit approving a $1.9 billion operating budget for fiscal 2013 fails to report the agency won't be hiking fares on trains and buses (L-1).
The section is filled with municipal and police news from many communities, but nothing from Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck.
An L-2 photo reports a kitchen fire in Allendale.
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