More lessons in lazy journalism

Jackie Park, 18, a woman who had a promising future, was struck and killed by an SUV in Palisades Park. Broad Avenue, the main commercial street, is shown above.

The Record's lazy editors have claimed another victim -- an 18-year-old Korean-American woman with a promising future who was mowed down by a huge SUV as she walked along the shoulder of Bergen Boulevard in Palisades Park.

Today's Page 1 story doesn't even say whether Jackie Park was walking with her back to traffic, but readers who pore over the story through the continuation page will come to that conclusion -- she apparently was run down from behind.

Another element completely missing in the poorly edited piece is basic safety advice for pedestrians who walk along roads without sidewalks, like that  stretch of Bergen Boulevard.

Old story

Park's death on Monday is eerily familiar to The Record's readers, who were drenched by tear-jerking stories when scholar-athlete Gabriele Reuveni, 20, of Paramus was run down from behind on July 14 in the Poconos.

The Reuveni pieces echoed stories about two teenagers who were walking with their backs to traffic in 2006 when they, too, were run down and killed by a drunk driver in Kinnelon. 

None of the stories commissioned by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes ever included safety guidelines that may keep other pedestrians alive.

If these four victims were walking or jogging toward traffic, they might still be alive today.

Lazy columnist

Road Warrior John Cichowski, the columnist who fancies himself a road-safety expert, couldn't muster the energy to put together a piece on what to do when walking along roads -- even though he has written thousands of inches on pedestrian crosswalk and cellphone safety.

Instead, in today's column, the increasingly irrelevant Cichowski rewrote a Monday story on an elderly driver rescued from flood waters (L-1).

He refers to the driver as "seven decades past puberty." You'd never know from his amateurish style that he himself is many decades past puberty.

Today's editorial on A-18 is all about cellphone-distracted pedestrians, not victims like Jackie Park. 

Going global

 

Editor Marty Gottlieb must think he still is editing a global newspaper, judging from today's A-1 story on power outages in India.

One good thing is the blackouts will help India's wealthy upper class continue to ignore grinding poverty in what has been labeled "The Turd World."

Fender benders

If you wonder why Sykes' Local section has so little local news, check out the photos of non-fatal accidents on every news page today: L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6.

Instead of being sent out to get enterprise photos, the Woodland Park daily's talented photographers have been demoted to ambulance chasers.

Missing news

On the first Business page (L-7), the editors buried a story on how New Jersey and Governor Christie are at the bottom among 30 states in recovering jobs lost to the recession.

So, Christie's much-ballyhooed "Jersey Comeback" is little more than Jersey Come all over the faces of adoring journalists. 

The story on PSE&G expanding a solar program includes a photo of Christie in Hackensack, but the story doesn't tell readers the exact location of a new solar farm on River Street -- as if it's in another state  (L-7).

It happens to be next to the county jail and across from the Wicker Warehouse.

Another piece of Hackensack news missing from Local today is the buzz in legal circles that five more police officers have tentatively agreed to settle their lawsuits against former Police Chief Ken Zisa, reportedly for a total of $425,000.

Lawyers will lop off about a third of that, plus such expenses as copying and postage.

Suck on this

Readers who doubt Susan Leigh Sherrill truly sucks as food editor should see the Better Living front and her recipe of the week for peach-and-bourbon popsicles (BL-1).