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| A sign for Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, somehow ended up in a Lukoil station in Englewood, where a Republican, Shmuley Boteach, put up a lame challenge, despite lavish coverage of the rabbi's campaign by The Record's local-news assignment desk. |
The breaking-news story continues to trip up The Record's local-news assignment and copy desks, which are supposed to serve as damage control for errors made in the rush to publication.
Today and Monday, Page 1 coverage of a black suspect killed by white police officers strikes a familiar chord with readers:
A confused recounting of what happened, Prosecutor John L. Molinelli keeping his usual tight control over information, including his refusal to release the names of the officers involved; and The Record filing Open Public Records Act requests for reports and officers' accounts.
Location of shooting
Monday's front-page account of the Sunday shooting reported the suspect, Rickey L. McFadden, 47, of Leonia allegedly was armed with a knife "when four officers confronted him two blocks" from the CVS pharmacy on Broad Avenue [italics added].
Five paragraphs later, still on A-1, the story says, "The gunfire erupted outside the CVS at 410 Broad Ave. in the late afternoon [italics added] ...."
There are other conflicts, with the lead saying the suspect "tried to rob" the CVS, and later that he "robbed the store of cash and other items."
Flawed photo caption
On the continuation page of today's Page 1 follow-up, a photo caption says "the windshield" of a car parked on Hillside Avenue in Leonia shows evidence of the shooting, but it's the car's back window that is shown, not the windshield, and the text says as much (A-6).
The brain-dead copy editor who wrote the caption should have noticed there are no windshield wipers in the photo.
Maybe he or she didn't notice, because of exhaustion from combing through every local and wire-service story to lower case "superstorm Sandy."
Sykes and Sforza
Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza or their deputies are supposed to catch these errors, which damage the paper's credibility.
If they don't fix the problems, the copy desk under Editor Liz Houlton should be fixing the errors, not letting them get into the paper.
Six-figure salaries
Sykes and Houlton are pulling down six-figure salaries, yet day after day, inaccurate, confusing and conflicting information appears the paper, and few correction are ever published.
Staff Writer Justo Bautista, a veteran police reporter, should be commended for finding witnesses to the shooting, and quoting them in the initial story on Monday.
But so far, the stories haven't addressed why three police officers had to open fire and kill a man who only had a knife in his hand.
55th and worse governor
The lead A-1 story today is Governor Christie's announcement that he is seeking a second term -- to finish the work of destroying the middle class and protecting his wealthy supporters from any tax increases.
Is it really Page 1 news that utility companies did a poor job of communicating with customers during Superstorm Sandy outages (A-1)?
The story by three State House reporters doesn't explain why The Record and other media attended the utilities' regular briefings, where company executives "stressed how tough their jobs were," and then quoted them repeatedly.
Short circuits
The Record's editors should have asked Public Service Electric and Gas Co. why it didn't have enough repair crews to handle the storm or compare the number of crews to staffing levels 10 years ago.
Hackensack news
On the front of Local, the byline of the new Hackensack reporter, Hannan Adely, appears for the first time over a story about the city (L-1).
Meanwhile, residents are still waiting for the results of the newspaper's investigation of city government in the wake of the conviction and sentencing of former Police Chief Ken Zisa.
According to a usually reliable source, reporters involved include Stephanie Akin, the former Hackensack reporter; and Jeff Pillets, and The Record has filed at least one lawsuit seeking city records.
On L-2, the assignment and copy desk miss another error, calling a Hispanic suspect by his mother's family name.
Franklin Reyes Ponce should be referred to on second reference as "Reyes" or "Reyes Ponce," not "Ponce."
See previous post
on more Road Warrior flaws
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