Pope resigns, millions of Jews and Muslims shrug

Monday around 4 p.m., Euclid and Grand avenues, Hackensack: An NJ Transit driver strayed several blocks from his route, parked this bus near his apartment and went up for a cup of tea. When he returned munching on a crumpet, he started up the bus and drove to Prospect Avenue, where he turned left, presumably to reach Passaic Street.

The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI is a big story for the media, and The Record today devotes much of the front page, three inside pages and an editorial to it (A-1, A-6, A-7, A-8 and A-9).

But the vast majority of readers couldn't care less.

Still -- like the 2014 Super Bowl and the recovery from Superstorm Sandy -- this story will allow The Record's local-news editors to continue to shirk their duty to readers of Hackensack and many other towns in North Jersey.

Trustee's arrest

On head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local front today, a story explores whether a Hackensack school board member will lose his seat, if convicted of an assault charge, but ignores all other aspects of Monday's Board of Education meeting (L-1).

Avalon, a 226-unit luxury apartment complex on Hackensack Avenue, will start renting apartments in May, and could add an unknown number of children to Hackensack's overburdened school system.

The Record has completely ignored the story. 

Corny demands filler 

There is so little local news today, layout editor Jim "Corny" Cornelius was forced to call upon the fender-bender photo staff for fillers.

Staff Photographer Tariq "Rollover" Zehawi was on ambulance-chasing duty in Hasbrouck Heights, and captured a non-fatal crash of a single SUV that landed on its roof (L-3).

Gee-whiz. Would you look at that. 

The copy editor needed to lengthen the photo overline, and called it a "morning rollover." Is that like "morning sex"?

Tailgate party

Cornelius was grateful for Zehawi's enterprise, and got another filler for L-7, a photo of a cop staring at the charred remains of the tractor portion of a tractor-trailer in Ridgefield.

The driver was practicing for 2014 Super Bowl tailgate parties by cooking hamburgers and ribs on the manifold of his idling engine, when the tractor caught fire.