What to do when not just coverage, but paper is all wet

Two police officers and a metal detector await visitors to Municipal Court in Hackensack, above. On Monday afternoon, I pleaded not guilty and asked the judge to dismiss a $37 ticket my son received for violating alternate-side parking on Euclid Avenue, the first we've received in eight years of living there. He denied my request, and hit me with an additional $39 in court costs and related fees.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I just spent 8 minutes and 44 seconds on hold and then speaking with a woman about a replacement for my copy of The Record, which was delivered soaking wet this morning.

The paper was in its usual place on the driveway, but folded inside a single plastic bag that was open.

I'd publish a photo of what the wet paper looked like when I unfolded it, but the litigious Jennifer A. Borg, vice president and general counsel of North Jersey Media Group, would likely file a copyright infringement suit against me.

On my second call for a dry paper, the woman I spoke with had a very pleasant voice. 

She explained The Record starts delivering replacement copies at 10 a.m., so they hadn't reached me by 10:30, when I called.

She said my earlier request for a replacement was noted in "the system," and I would be getting a dry copy.

While I was on hold, I heard repeated promotional messages for The Record, including a claim the Woodland Park daily has the "best" local-news coverage around.

I also heard part or all of three recorded pieces from the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra.

Today's paper

The word "Alzheimer's" makes a rare appearance on the front page of The Record today, but this story is about whether the state or municipalities should have the power to oversee group homes for those suffering from the disease or dementia (A-1).

The Record has largely ignored Alzheimer's disease and the obesity epidemic in favor of covering autism.

Commuting

The editors also largely ignored the nightmarish commute to New York City in the past decade, but now you see a story about train and bus delays on Page 1 every couple of days.

Yet, most of A-1 today is devoted inexplicably to Governor Christie's "drug stance," and how it will affect a presidential candidacy experts say is doomed to failure.

Meanwhile, the editors can't bring themselves to declare that a governor who has made such a mess of his home state isn't fit to run the country, and certainly doesn't deserve front-page coverage of his campaign.

Corrections

Two more embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today.

Instead of local news, the editors of Local bring us lots of Law & Order news today (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

Hard to believe local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza couldn't find any municipal news from Bergen County's biggest towns -- Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood. 

Coincidentally, the local obituary reports the death of Amos C. Saunders, 81, a retired Superior Court judge in Paterson (L-1).

Postscript

My replacement copy of The Record was never delivered today, and I worked from the soaking copy I had dried in the sun.

In July, when I returned from a 10-day vacation, I received papers from only three or four days of the time I was away, even though I requested that all of them be delivered.

It's no surprise The Record's delivery apparatus is so pathetic.

As the old saying goes, the fish stinks from the head (publisher's office) down.