Law & Order edition is nothing special

Which judge and sheriff's officer slipped on water in the century old Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack and fell -- to the delight of Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes?

If you're a fan of the police blotter, today's Law & Order edition of The Record might fool you into thinking you're holding a sensational tabloid in your hands.

Besides two major police stories on Page 1, municipal news is almost completely displaced in Local by cop or court news -- there's a total of 13 such stories or stand-alone photos in the six-page section.

The main element on L-1 today is the slapstick account of a judge and a sheriff's officer who slipped on water flooding the 100-year-old Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, and presumably fell on their asses.

No names, please

Three reporters worked on the story, but failed to get the identity of the judge or sheriff's officer or the name of the hospital that treated the jurist.

That's expected on the lazy assignment desk under Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza. 

The former could be heard shrieking in the Woodland Park newsroom, "Hey, the copy desk should use 'Laughter in the court' as a headline on this. It's hilarious."

Taxing views

Also on Page 1 today, a so-called ANALYSIS comparing the tax positions of Governor Christie and President Obama fails to mention the GOP bully's proposed state income-tax cut would benefit the wealthy most of all.

Monday's paper

Another so-called ANALYSIS on Monday's Page 1 concludes New Jersey won't be able to build or widen enough roads to end massive traffic congestion.

But the story mentions NJ Transit only once, and doesn't blame Christie for killing a major expansion of rail capacity.

A rare story on Hackensack schools also appeared on A-1 on Monday -- a welcome profile of Detective Kenneth Martin, the state's first school resource officer.

More age bias

Monday's Local section includes an unusual amount of news about the elderly, the disabled and the incontinent (L-1 and L-6).

Columnist Mike Kelly had another long piece on Susanna Reinhardt, the Rochelle Park "battle ax" he wrote about at length on Jan. 24, 2010 (L-1). 

Is there really that much more to say about the 86-year-old woman?

Major omission

On Monday's L-6, a story on a Latino festival mentions Teaneck has a "thriving" Hispanic community, "as do ... Bergenfield, Hackensack, Leonia and Ridgefield Park."

What about all the Latinos who live in neighboring Englewood? Are they just so much picadillo?

Trials don't get more boring than this

In Courtroom 312, some people were nodding off today.

After reading The Record's report of a "bruising cross-examination" and the judge threatening a witness with "contempt of court,"  I rushed over to hear testimony today in the criminal trial of suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa.

BOR-R-R-R-ING.

Even the headline on Wednesday's L-2 story was incorrect -- as Editor Liz Houlton's news copy editors continue to shoot themselves in the foot:

Hackensack cop grilled by Zisa's lawyers

True. There are two defense attorneys. But one represents Zisa's former girlfriend, who is on trial with him.

The trial is being held in a small, plain courtroom on the third floor of the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack. 

Superior Court Judge Joseph S. Conte is presiding, having lost a far nicer courtroom on the fourth floor that had a view of the ornate courthouse dome (see photo).

Akin and Kelly

Hanging on every word are Staff Writer Stephanie Akin -- the so-called Hackensack reporter -- who typed occasionally on a laptop computer, and other reporters.

Sitting next to Akin this morning was Staff Writer Mike Kelly, whose hair has turned all gray or white. I can't imagine how he is going to hype the tedious proceedings and turn them into a column. 

Police Officer Laura Campos continued her testimony today under questioning from Zisa's defense lawyer, Patricia Prezioso, a tall, thin woman with an annoyingly high voice.

Not much of a defense

Prezioso is trying to attack the credibility of Campos, using the officer's previous testimony in related proceedings, including a lawsuit.

Trials don't get any more boring than this. 

Prezioso referred to interrogatories, transcripts and certifications, at times projecting them on a large screen opposite the jury box, where women outnumber men.

During a break, Zisa got up from his seat at the defense table and asked a woman in the audience for her opinion of Campos as a witness against him.

Today's paper

Don't you love to see a top Port Authority executive squirming under questioning about high tolls (A-1)?

But readers shouldn't be fooled into thinking lavish front-page coverage of all this thunder from Sen. Frank Lautenberg is going to result in a rollback in the price of admission to the Hudson River crossings.

What's the matter with Lautenberg anyway? 

The multimillionaire could have reached into his pocket, taken out $2,000 or $3,000 in large bills and thrown them at PA bigwig Bill Baroni, who said the senator enjoyed free tolls for years.

"Here's your crummy money, you bum!" 

But that never happened.

Word pusher

On L-1 today, where is Kelly's gray hair in that unflattering thumbnail photo with his column?

He's writing about the death of a 19-year-old immigrant, and another photo shows people laughing in a hardware store.

Kelly's lead paragraph says Denis Batres Duarte's "American Dream came to end ... on a street where pink dogwood is blushing and the summer's canopy of sycamores is just beginning to bud."

Is it "summer" already? Is Kelly the gardening columnist now? Is that kind of random detail really appropriate?

Free advertising

On L-7, the business editors again eat Better Living's lunch with a long, promotional story on the latest venture from one of the biggest restaurant families in North Jersey.

The Dohertys own nearly 100 restaurants. Imagine  how rich they are. Why are they getting all this publicity for a wine bar in Clifton? 

For balance, shouldn't the reporter have told readers just how little employees of this restaurant empire are getting paid?

Wednesday's paper

Road Warrior John Cichowski is getting so desperate for material that he answered a supposed e-mail from his father, referred to as "Dad," in his L-1 column on Wednesday (L-1 and L-2). 

Doesn't he ever visit the poor soul?

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes had to rely on another freak accident photo to fill her Local section (L-1).

It doesn't look like the SUV actually broke through a wall, so the photo over line is incorrect:

AN UNEXPECTED HOUSEGUEST

Breaking news: Warmer weather ahead

Image via Wikipedia

A map of halal restaurants in North Jersey that U.S. Navy Seals reportedly found in Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Did you hear the earth-shaking news? It's allergy season, The Record of Woodland Park reports in its lead story today. Tomorrow, the lead Page 1 story will look ahead to the arrival of summer.

It can't be too busy at the Bergen County Courthouse, if Staff Writer Kibret Markos had time to put together a detailed story with two sidebars on a nearly 20-year-old murder case (A-1). 

But he assumes readers have been following the story as closely as he has, so they have to turn to the continuation page to find out if the trial is over or not (A-6).

Osama bin Kelly

Pakistan's prime minister denies that any official was complicit in hiding Osama bin Laden (A-9).

Readers have yet to hear the same denial from Editor Francis Scandale, who seems to be protecting several incompetent reporters and columnists on his staff -- including John Brennan, Mike Kelly, John Cichowski and Bill Ervolino.

Adieu to Christie?

Many journalists are salivating over the possibility they'll able to lampoon Donald Trump, if he runs for president. 

Most New Jersey residents are hoping Governor Christie will follow Trump's lead, so the state can begin a healing process (A-10, L-1).

The big news from Hackensack today is the refiling of a sex-harassment suit in state court by a police officer who saw her claims dismissed by a federal judge (L-3).

Throwing vegetarians a bone

For several years, Better Living's carnivorous editors ran a single recipe for vegetarians on Mondays, and now the first full-fledged story quotes only those who eat meat occasionally (F-1). 

And during those years of token coverage, several vegetarians on the staff -- led by Travel Editor Jill Schensul -- must have been regarded as freaks, instead of as sources for a story on that lifestyle.

Kiss of death

Less than a month after Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung gushed about El Caney, the tiny Cuban takeout joint in Bergenfield is out of business. I saw a big "FOR RENT" sign on Monday.

Ung never explained why she devoted her entire Sunday restaurant column to this culinary pipsqueak or why she gave more ink to a takeout shack that had been featured a year earlier in the paper's own Marketplace column.

When I visited on April 22, El Caney was out of several menu items and had no whole fish. Portions were small.

Although the food was good, it didn't approach the quality of the many meals I enjoyed over the years at Migdalia's Cuban Cafe before the Bergenfield restaurant closed and the owner-chef moved to Miami.

            

A reporter of few words

Image via Wikipedia

Staff Writer Kibret Markos provides a surprising amount of detail about the rundown interior of the Bergen County Courthouse on Page 1 of  The Record today -- considering how much time he spends outside smoking. Markos is a man of few words who, coincidentally, writes relatively few stories from one of the state's busiest courthouses.

You might see four stories about trials, indictments and other legal matters from him one day, then nothing for a week or more. And Markos, who is himself a lawyer, seems to have a blind spot about legal fees, never discussing them when reporting huge judgments or settlements in civil lawsuits.

Meanwhile, the news copy desk, under the supervision of Production Editor Liz Houlton, continues to run amuck. Today, two of the dullest headlines imaginable appear on front-page stories and a caption contains erroneous information.

School cuts scrutinized

When is Houlton and the copy desk going to be "scrutinized" for turning out such tripe, this on renewed school funding arguments before the state Supreme Court. 

Halls of justice need fixing up

There's no flair in this headline on Markos' story about the proposed renovation of the historic courthouse in Hackensack. Some readers might argue with the phrase "halls of justice," arguing that justice is not always served there.

And the A-1 caption says, "The 100-year-old" building "suffers from many structural problems," but no such problems are discussed in the story. A roof leak or an out-of-control heating system aren't structural problems.


Is it fair to call the courthouse 100 years old in the sub headline and caption, if construction began in 1910?

Markos also reports one of the elevators recently was nicknamed "The Widow-maker," even though no one was killed in its so-called free falls. All of this is just more of the sloppy copy editing the Woodland Park daily has become known for.

Finally, the takeout on the courthouse is an example of what Editor Francis Scandale loves to plaster all over Page 1: Proposals, plans, studies and panel recommendations that may come to fruition in 2012, 2013, 2014 -- or never. What about the here and now, Francis?

Color blind

In a sidebar to the Supreme Court story on A-1, political Columnist Charles Stile continues to ignore the diversity issue at the state Supreme Court or even tell readers John Wallace was the only black associate justice before Governor Christie dumped him last May.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes is selling the front of Local to the highest bidder for a second day. 

A six-column automobile dealer's ad appears under the "2011 People to Watch" story, but today, placement of the boxed story at the top of the page puts the ad over a major report on school test scores. On Wednesday, the ad was at the bottom of the page.

Check out the clunky head on the school test results:

New test scores, old gap concerns 

Old gap concerns? The drop head would have made a better main head:

Schools pledge to help those left behind 

On Page L-3, a 39-year-old North Bergen woman has been reported missing, but no similar stories have appeared on the apparent disappearance of Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado, Staff Writer Jean Rimbach and other staffers whose bylines haven't been seen for weeks.

Look for real news elsewhere

Image by Grant Jun Otsuki via Flickr

Readers learned many, many years ago not to judge the most important news of the day by the front page of The Record, the local newspaper that banned one-town stories from Page 1. For example, you'd never know New Jersey and its towns are facing a severe financial crisis by how Governor-elect Chris Christie jumps onto and off of  the front page.

Today, half of Page 1 is devoted to those hopeless hoopsters, the Nets, whose move to Brooklyn couldn't come soon enough. Maybe the airhead reporter who wrote this garbage, John Brennan, will get a job as their publicist and follow them.

Have you ever seen anything like Pages A-6 and A-7, referred to in the newsroom as a "double truck"? The stories literally wrap around a Macy's ad, as if it's part of the news layout. I've lost count of how many nights Nancy Cherry, my supervisor on the news copy desk in Hackensack, used to leaf through the paper, right off the press, and say of the expensive, full-page ads, "Thank God for Macy's, thank God for Macy's."

Desperate for news about Hackensack, the lazy, incompetent editors in Woodland Park assigned Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado to cover an anti-war demonstration at the Bergen County Courthouse and then splashed the story all over the front of the Local section. You'll also see Englewood and Teaneck datelines in today's section, but no educational or development news from those three, ethnically diverse towns.

Reporters who write about town employee benefits or promotions aren't really covering their communities. Do Alvarado and Staff Writers Giovanna Fabiano and Josepeh Ax ever talk to residents or do they merely collect and rewrite press releases? Another way reporters at The Record of Woodland Park try to look busy is by writing endless infrastructure stories, anything to avoid reporting on residents' concerns or quality of life (see L-3 and L-5).