Editors ensure seniors stay invisible

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North Jersey is returning to normal a week after a bad nor'easter,
but The Record's editors grew tired of the story in just a few days.

The Record's lazy assignment desk didn't bother actually covering a conference of senior citizens on Friday in Paramus -- and missed an instant poll of the audience.


So, today's paper doesn't report that many of the participants feel they are "invisible" in their communities -- a reflection on the Woodland Park daily as much as it is on politicians and social-service agencies.


Not one of the 132 participants groused about Social Security payments, Medicare premiums and lousy lunches at senior centers or told nursing-home horror stories -- which is all you hear about in The Record's spotty coverage of the elderly.


In fact, they asked about inter-generational programs and housing, courses to improve their driving skills and a list of politicians based on how they stand on senior issues -- not party affiliation -- among other suggestions and demands.


And they said they stay in North Jersey because they are "familiar with the area" and love having all that Manhattan has to offer on their suburban doorstep.


Screw old people


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes missed all of this -- just as she has ignored the concerns of the elderly for years. 


Interim Editor Doug Clancy leads the paper today with the resignation of former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine as head of something called MF Global Holdings Ltd. Presumably, "MF" doesn't stand for "mother fuckers."


Is there anything in this Page 1 story to suggest Corzine defrauded investors? 


A week after a brutal nor'easter knocked out power to 175,000 customers, Clancy continues to downplay the damage, relegating a couple's death to A-8, and bouncing Bergen County stories off of the front page again.


More election stories


Election coverage again dominates the Local news section, Sykes' pride and joy. Utilities report more than 20,000 customers still were without power on Friday.


However, Better Living hasn't let down readers. Today's cover story by Staff Writer Virginia Rohan lists essentials that should be restocked for the "next time we're left in the dark."


On Friday, the weekly Hackensack Chronicle, a sister publication of The Record, reported on its front page that a proposed 19-story hospital would be built "at the corner of Prospect and Summit avenues in Hackensack."


Those streets run parallel.


Blame the victim


Also on Friday, on the front of The Record's Local section, transportation reporter Karen Rouse provided all the grisly details surrounding the September 2010 death of Caesar Muloki, a 12-year-old Hackensack Middle School student killed by a train, but never names him.


Rouse is doing her best to help NJ Transit blame pedestrians who are killed by trains. In doing so, she takes the focus off the agency's responsibility to make tracks and crossings safer.


Her job as a journalist -- the one her assignment editor won't ask her to do -- is to go into the Hackensack neighborhood where the boy was killed and interview residents who believe the safety of block after block of unfenced track can be improved so another student won't be killed.


That's especially important in Hackensack, where many students walk to and from school, because the city doesn't provide busing.


Meat obsession


On Wednesday, Staff Writer Bill Ervolino celebrated ethnic butchers, but never told readers whether the sausage, meatballs, pork chops and liverwurst he buys were raised with antibiotics, growth hormones and other harmful additives or preserved with nitrites (F-3).


He also goofed when he identified Ray Venezia as a butcher who "oversees the meat departments of North Jersey's Fairway stores."


New York-based Fairway Market has only one store in North Jersey, and it's in Paramus.

We get only half the story

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Could the front page get any more boring? "Recession took its toll on paychecks." That's not news, especially to the poor schmucks who reported, wrote, laid out and edited the story. "EnCap ... shows Trenton's ugly side." Is Columnist Charles Stile's spin on the latest corruption indictment really news?

The third story on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park today appears to be another chapter in the escalating war of words between Governor Christie and the teachers union over evaluation and tenure. But when you read it closely, you realize crucial information was left out of the story to  make the governor look good.

Of course, Staff Writer Leslie Brody includes the background that every good newspaper story contains, and introduces it this way: "The governor's announcement came as education reform has [been] catapulted into the national conversation." Sounds a little exaggerated to me.


But where is mention of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's own proposal just a couple of days ago for revising tenure rules for city teachers -- a plan that was endorsed by their union? That's just across the river. Where is mention of how Christie and his education aides blew $400 million in federal aid?


And when is the media going to acknowledge the "elephant in the room," as illustrated by the A-12 photo of Christie with his jacket off. When is The Record going to acknowledge that Editors Francis Scandale, Deirdre Sykes and others have deliberately ignored the obesity epidemic, to the detriment of readers?


On the front of Local, Staff Writer Merry Firschein reports that Fort Lee voters rejected an $81 million expansion plan for the schools. Let's hope she does a follow on whether the proposal was the victim of the recession or whether the negative votes of seniors were enough to overcome support by Korean and Japanese residents, who traditionally support education.


There is no municipal news from Hackensack or Englewood for yet another day, but Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado tells us the Middle School is raising $10,000 needed to send back to Africa the body of a 12-year-old boy killed by a train.

Alvarado, who wasn't involved in the initial coverage Sept. 22 and 23, is the first reporter to mention the district doesn't provide busing to students, including Caesar Muloki, who was walking along the unfenced tracks on Railroad Avenue when the NJ Transit train brushed him. 

But the paper has never taken the governor to task for his deep cuts in aid to NJ Transit -- money that could have been used to provide security guards at train stations and fences along Railroad Avenue in Hackensack and in other densely populated neighborhoods divided by tracks. 


In fact, Desk Warrior John "Limp Chick" Cichowski took glee in writing a column blaming pedestrians for getting killed and not the agency for its lack of safety measures. What a great journalist.


What is a Local section without breathless news about Harrington Park, the burg where head Assignment Editor Sykes lives? Check out the six-inch story on L-2 telling North Jersey readers that renovation of athletic fields will be finished by November. It'll be a great Thanksgiving for all.


The Record has struggled for years to get votes from night meetings into the next day's paper, as apparently it did today with the Teaneck Council's historic decision to merge the Police and Fire Departments -- a move that could work in two neighboring communities, Hackensack and Englewood, and save hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. 

The story is on L-3, but it should be Page 1 news.

(Photo: Mayor Bloomberg of New York. His business news service employs former Record staffers.)