More unbelievably boring Page 1 news

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The suicide of a state trooper and a $20 billion BP fund for victims earn only a few paragraphs each on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park today, but most of the page is devoted to maybe, could-be, wannabe stories the desperate editors are trying to pass off as local news.


Do North Jersey residents really care if the borough of Teterboro is carved up? All this coverage for a trial balloon? What residents are really dying to know is why the newspaper hasn't written anything about the tremendous quality-of-life impact the small airport has on them every day?

Are the Borgs among the fat cats whose behinds are pampered in noisy business jets, as an anonymous commentator has reported? Those planes seem to scrape rooftops in Hackensack, Teaneck, Maywood and other towns, depriving residents of the enjoyment of their back yards and high-rise balconies.

If so, that might explain why editors such as Frank Scandale, Deirdre Sykes and others have avoided the noise story for so many years. Or is former Publisher Malcolm A. Borg's long-time support for an aviation museum at the airport the reason the charter jet companies get so much promotional coverage in Business?


Of course, when you have lazy transportation reporters like Tom Davis and Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, who as a transportation reporter wrote about "highways of the future," you'll never get hard-hitting reporting about the airport or anything else. What you do get is Davis' speculative, A-1 story today on the possible construction of a Hudson River rail tunnel for Amtrak "within 20 years." Twenty years!


Davis, Sforza, Road Warrior John Cichowski and other lazy staffers refuse to look at the quality of the mass transit commuters have to contend with now, such as the creaking, decades-old local buses NJ Transit still uses in Bergen and Passaic counties. It might be that the riders, largely working class blacks and Hispanics who can't afford cars, are easy to ignore for the newspaper's overwhelmingly white newsroom staff.

Eager to deny President Obama a victory, an editorial on A-22 minimizes his Oval Office address, and blames him for not stopping the BP oil leak. As bad as the gushing oil is, it's ridiculous to compare the disaster to World War II, but Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin desperately needs exaggeration to make his point.


With no substantial Hackensack or Teaneck news to work with -- and the speculative Teterboro story all over A-1 --  all the editors have for the Local front today is police and court news. There's not even a word from Monsy Alvarado, the Hackensack reporter, on the proposed city budget and tax hike.


Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano turns out a short piece on the Mackay Park ice rink -- the first story about the city since the end of May. We welcome back this bull dog of news.

In Better Living, it is no-food-news Thursday.

(Photo: President Obama in the White House Oval Office)

Hey, Frank, who the F cares?

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The biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history isn't enough of a front-page story for Editor Frank Scandale, who is more jock than journalist. Today, The Record of Woodland Park glorifies the Russian fat-cat owner of the hapless Nets basketball team with a huge A-1 photo and story by one of its biggest hacks, Staff Writer John Brennan.


Brennan likely helped talk this story onto Page 1, as he did obsessively with all the nonsense he covered when I was still at The Record, and found a sympathetic audience in Scandale, Tim Nostrand and other desperate editors. Meanwhile, readers looking for essential information about their towns were ignored, as they are now.


Greedy BP's blunders in the Gulf are shoved down below the fold on A-1. The oil platform disaster is on the cover of Time magazine and leads the CBS Evening News every day, but Scandale's Record bounces the story onto and off of the front page without rhyme or reason. Of course, we know how flawed Scandale's  news judgment is after he relegated Tom Franklin's incredible 9/11 photo to a back page.


Yet, after taking over from Mac Daddy, Publisher Stephen A. Borg not only kept Scandale on, but promoted him to vice president. Did anyone in the news meetings Borg attended see him and Frank slap each other on the ass after placing yet another sports or business of sports story on A-1?


Meanwhile, coverage of the World Cup in Sports has been lackluster.


Local leads with a Star-Ledger story on a $2.5 million settlement for a hotel clerk, but the reporter leaves readers in the dark on how much of that will be going to the lawyer (probably a third, plus expenses). Don't look for substantial Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood news in the section.

Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado's sole contribution today is a too-long story on a ruling to withhold pay from suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa. She has yet to report details of the proposed city budget and tax hike, which are going before the City Council tonight for the second time. You can thank head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who has been pulling Monsy's strings for years.

There is also a short story on the closing of the Court Street Bridge for two years to refurbish the span, too weak for trucks over 3 tons. The project will make the Borgs' nearly 20 acres on the Hackensack River a lot more valuable, especially to a big box retailer that wants as much access as possible.

Looking at the 2003 photo with the obituary of singer Jimmy Dean on L-1 today makes me think he ate too much of the mystery meat that went into his breakfast sausage. I also realize how little impact Dean (Tenafly), Eddie Murphy (Englewood) and other celebrities who lived in North Jersey had on neighbors or their towns.


There is no local food news in Better Living today. A story from the Contra Costa Times on "shopping healthfully" completely omits any mention of avoiding food with antibiotics, growth hormones, animal byproducts, pesticides and other harmful additives.

Giving readers tabloid news

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 Hackensack readers haven't seen the details of the proposed city budget and tax hike, but the editors have seen fit to order daily coverage of the Passaic County trial of a former nanny accused of having sex with a 12-year-old boy. It's the tabloid side of The Record of Woodland Park -- the kind of sensational news these desperate editors seize on day after day in the absence of legitimate stories.


The front page today reminds me of when The Record was an afternoon paper and editors covered most of A-1 with a "patch" -- a soft-news story and photo or graphic exploring social and legal issues, and many other topics. Shocking what kids say when shielded by anonymity on a social-networking site. But no surprise when you read some of the anonymous comments on Eye on The Record.


The editors waited for a wire service story to report on Page 1 today suspicions that BP hasn't been telling the full truth about the enormity of the gushing oil well or its potential damage, and how government regulators have been hoodwinked. Still, The Record still cannot muster any editorial outrage.


Has Publisher Stephen A. Borg ordered Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin and other editorial writers to confine themselves to New Jersey topics -- as he did initially with Margulies the cartoonist?


There is no Hackensack or Englewood news in Local today. It's no-food-coverage Thursday in Better Living.

This is transportation coverage?

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Let's all thank Staff Writer Tom Davis and clueless head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes for more cutting-edge transportation coverage. The editors at The Record of Woodland Park gave him a big part of Page 1 today for his non-story on training simulators used by drivers for the small PATH system.


Davis and the other transportation writers, including Road Warrior John Cichowski, have been simulating journalism for years. They've long ignored the shabby local bus service and the huge quality-of-life impact in Hackensack, Maywood and other towns from the business jets that bring fat cats to Teterboro Airport.

Davis, Cichowski and Staff Writer Karen Rouse have consistently refused to report how inferior local buses are when compared to the newer NJ Transit fleet that carries mostly white commuters to Manhattan. Of course, the local buses are patronized heavily by minorities, many of whom can't afford cars, so they may not be the paper's "demographic."


This is undoubtedly in keeping with the "responsible journalism" practiced by the Borgs' North Jersey Media Group from Woodland Park.


At least the editors found room on A-1 for another pissing match between Governor Christie and teachers, and the launching of a criminal probe against BP and the company that operated the oil platform that blew up and sank in the Gulf on April 20. But the paper and Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin have virtually ignored the slow death of an ecosystem.


Local has a detailed story on cuts to the Teaneck school budget, but readers in Hackensack are still waiting for a story on the proposed city budget and tax hike from Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado. But like a pit bull that won't let go of its prey, she has another story on a hearing in the Ken Zisa saga, and that's all she wrote about Hackensack for the umpteenth day. 

The only Englewood story -- a homicide -- leaves readers in the dark on a motive three days after the crime.


Marketplace returns to Better Living today, but only one new food outlet is featured, in contrast to the two a week that ran in the past. Is this column going to run only once a month now? That saves freelance fees, but cheats readers. Maybe a better solution would be to cut Food Editor Bill Pitcher's inflated salary.

Moving tribute -- and trash

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On rare days, the editors of The Record of Woodland Park get it right -- such as today's touching Page 1, A-6 and A-7 tribute to the 19 service members from North Jersey who have died since 2003. This was a great staff effort, led by local obituary writer Jay Levin. Then, the editors turn around and insult readers' intelligence with an A-1 story on a group of inconsequential right-wingers who call themselves the Tea Party.


Are the tea baggers more important than the Gulf oil disaster? Herb Jackson, the paper's Washington correspondent, actually quotes one saying, "We're a loose affiliation of patriots." Patriots? What a joke.

Today, we learn the oil will be gushing until August. What incompetence. I suggest we revoke the visas of all these bumbling Brits at BP and ask for assistance from some of the big oil producers, such as the Saudis.

The Local section devotes most of its space today to non-profits and veterans, and there was no room for Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck news, assuming the assignment desk suffocating under Deirdre Sykes generated any. A box on failed school budgets does include Englewood and Teaneck, but there is no explanation why councils in these diverse districts enacted such severe cuts.