Editors' minds are in the sewer

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Sarah Palin's bus trip is going nowhere, but she has the media fooled.

Talk about news judgment.

Six towns complain about sewer-fee hikes or a hospital formally applies to reopen another, and Editor Francis Scandale thinks it's front-page news. That's desperation.

Even a stand-alone photo of micro cars in Japan lands on Page 1 of The Record today. What gives? 

 

And, at the bottom of the page, a photo of Sarah Palin raises an unanswered question, and it isn't about her laughable flirtation with high office: Why is she wearing a Star of David around her neck?

Whirlybird diet

Scandale blew it big time when he assigned an apparently inexperienced reporter to Wednesday's A-1 story on Governor Christie's descent from heaven in a state police helicopter.

Political columnist Charles Stile should have covered it, so his cutting remarks on A-1 today are good, but a day late.

And why didn't Scandale package Stile with lawmakers' reaction to the $2,500-an-hour jaunt, instead of putting the latter on A-3? Then, he could have referred readers to the editorial and cartoon on A-10.

Oh, I guess that pink Japanese car had to go out front.

Rabbi in the news

At the top of A-3, a Star-Ledger story errs in the lead paragraph with the phrase "Syrian Sephardic." It should be "the nation's largest community of Syrian Jews." Would the phrase "Polish Ashkenazi" mean anything to readers?

In Local, Hackensack readers looking for news will find an L-3 story on a new e-ticket system for police -- the second story recently on a department adopting the new technology.

It looks like head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes is intent on reporting the roll-out of e-ticket systems in every one of the 90 or so towns in the circulation area.

Who says she doesn't cover local news?

More rotten judgment

On April 13, Scandale squandered part of the front page to report the Hunts Point Market might relocate to a garbage dump in the Meadowlands -- raising the potential for a new crop of Jersey Jokes.

Today, on L-8, readers learn the huge produce market signed a three-year lease extension on its Bronx quarters.

It's more than sour grapes. The original story reeks of Scandale's rotten news judgment.

From a local garbage dump to your plate

Image by samenstelling via Flickr

Hunts Point in the Bronx is no garden spot, but does a wholesale food market belong anywhere near old garbage dumps in the New Jersey Meadowlands, above?

Laughing out loud.

The front page of The Record of Woodland Park today is filled with a couple of lousy Jersey Jokes from Brooklyn-born Editor Francis Scandale.

Eating garbage

The first whopper leads A-1, reporting that one of the world's biggest wholesale food markets might relocate to a contaminated former garbage dump in the Meadowlands from the Bronx. How appetizing is that notion?

Garbage dumps are where food goes to rot, not where North Jersey foodies who want to eat local go for their next meal. I suppose a big selling point is that methane gas vented from the old dumps would ripen the wholesalers' fruit and vegetables.

This sounds like another one of the bargaining chips the co-op has used over the years to get a better deal from New York City. There's zero chance Mayor Michael Bloomberg will allow the Hunts Point Market to pull up stakes.

And what about that clunky headline? "Market looks at EnCap." Is that the stock market? Housing market? 

Mob scenes

The second Jersey Joke is the A-1 refer and F-1 story about Englewood native John Travolta, who will play a dead crime boss, John Gotti Sr., in a feature film claiming the Gottis are "victims."  The producers aren't saying how many murders Travolta as Gotti will have to commit or order. 

Obituaries of judges, Hollywood stars, musicians and most murder victims hardly ever run on Page 1, so what is the photo of a funeral mass for a Bloomingdale barber doing here? Couldn't Scandale come up with anything better from his award-winning photo staff?

This is a strong North Jersey and New Jersey front page -- but the editor allows the paper to be used by Hollywood and Hunts Point.

How much is a consultant to Governor Christie's education czar being paid -- the $60,000 in the lead paragraph on A-1 or the "20 grand a month" in the quote from Assemblyman Louis Greenwald?

Hole in none

An A-12 editorial on a female sports writer for The Record being barred from a golf club locker room talks about the importance of "reporters trying to get to the truth." About golf? Does the writer expect readers to believe that's a reference to reporters at The Record? 

Dirt buster

In his third column in a row on highway litter, Road Warrior John Cichowski is taking credit for getting the mess cleaned up (L-1) -- just as he crowed about passage of the anti-roof snow law after he wrote dozens of columns about that.

Imagine what he could accomplish if he wrote about decrepit local buses or the need to hike the low gasoline tax a few cents to repair the state's bombed-out roads.

You won't find any municipal news today from Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood, Ridgewood or many other towns. 

I heard the assignment editors who work under the micro-managing Deirdre Sykes took the day off to shop North Jersey's malls.