More lessons in lazy journalism

Jackie Park, 18, a woman who had a promising future, was struck and killed by an SUV in Palisades Park. Broad Avenue, the main commercial street, is shown above.

The Record's lazy editors have claimed another victim -- an 18-year-old Korean-American woman with a promising future who was mowed down by a huge SUV as she walked along the shoulder of Bergen Boulevard in Palisades Park.

Today's Page 1 story doesn't even say whether Jackie Park was walking with her back to traffic, but readers who pore over the story through the continuation page will come to that conclusion -- she apparently was run down from behind.

Another element completely missing in the poorly edited piece is basic safety advice for pedestrians who walk along roads without sidewalks, like that  stretch of Bergen Boulevard.

Old story

Park's death on Monday is eerily familiar to The Record's readers, who were drenched by tear-jerking stories when scholar-athlete Gabriele Reuveni, 20, of Paramus was run down from behind on July 14 in the Poconos.

The Reuveni pieces echoed stories about two teenagers who were walking with their backs to traffic in 2006 when they, too, were run down and killed by a drunk driver in Kinnelon. 

None of the stories commissioned by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes ever included safety guidelines that may keep other pedestrians alive.

If these four victims were walking or jogging toward traffic, they might still be alive today.

Lazy columnist

Road Warrior John Cichowski, the columnist who fancies himself a road-safety expert, couldn't muster the energy to put together a piece on what to do when walking along roads -- even though he has written thousands of inches on pedestrian crosswalk and cellphone safety.

Instead, in today's column, the increasingly irrelevant Cichowski rewrote a Monday story on an elderly driver rescued from flood waters (L-1).

He refers to the driver as "seven decades past puberty." You'd never know from his amateurish style that he himself is many decades past puberty.

Today's editorial on A-18 is all about cellphone-distracted pedestrians, not victims like Jackie Park. 

Going global

 

Editor Marty Gottlieb must think he still is editing a global newspaper, judging from today's A-1 story on power outages in India.

One good thing is the blackouts will help India's wealthy upper class continue to ignore grinding poverty in what has been labeled "The Turd World."

Fender benders

If you wonder why Sykes' Local section has so little local news, check out the photos of non-fatal accidents on every news page today: L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6.

Instead of being sent out to get enterprise photos, the Woodland Park daily's talented photographers have been demoted to ambulance chasers.

Missing news

On the first Business page (L-7), the editors buried a story on how New Jersey and Governor Christie are at the bottom among 30 states in recovering jobs lost to the recession.

So, Christie's much-ballyhooed "Jersey Comeback" is little more than Jersey Come all over the faces of adoring journalists. 

The story on PSE&G expanding a solar program includes a photo of Christie in Hackensack, but the story doesn't tell readers the exact location of a new solar farm on River Street -- as if it's in another state  (L-7).

It happens to be next to the county jail and across from the Wicker Warehouse.

Another piece of Hackensack news missing from Local today is the buzz in legal circles that five more police officers have tentatively agreed to settle their lawsuits against former Police Chief Ken Zisa, reportedly for a total of $425,000.

Lawyers will lop off about a third of that, plus such expenses as copying and postage.

Suck on this

Readers who doubt Susan Leigh Sherrill truly sucks as food editor should see the Better Living front and her recipe of the week for peach-and-bourbon popsicles (BL-1).

Burying the lede on Hackensack

The once-powerful Zisa family commiserated at White Manna after Ken Zisa was found guilty. The hamburger joint on River Street named a special after Zisa: The B.S. Burger. The connection is clear: Pink slime in the burgers, more slime in City Hall.

The Record today again insists that Ken Zisa is "still chief" of police in Hackensack, according to a headline on Page 1.

Inside, deep on A-8, the story mentions "Zisa's continued position at the head of the Police Department ...."

But Editor Marty Gottlieb and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes are just burying the lede (newspaper jargon for a story's lead or first paragraph, which is supposed to capsulize what happened).

And what happened at an unusual Monday night meeting of the City Council was the appointment of Capt. Tomas Padilla as interim police chief -- two years after Zisa was suspended without pay and Padilla took over the department (A-8).

Out of the picture

Zisa, 58, has been a non-entity for two, long years as his case moved slowly through the criminal courts, and he was found guilty by a jury nearly a week ago.

Still, the editors, Columnist Mike Kelly and other reporters maintain the fiction that Zisa is head of the Police Deparment -- contradicting the facts -- because controversy sells papers.

They continue to manufacture controversy where none exists, and ignore the real crime in Hackensack.

Family conflicts

Zisa will forfeit his so-called position -- and his pensions -- on the day he is sentenced. But his cousin, Joseph Zisa, remains city attorney. That's the real problem for residents.

It would be natural for The Record to ask the city attorney to explain the legal process of cutting ties to Ken Zisa, but, of course, the city's lawyer is involved in a clear conflict.

Turd-filled Ravi-oli 

Many readers were disappointed by the 30-day jail term for homophobe Dharun Ravi, who maintained his superior airs through his sentencing and refused to apologize for hounding Tyler Clementi to his death (A-1).

Let's hope that after he serves his time and performs 300 hours of community service, Ravi gets deported to his native India, where privileged people like him keep millions underfoot, living in abject poverty.

A famous travel writer coined the phrase "Turd World" to describe the country after he saw an Indian man squat down and defecate on a train platform.

Avatar news

On the front of Local, the Port Authority's plan to install customer-service avatars at the three metropolitan area airports may give Gottlieb an idea on how to improve municipal coverage.

He can replace head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her cast of lazy, incompetent minions with a single assignment avatar in the Woodland Park newsroom.

Just imagine. The avatar won't overeat or fart or fill the newsroom with insane laughter, which I used to hear no matter how bad the news was that day.

Today's Local news section is so short on stories about Hackensack and other towns, every page carries police, court or accident news as filler.