Pulling the rug from under readers

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The Record recommends you ask for "lean ground beef" next time to you have a burger.

There is what, 20 to 30 inches of text packed with places, dates, names and quotes, plus a photo and map, so why is the lead story on Page 1 about a boxer that ran away headlined "a mystery"?

It's no mystery: Editor Francis Scandale was desperate to sell this dog of a story, in another sign news judgment is far from his strong suit

Another non-story

Governor Christie creates yet another task force, this one on nuclear safety in New Jersey, and the non-story is on A-1 -- while the real nuclear drama in Japan is shoved back to A-8.

Scandale plastered Page 1 with one doomsday scenario after another in the wake of the March 11 quake and tsunami, losing all credibility with readers.

Garden variety pol

Convicted felon and former state Sen. Joseph Coniglio and his rug command the front page for a third day in a row, but his release from a federal prison camp plays second fiddle to college basketball fans.

There's more pet news all over the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, but this time the dog didn't make it.

Details stolen

For yet another day, Hackensack residents will search for municipal news, only to find Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado seems to have traded in her assignment for a police reporter's hat, turning out two stories on L-3.

In the story about an arrest in Englewood, none of the burglarized stores are identified for local readers, as if Alvarado is writing about a far off place like Denver or Iraq.

Holier than thou

I wonder where a Weight Watchers leader requests "lean ground beef" when she eats a burger out -- the advice she gives readers in an F-1 story today on healthy portions?

What do targets have in common?

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Here is Jerry DeMarco's take on The Record's recent investigations into political and law enforcement officials, including Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa. DeMarco, the former Record editor behind Cliffview Pilot.com, sent it in response to my post Friday, Throwing good money after bad:

"Competition is good for business," someone I highly respect told me recently.

It's also extremely satisfying when you enter a race as a single long-distance runner vs. a squadron of sprinters -- and STILL win. Got the timestamps to prove it, too.

Sure, they get their share of firsts. But shouldn't that be the standard when you have such resources?

I agree with you. But I believe the "understanding" isn't with KZ.

They went after Coniglio, but the feds got him first. Same with Ferriero.

Then came Mordaga -- oh, how they went after the former friend of the family, the "Clint Eastwood" of cops, jokingly known in the old newsroom as "the house dick" (that's a noir-era term for detective, young'uns). But Mike retired & they found no evidence of any wrongdoing. Boy, would I love to be HIS lawyer.

Running out of targets, they had one more crawdad hole left to find that big fish that so long has eluded them, the one that would get them some kind of cred in the industry -- which they don't seem to realize doesn't translate into ad revenue, & matters less to readers than Charlie Sheen leaving "2 1/2 Men."

Molinelli is squeaky clean -- and, boy, can he take a punch: Remember, he survived the cruise fiasco without a scratch (My "pal"? So what about it? Bring what he & his staff do every day & maybe I'll consider buying you lunch). So he wasn't an option.

The only target left was an old stand-by. They had the sources at their fingertips (they love to make phone calls instead of actually talking face-to-face). They even did a rimjob on Bobby Egan, KZ's sworn enemy & a crackpot from the word "go." Still, they couldn't pull the trigger.

So what happens? Molinelli's crew, w/ a little help from his feds, got Zisa first. And when Kenny blurted it out to staff, who immediately got calls? Yep: me.

So what did all the "investigative reporting" produce? The kind of work both Clints -- Taplin & Riley, newshounds who span generations -- would have laughed at. The kind Ritt/ McGarvey/ Cunnigham would've Jackson Pollock-ed with a grease pencil.

They didn't even explain to us how "Charles" begets the nickname "Ken."

So what say we raise a question: What do all these "targets" have in common?

 Eye on The Record says:

It seems most of the targets are Italian-Americans. Is that a coincidence? Do The Record's lazy, incompetent editors go after Italian-Americans? What do you think?

Way too little, way too late

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Three reporters for The Record spent the better part of three years "investigating" a law enforcement official -- under the supervision of one of the top editors in the newsroom -- and the lame results were put on line Tuesday night and printed today on the front of the Local section. Only a few promotional paragraphs appeared on the front page and that speaks volumes about the failure of the project.


After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff salaries and crippling news coverage of  Hackensack and other towns, it appears the newspaper had to resort to guilt by association to publish anything at all.

And despite all that time and effort, the lazy, incompetent editor and the trio of hapless reporters were unable to report how much Michael Mordaga earned from his alleged conflict of interest involving Hackensack University Medical Center.

The former Hackensack daily also doesn't explain why, if the Mordaga-hopsital relationship ended in February 2007, as it reports, it took all this time to print the story.

What does this say about the abilities of the lead reporter on the investigation -- Jean Rimbach -- and the two municipal reporters pulled off their beats for months at a time to assist her -- Shawn Boburg and Monsy Alvarado, who ignored covering  Hackensack  -- or the judgment of their editor, Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes?

The investigation marks another low for The Record, which is careful to avoid mentioning its own conflict involving the Hackensack medical center.  

Jennifer A. Borg, the daughter of the paper's multimillionaire owner, sat on the hospital board at the same time as the paper made hundreds of thousands of dollars from selling advertising to HUMC. (In fact, the online version of the Mordaga story appeared on northjersey.com under the hospital's banner advertisement. That ad was taken down later today.) You'd think Borg, a lawyer who is vice president and general counsel of North Jersey Media Group, would be more familiar with the nuances of ethical conflicts than Mordaga, who was chief of detectives in the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

You have to read the continuation of the story today on Page L-6 to find out Mordaga "has not been accused of any impropriety."  Plus, there is absolutely no suggestion that his private consultancy at the hospital affected in any way the prosecutor's criminal investigations.

In fact, the paper is so desperate to nail  Mordaga, the reporters have to dredge up the case against former state Sen. Joseph Coniglio, who is serving a prison sentence for accepting $100,000 in consulting fees for steering state grants to the hospital. The hospital apparently is the only connection between the two men.


http://www.northjersey.com/