What's the motive for this story?

Image by birdphone via Flickr

 

I am searching the Page 1 story on hospitals seeking new sites for expansion, and wondering which genius among the editors at The Record of Woodland Park came up with this lame story idea. Anything to avoid running legitimate news.

Is the former Hackensack daily trying to broker a deal between protesters and The Valley Hospital (photo), which wants to expand on its Ridgewood site? Or to be cynical, are the Borgs trying to unload their nearly 20 acres along the Hackensack River to get the hospital out of residents' hair? After all, Publisher Stephen A. Borg is on the hospital's council.

Does anyone recall a similar story when Hackensack Medical Center expansion plans ran into stiff community opposition?

What relevance to densely populated Bergen County is there in the experiences of hospitals in the Voorhees, Hopewell and Princeton areas? Or is this another example of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes neglecting basic coverage of Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood, so one of her pals, Staff Writer Mary Jo Layton, can spend a week or more on a flawed story? How about better coverage of the BP catastrophe?

Another A-1 story, on whether Governor Christie is packing town hall meetings with supporters, made me laugh, because he doesn't have to do so in North Jersey, where he has fawning Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin in his corner on nearly every issue.

Isn't Doblin in a sticky situation writing favorable opinion columns about Christie budget cuts, then approving, and possibly writing, editorials that review the governor's policies? Has any other editorial page editor before Alfie done both? Shame on you.

Are readers more interested in the ending of oyster cultivation in the polluted Hackensack River (A-1), or in what growers in cleaner, southern New Jersey waters are doing to replace Louisiana oysters devastated by the BP disaster in the Gulf?

Does Columnist Mike Kelly (L-1) expect us to feel sorry for all those greedy investors who fell for Bernie Madoff's scam, then paid taxes to the state on profits that never existed? How about writing about real victims for a change?

In Sunday's Local section, an L-3 story on Harrington Park kids was written by Mark J. Bonamo, identified as "staff writer." In The Hackensack Chronicle on Friday, Bonamo wrote the front-page story and was identified as "managing editor." Which is it? Surely, the answer lies with Mother Hen Deirdre, who likely favored covering this story about her hometown.

Jersey pride and punishment

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Today's Jersey-centric front page in The Record of Woodland Park even has an authentic whiff of corruption -- another charge against suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa. But what about all the other stories the Super Bowl-giddy editors are ignoring?


What about the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Has this important environmental story ever been on Page 1? The inability of BP to stop the leak after more than a month has everyone feeling powerless -- including readers who never see news of their towns in the paper. 

Why doesn't The Record ever identify the company as British Petroleum or report it is a foreign company? Are drivers boycotting BP stations, as people of my generation have long boycotted Exxon stations for the Alaska spill? Is this payback for the American Revolution?

What about the Jamaican community in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood? Aren't their views on gun violence in their homeland of legitimate concern to head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who has eaten her fair share of Jamaican rum cakes from an Englewood baker? Have those cakes made her lazy?

I appeal to Sykes, Editor Frank Scandale and others to get their heads out of their asses, and to Publisher Stephen A. Borg to tear himself away from his palatial estate in Tenafly and pay some attention to the many stories that are going unreported out of laziness, incompetence or worse. The Record is dying a slow, journalistic death.


A story on the hunt for a reputed drug lord in the island capital of Kingston -- way back on Page A-19 today -- has an incorrect headline. The Jamaican death toll stood at 48; the head says "reaches 50." And why is the wire editor wasting space on frogs closing a road in Greece (A-15)? Baffling.


Hackensack readers are so bored with coverage in the past year of the police chief's legal troubles, and Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado is such a timid reporter, she can't even get Zisa to comment on the occasions she has seen him. Pathetic. It's Alvarado, likely at Sykes' request, who has ignored just about all other Hackensack news in the past two years. 


Joseph Ax, the Teaneck reporter, has a strong story in Local (L-3) about pay-to-play and the township auditor and an Englewood budget story (all six paragraphs) is credited to Karen Sudol, the Tenafly reporter. It looks like Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano was pulled off her beat to help Alvarado with the Zisa story.


In Better Living, it is food-less Thursday.