Readers lose big bet on local news

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Today's local news amounts to little more than a pile of manure.

Readers looking for local news won't find much of it on Page 1 today and if they turn to the local-news section, they'll probably end up staring at an unusual amount of horse manure.


You can smell this story as soon you unfold The Record -- an upbeat profile of a new general manager for the dying Meadowlands Racetrack. 


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes could not have strayed farther from her mission of covering local news, but she has long relied on Staff Writer John Brennan's sports-business stories to fill all that yawning space in Local she faces every day.


Another BM


Brennan pushed this story for the front page, arguing many readers say Editor Francis Scandale and his minions "don't give a shit."


"My glowing profile will show readers we have a lot of shit to give them," the former sports reporter said.


Sykes grabbed the story for the Local front after her assignment desk failed for the umpteenth time this year to find any municipal news in Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck and many other towns.


The head assignment editor also knew her decision would be supported by the local-news layout editor and one of the supervisors of the news copy desk -- both of whom are big fans of horse racing.


More big holes


Even all that horse manure couldn't plug the many holes in the section -- Sykes needed two candidate-debate stories, a federal trial and a police story just to fill out L-1.


She was lucky to have health-care news for L-2, but her desperation returned on L-3, where she grabbed at a photo of a downed traffic-light pole and ran the continuations of three stories from the front.


Sykes also was fortunate to have two strong local obituaries for L-6. 


Page 1 scramble


To critics who say Scandale fills Page 1 with garbage, the editor answers with an off-lead A-1 story about the influence in Trenton of the smelly garbage industry.


The editor did provide a ray of light on A-1 in Staff Writer Barbara Williams' saga of Mike Stanzione of Saddle Brook, a hospital patient who battled the medical bureaucracy for four years and is finally going home.


But Scandale stumbled by putting an international story at the bottom of the page.


A far better story for Page 1 would have been opening arguments in the federal murder conspiracy trial of prominent criminal-defense attorney Paul Bergrin -- a tangled tale that is destined for the big screen.


This rare story of a lawyer fighting for his own freedom is out of place on Sykes' Local front, but she probably warned Scandale she'd sit on him if he tried to take it for A-1.


Christie defeat


And why couldn't Scandale find room on A-1 for the rebuke of Governor Christie by a Superior Court judge, who ruled the state's revised pension-and- benefit system violates the constitution's ban on cutting judicial salaries?


Is Scandale trying to protect the GOP bully again?


Christie wailed, calling the judge's decision "self-serving" and claiming it "is why the public has grown to have such little faith in the objectivity of the judiciary."


Really? Did he ever say that in the years he rolled up a long string of official-corruption convictions as U.S. attorney?


Editors blasted


On A-10 today, a letter to the editor from Arnold Korotkin of Little Falls blasts an L-1 story that ran this past Sunday under the headline, "North Jersey not running to join Wall Street protesters."


Korotkin says he is dismayed "the article neglected" to report that in New Jersey, there is "an active,visible movement showing support for the Occupy Wall Street" protesters.


Demonstration and vigils have taken place in Little Falls, Trenton and Jersey City, among other places, he said.


Gee, did Sykes' crack assignment desk deliberately slant the story?


Bloodletting


Watch for a spike in emergency room visits, if Better Living readers take Staff Writer Sachi Fujimori's advice to shuck their own oysters (F-1 and F-3).


The bivalves will be red with blood -- not hot sauce -- if the amateur shuckers don't use a protective glove ($139.95 at Cooking.com).


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An edition of highs and lows

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Egypt's Renaissance, by sculptor Mahmoud Mokhtar (1891-1934) Cairo, Egypt.

"They made history," Mohamed Younis of Franklin Lakes said in one of today's front page stories on the largely peaceful revolution in his native Egypt that has gripped the world for nearly three weeks. 

Younis and fellow Egyptians in North Jersey finally made it to Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park in a package of stories and photos from here and the Middle East that jump to Page A-6. 

Despite wordiness, the lead paragraph on the local story by Staff Writers Erik Shilling and Nick Clunn snaps  -- and the news copy desk had the good sense to write the main headline off of it:

"Fury turned into elation for many North Jersey Egyptians on Friday as news broke that Egypt's embattled president ... had chosen to bow to the demands of hundreds of thousands of protesters and step down."

Confused local stories

Then, I turned to the head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes ' Local news section and tried to fathom what happened in two accident stories. The reporting, writing and editing is so confused readers have to read and re-read the text as they try to peace together events.

The off-lead L-1 story reports that a bus hit a 90-year-old woman in Fort Lee and attributes that to police. In the second paragraph, the county prosecutor also is quoted as saying she was hit by a bus, but in the rest of the story, it's unclear whether she fell on her own or was struck.

The involvement of the Prosecutor's Office is never explained.

At the bottom of L-1, the lead paragraph of the second accident story reports a car "rear-ended" a police cruiser, injuring a police sergeant and a suspect he was arresting and "tossing both men onto Saddle River Road." 

Finally, seven paragraphs later, readers are told the cop and suspect were outside the police cruiser when it was hit. That should have been in the lead.

The main story on L-1 -- a week without a snow or ice storm -- would have been a lot better without its juvenile first sentence: "Break out the swimsuits and fire up the grill." Grow up. At least the story explains why the near record snowfall has stopped for now.

More horse manure

Readers are undoubtedly wondering what another story on the Meadowlands Racetrack is doing among zoning, police, accident and education stories on L-3 today. 

This story and others by Staff Writer John Brennan are mere filler in the absence of legitimate municipal news from Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck and other major towns. Sykes' assignment desk minions seem to take every Friday off. 


Witness the three wire-service obituaries of people you've never heard of on L-6 today.

Does any of this really affect me?

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 This post was published originally
on Wednesday, July 21, 2010.

The post for Friday, July 23, 2010, follows this one.

When I freed The Record of Woodland Park from its plastic bag today and opened it, I was hit by this huge element on Page 1, and wondered, What's this all about? There was a big, black headline, tons of text, photos, charts, lists and so forth on A-1 and inside -- but it was a lot of heat and not much light.


When do we get to the part where Governor Christie lowers property taxes, the main plank of his successful campaign for office? What's all of this stuff in the main head about taking "a gamble on gambling overhaul" -- does any of that affect me or tens of thousands of other North Jersey residents?

The  headline's over line heralds "bold ideas." Does this mean the paper is solidly behind the proposal, and couldn't wait for the nicety of saying so in an editorial?

Indeed, is this package of stories so many trial balloons lofted by Christie with the eager, unquestioning help of editors like Frank "Castrato" Scandale and Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, and reporters like John Brennan, who is not exactly the brightest bulb in the newsroom.

The former Hackensack daily once ran "What It Means" boxes with complicated stories. Today's package sorely needed one, especially because of the involvement of Brennan, a former sports writer who loves to talk up his stories and who never learned the line between promotion and journalism.

I plowed through one story on the continuation page (A-10) and learned Atlantic City would get a bigger share of casino revenue than before, which sounds good if that money helps improve neighborhoods outside the casino district. And a chart says a couple of state authorities would be eliminated. I do know a couple of news and copy editors in Woodland Park are worried about the future of the Meadowlands racetrack.


So would my property taxes go down? I don't have a clue. So far, Christie has given a huge tax break to the Borgs and other millionaires, and more tax breaks to wealthy small-business people, all with the unqualified support of Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin. Meanwhile, the Big Guy has screwed just about everyone else -- from mass transit users to seniors. And have you noticed recent stories reporting how Republicans are raising more funds? The rich folks are already paying Christie back.


There isn't much news in the rest of today's paper. NJ Transit received 25,000 complaints about bus drivers in 2008 and 2009, but that isn't enough to get Road Warrior John Cichowski out of the office to speak with the mass-transit commuters he is supposed to be writing about.


Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado has an L-1 follow on the parking-garage collapse in Hackensack, where she is assigned. This fifth day of coverage equals the longest, unbroken string of stories about the city in a few years, during which Alvarado pursued Police Chief Ken Zisa almost exclusively and before that ex-lawman Michael Mordaga.


Inside Local, not one but two overturned vehicle photos and stories take up precious space that should be occupied by municipal news of Englewood, Teaneck, Hackensack and other towns, but I guess there was none. Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi seems to specialize in this genre. And on the sixth day of oppressive heat and humidity, Sykes says once again that a weather story is beneath her and her staff. 


Mother Hen clucks: "Do you really expect my reporting chicks to leave the office on a day like this? It's too hot for their feathers."

(Photo: Atlantic City in 2007.)

The post for Friday, July 23, 2010, is below.