In 2013, we saw many lows at our local daily newspaper

A Bogota fire truck on a rainy day in Hackensack. These words appear on the back of the truck, under the painted American flag: "All Gave Some ... Some Gave All. 9-11-01." All gave some? Not sure what that means, but the tribute shows why the world needs more copy editors.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Echoing the theme of sections in today's Sunday edition, The Record of Woodland Park tried mightily under a former Times editor to hit highs in 2013.

But the sad reality is Editor Marty Gottlieb, who traded Paris for Paramus, continued to be weighed down by the dysfunctional local-news operation he inherited.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who is on a prolonged sick leave, and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza are two lifers who bungled just about every breaking news story that came their way, as well as routine local coverage.

Decline in quality

And the quality of reporting, writing and fact-checking -- in news stories and columns, headlines and photo captions -- declined drastically.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg's decision to downsize the staff and abandon Hackensack several years ago led to the merger of The Record and Herald News staffs in a smaller Woodland Park newsroom.

The Herald News contributed some accomplished reporters and writers, but the editors and copy editors from the smaller daily have been uniformly mediocre and they have dumbed down content.

Houlton factor

Borg's economy moves also led to the dismissal of four veteran copy editors and the departure of Nancy Cherry, who alone upheld standards of writing, grammar and fact-checking as co-chief of The Record's news copy desk.

With the elevation of Liz Houlton to production editor from head of the features copy desk, where she had earned the title of "Queen of Errors," the sad outcome was predictable -- an unprecedented decline in quality.

Hackensack news

As a resident of Hackensack and an independent City Council candidate in the May election, I welcomed a dramatic improvement in news coverage that began in June after a reform slate defeated allies of the ruling Zisa family.

But I still haven't seen any meaningful coverage of many other towns or their struggling downtowns, and The Record's transportation reporters continue to ignore increasing traffic congestion and officials' refusal to expand mass transit.

Today's paper

Today's front page is typical, with another couple of thousands of words about who knew what and when they knew it during the politically inspired closure of Fort Lee access lanes to the George Washington Bridge more than three months ago (A-1).

A Page 1 story on whether it will snow on Feb. 2, the date of the Super Bowl, includes a photo caption noting "cars" struggled with snow and ice in Englewood on Feb. 2, 2011.

They must have been some of those Google cars, which drive themselves (A-1).

The first paragraph of the lead Page 1 story on the Gallo family tragedy in Washington Township seems sloppily written, beginning with "soon."

The reporter also says Dr. James Gallo has "a eulogy to script." Does anyone "script" a eulogy? What is wrong with "write"?

Copping out

On the Local front, a photo of a police assault team at Westfield Garden State Plaza highlights the irresponsible lack of security at the Paramus mall -- a story the local staff refused to tackle (L-1).

Of course, the cops got there too late on Nov. 4 to prevent a troubled Richard Shoop, 20, of Teaneck from invading the mall with a rifle, firing random shots that panicked shoppers and store employees, and then committing suicide (L-3).

On L-2, more space is devoted to a homeless man who turned in $850 he found on Main Street than to the victory of Citizens for Change in the May Hackensack City Council election.

The dismissal of the city clerk and city manager, who were perceived as allies of the corrupt police chief, Ken Zisa, and former City Council, aren't even mentioned.

On the cheap

On the Business front, the Your Money's Worth column on food prices and the related North Jersey Marketbasket Survey on B-7 continue to ignore the organic revolution.

Similarly, Elisa Ung's The Corner Table column on "dining blessings of 2013," includes heart-stopping food photos and nary a reference to whether restaurants are serving more naturally raised or grown food (BL-1 and BL-11).

Forgotten Main Streets

On the Real Estate front, a story on "Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time," a book written by a city planner, could run in any newspaper across America.

There is not a single reference to North Jersey or to cities like Englewood and Hackensack that have encouraged the construction of hundreds of luxury apartments in or near their downtowns.

Judging by the number of empty storefronts on Englewood's Palisade Avenue and Dean and Engle streets, the influx of hundreds of new apartment dwellers in recent years have made little difference in that city's "walkable" downtown.

Uncomfortable truths

Of course, The Record has ignored that story, just as it has never reported the impact on Main Street of North Jersey Media's Group decision to pull out more than 1,000 employees from 150 River St. in Hackensack in 2009.

On the Opinion front, Columnist Brigid Harrison calls Governor Christie one of 2013's "political winners" and a potential candidate who can win the White House for Republicans in 2016.

But she and just about everyone else who writes about the results on Nov. 5 fail to say it also saw the lowest turnout of any gubernatorial election in the state's history -- a testament to voter apathy.

Voter apathy and campaign finance reform are two more stories The Record didn't cover in 2013.

Footnote

My paper was delivered in a plastic bag advertising ShopRite's Super Can-Can Sale and P&G products, including bathroom tissue.

On one side, a Charmin ad notes:

"We all have to go. Why not enjoy the go?"

Sounds like something written on The Record's copy desk and approved by Houlton.

Footnote No. 2

For the first time in decades, the masthead today reads:

The Sunday Record

The new style means the weather no longer appears below the masthead on Page 1.

Cartoonist Jimmy Margulies is discarded

The Record's old headquarters in Hackensack have become an eyesore.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg -- the marketing whiz who has been running The Record since 2007 -- has fired Jimmy Margulies, the award-winning cartoonist who joined the staff more than 22 years ago.

Readers of Blue Jersey got the news in an item posted Sunday evening. It included a message from Margulies:

"After almost 22 and 1/2 years at The Record in northern New Jersey, I became the latest editorial cartoonist to lose a full time staff job at a daily newspaper. Despite having won a few national awards,  syndication and frequent appearances in some high profile places like USA Today, as well as being a popular local speaker and using social media to become one of the most popular features on the paper's Web site, it was not enough to save me from the paper's decision to trim expenses."

The Record recently offered buyouts to editorial staffers who are at least 60 years old, but it's not known whether Margulies qualified.

Here is a link to the item on Blue Jersey, which calls itself "All the news that slips from print":

'A true Jersey treasure' 


Not long after the young publisher took over, he asked Margulies to focus his cartoons on New Jersey topics.

The buyouts and firing of the cartoonist follow cuts in the news hole that apparently are linked to a lack of advertising support, including the folding of the Signature section and less space devoted to Travel and the weekly restaurant review.

Borg is the spoiled rich kid, also known as a Silver Spoon, who puts his own welfare above that of the newspaper's staff.

2008 downsizing

Recall the 2008 staff downsizing that followed by several months his use of a company mortgage to buy a $3.65 million mansion in Tenafly

Apparently, Borg felt his growing family didn't have enough space in his $2 million mansion.

One staffer who left in that bloodletting was Nancy Cherry, a supervisor of the news copy desk, who single-handedly upheld standards of accuracy, grammar and good news writing.

'Queen of Errors'

With her departure, the number of errors, inaccurate and clunky headlines, and flawed photo captions has soared under the inept supervision of Production Editor Liz Houlton.

Another one of Borg's boneheaded moves was to fold The Record's Food section.

Houlton, known as the "Queen of Errors" from all the years she ran the features copy desk, is paid six figures.

If Borg wanted to cut expenses, he should have shit-canned Houlton or another six-figure staffer, Deirdre Sykes, the supremely lazy head assignment editor who is directly responsible for the drastic decline in news coverage of Hackensack and so many other towns. 

It's a sad day when talented staffer like Margulies are let go and incompetents like Houlton and Sykes stay on to continue wreaking havoc.

  

Circulation's royal F.U. to the editors

The Achilles' heel.

The Record's Circulation Department, which is headed by one of those overpaid vice presidents, has long been an Achilles' heel.

It wasn't until I retired and started paying for a home-delivered copy -- instead of picking one up in the newsroom -- that I learned more about how Circulation is working at cross purposes to the editors and reporters who knock themselves out every day.

If your paper is wet -- as mine was this morning and has been on too many mornings in the past -- you have to call before 9:30 a.m. to ask for a replacement.

Skip today's paper

Usually, you'll deal with an automated system, and when you follow the prompts, you are offered two days' credit instead of a dry replacement copy.

Can you imagine how little regard the people running the dysfunctional Circulation Department have for all of the editors and reporters who race to meet deadline and put out a paper every night?

To them, journalism and this once-great newspaper are reduced to little more than sopping wet newsprint that isn't even worthy of replacement.

This morning, my paper was in two plastic bags, and the ends were knotted. But the bags are so flimsy, they often tear when they hit my concrete driveway, and allow water in. 

Early deadlines

When I worked nights on The Record's News Copy Desk, we often were told the deadlines were being moved up because Circulation needed more time to deliver the paper when it was snowing or raining or even when precipitation was forecast.

Among other things, that meant late municipal meetings couldn't be reported and late sports scores couldn't appear. 

And when we proofed the first good copies off of the press, errors we caught often went uncorrected. 

After years of this, I felt that even if someone spit on the sidewalk, the ragtag Circulation Department would need more time to deliver the paper.

Then, one night, Co-Slot Nancy Cherry told us that even though the deadline was moved up 30 minutes on so many nights in the past, the papers sat in the warehouse, because the independent drivers who delivered them hadn't been told to come in 30 minutes early. 

Mixed messages

Cherry left The Record several years ago, and the copy editing standards she fought so hard for went with her.

Today, with error-prone Production Editor Liz Houlton in charge of the news copy desk, the quality of editing and headline writing continues to decline.

One rule I see violated is the one against "echoes" -- the use of the same or similar words in different headlines on the same page.

On Page 1 today, the echoing words -- "Historic," "Historical" and "History" -- are in headlines over three stories, from the top to the bottom of the page. 

Unbelievable.

More disturbing is the A-1 story about the arrest of a 26-year-old Clifton teacher accused of having sex with a 16-year-old student -- a day after Page 1 glowed about a kinky but fictional relationship between a wealthy businessman and a "virginal" college student.

Editorial Page

Margulies' desperation is clear in the A-22 editorial cartoon about the primary battle between two Democrats in the 9th Congressional District.

In what fantasy world has he ever heard a candidate pushing free-range chicken and hybrid cars over that crap from Perdue and gas-guzzling SUVs?

Hackensack news

Hackensack readers are pleasantly surprised by a story that has nothing to do with the trial of suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa (Local front).

In other momentous city news, a two-car accident knocked down a light pole on Main Street (L-1 photo).

Stop the presses.

Despite new editor, headlines from hell

The copy desk furniture in The Record's old Hackensack newsroom was purchased from the same dealer who made this desk, which was used by George Washington.

Killer wife

How does "killer wife" in a front-page headline sit with you?

Actually, the two sets of headlines above the fold in The Record today are so bad, I wonder if they impacted newsstand sales.

On the story about heating bills, the main headline simply states the obvious: Bills are "not so bad in mild winter." Who doesn't already know that besides Editor Liz Houlton, supervisor of the news copy desk?

On the story about the Elmwood Park woman who smothered her husband, the main headline and the drop headline echo each other: 

"Calls for mercy denied" and "despite pleas from kids" repeat like a bad meal.

The Record's news copy desk is a mere shadow of what it once was.

Sleep walking

Judging from all the poor editing evident in the paper, readers are not sure of what it does besides writing clunky headlines.

Houlton's supervision hasn't made much difference -- no surprise given all the errors that got past her cursor when she ran the features copy desk. 

Editor Marty Gottlieb came from The New York Times, where the news copy editors are empowered to edit stories within an inch of their lives, write sparkling headlines and keep incomplete stories out of the paper.

At The Record, any story and any photo gets into the paper -- no matter how badly handled by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her lazy, incompetent minions -- to avoid putting out an edition with a lot of white space.

Scandale scars

The news copy desk was handcuffed during Francis "Frank" Scandale's tenure as editor (2001-11), but at least it maintained high standards of writing, grammar and headlines under Co-Slot Nancy Cherry.

But those standards left with her in the 2008 downsizing engineered by Publisher Stephen A. Borg, along with several veteran copy editors. He also merged The Record and Herald News copy desks.

One thing that hasn't changed are the graphic artists, who lay out front pages and the fronts of other sections. and who don't have a concept of how hard it is to write a good headline in a narrow space, such as one column or even two columns. 

That's how you get awkward headline phrases like "killer wife."

Sykes loves Christie

On the front of Local today, Sykes pulled out all the stops in covering Governor Christie's town hall meeting in Westwood: two upbeat news stories and another boring political column from Staff Writer Charles Stile (L-1 and L-2).

Stile reports Christie "soaked in the love from the mostly partisan" crowd as he took "a victory lap" for state approval of Pascack Valley Hospital's reopening.

But none of the medical writers or reporters asked about Christie's health, his apparently ballooning weight or his fitness for higher office, despite continued speculation GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney might chose him as a running mate. 

The relationship between Sykes and Christie reminds some readers of the sitcom, "Mike & Molly."

The blanket coverage of Christie apparently prevented Sykes from publishing any Hackensack news today.

Free advertising

At the end of the Starters in Better Living, readers are told the column is "a first look at recently opened restaurants" that is "meant to be a descriptive glimpse, not a critical review" (F-1 and F-2).

So what explains all of the self-promoting quotes from the owners of Mezza in Westwood or the description of the chef's resume? Starters should be called what it is: free advertising.

Sunday paper sells out to big advertisers

Image via Wikipedia
Garden State Plaza. Does the parkway "meet" Routes 4 and 17 in the same place?

The Record's crack assignment desk forced Lindy Washburn, one of the medical writers, to prostitute herself by covering the debut of a "high-tech" parking system at Garden State Plaza -- and it put the story on Page 1 today.


The word must have come down from Publisher Stephen A. Borg in the front office -- where he maintains a "front" for serious journalism. It's payback time for Macy's and other major retailers that fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to advertise in the paper.


I can recall leafing through the first copies off the press in Hackensack, looking for typos and other errors, and hearing News Copy Desk Co-Slot Nancy Cherry say about all of the full-page store ads, "Thank, God, for Macy's. Thank, God, for Macy's."


Going out on a limb


The centerpiece on the front page is a story that is about six weeks overdue -- regulators don't really monitor whether utilities prune trees to avoid the disaster that occurred after the pre-Halloween snow storm.


Poor first-day coverage of the storm contributed to the trick-or-treat firing of Francis "Frank" Scandale after more than a decade as editor.


More A-1 space is wasted on those nine thugs from the Wayne Hills High School team charged with aggravated assault.


Interim Editor Doug Clancy, who lives in neighboring Pequannock, thinks Bergen County readers are hanging on every word about the "weeks of controversy."


Fat of the land


On A-3 today, a story reports former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff joins a former federal judge, a former attorney-general and others in landing a lucrative consulting contract.


Staff Writer Shawn Boburg reports the Port Authority has quietly doubled Chertoff's $300,000 fee and given him six months more to complete a study. Chertoff said his dog ate his homework. 



Leave it to head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes to put a positive spin on school-busing cutbacks in a story that leads her Local section today.


Of course, the story doesn't mention the lack of school busing in Hackensack may have contributed to the death of a 12-year-old Middle School student killed by an NJ Transit train as he was walking home along an unfenced stretch of track last year. 


Handicapped writing 


Editor Liz Houlton's news copy desk missed a major error in the first paragraph of the Road Warrior column on L-1 today: Routes 4 and 17 and the Garden State Parkway do not "meet" or intersect in the same place.


The L-3 obituary on a retired bishop says he died from injuries suffered in a motor vehicle accident, but not where it occurred or whether he was driving.


There is no Hackensack news in Sykes' section today nor any municipal news from the vast majority of the 90 or so towns in the circulation area, though editors found room for yet another story on burglaries in Tenafly, where Borg lives (L-2).


Did anybody read sports Columnist Tara Sullivan, who falls flat on her face trying to re-invent language today (S-1)? Writing about two receivers, she says awkwardly:


"They grew up only a few North Jersey borders and a few high school seasons apart...."

Bad headlines, lazy editing, more errors

Image by audiovisualjunkie via Flickr

The media are gnashing their teeth over how Moammar Ghadafi died.

Risks remain in crossing street

That's not much of headline -- because it states the obvious -- just like the lead headline on Page 1 of The Record today:

Risks remain in Iraq

Readers never know what to expect from the news copy desk since Editor Liz Houlton took over as its supervisor -- ending the high standards of Co-Slot Nancy Cherry, one of the older workers who got the heave-ho in 2008.

Dull, wrong, clunky

But they do know to expect dull or inaccurate headlines, lousy photo captions and almost no editing. 

Below that obvious Iraq headline, the desk did come up with:

'You are a murderer'

Of course, in addition to drawing readers in, that headline raises a question for Editor Francis Scandale of why the sentencing of a cold-case murderer is the biggest North Jersey or New Jersey news he could find today.

Maybe he spent Friday on the golf course.

The third front-page story today reports that the government of India has given up trying to end poverty or dissolve a rigid class system in favor of opening 50,000 colleges -- and that Rutgers University is on board with the plan.

Just a few days ago, another Page 1 headline left readers wondering just how out of touch Houlton is.

The drop headline on the prisoner-swap story on Wednesday said:

Jews, Muslims worried what future will bring

North Jersey Jews and Muslims are always worried about the future.

On A-2, three embarrassing corrections appear, including one from Sports.

Ghadafi photo is DOA

After using much of Friday's front page for reaction to Moammar Ghadafi's death, pussy Scandale didn't even run a photo of the dead dictator lying on a mattress in cold storage -- the one readers saw on every TV news broadcast at dinner time Friday night.


And does anyone but reporters really care how he died (A-10)?

As the world financial system faces collapse, the big business news today is a story reporting Bayer AG plans to move workers from Wayne to Hanover Township "beginning in 2013"  (A-12).

Lazy assignment desk

Editor Deirdre Sykes' assignment editors should be ashamed of themselves after reading a letter to the editor from Pedra Del Vecchio, a Hackensack resident who details the abysmal lack of safety around NJ Transit stations and tracks in the city (A-13).

While the clueless editors repeatedly spout the agency line that pedestrians killed by trains are "trespassers," Del Vecchio notes: 

"Why are there no [warning] signs? Why are there so few safe, legal pedestrian crossings in a residential area with a high rate of foot traffic?"

Local news is a crime

The biggest local news Sykes could find leads the Local section today: four-day-old arrests in an undercover drug operation. It's a mess.

The drop headline says, "One suspect pointed gun at detective," but the copy editor missed a major error in the lead paragraph, which says one suspect "pointed a loaded pistol to a detective's head."

A second police story helps fill out the Local front with a minor incident involving an unattended case near the tracks in Ridgewood. The desperate assignment desk blew up the photo to fill as much space as possible.

Why didn't any editor see the value for L-1 or even A-1 of a heartwarming story about a 102-year-old man who lives independently in Paterson and found a way to honor his Clifton health-care providers, a doctor and his physician  assistant (L-2)?

Unfortunately, the kitchen-sink lead paragraph of a sidebar profiling patient Ralph Golzio is a confusing jumble: 

"Delivered by a midwife, Ralph Golzio was born on Oct. 20, 1909, in his family's home in Paterson on Beech and Oak streets to his Italian immigrant parents, John and Caroline."

Backing and filling

More desperate filling of space can be seen on L-3, with a large photo of a minor traffic accident. 

Police and court news are on L-1, L-3, L-6 and L-8 today, but there is no municipal news from Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood or many other towns.

Also on L-6 today is yet another story about a six-town proposal to share a dispatch center. The Woodland Park daily recently has reported every grant, every meeting, every burp and every bowel movement in connection with the plan.

Today's paper shows once again why Local is Sykes' pride and joy.

Editor lives to sell newspapers

Image via Wikipedia

Should a local newspaper put the Steve Jobs obit on Page 1?

What kind of news world does Editor Francis Scandale of the Record inhabit?


Scandale is not accountable to the public or his absentee publisher, so he's accustomed to doing what he wants with Page 1.


His only problems are his famously flawed news judgment and wrestling stories away from Deirdre Sykes, the immovable head assignment editor and real power in the Woodland Park newsroom.


The murder of a 23-year-old Teaneck woman wasn't front-page news on Wednesday, but the arrest of her husband leads the paper today. Why? To sell newspapers?


Then, Scandale demotes to the bottom of the page an engaging story about more aggressive forms of cancer in African-American women than in white women. That would have made a great A-1 patch.


Here's Job 1


A-1 is dominated today by the obituary of Steve Jobs, 56, a founder of Apple Inc., but why does Scandale put his death from cancer out front while uniformly banishing obituaries of prominent local residents to inside Local? 


Unfortunately, Jobs and other tech wizards have paid little attention to how their computers and smart phones continue to confound people 50 years old and older. 


So, it's no surprise Scandale makes such a big deal of his death. 


The editor has always ignored older newsroom workers, and apparently made no objection when Publisher Stephen A. Borg culled them as if they were chickens on the way to the slaughterhouse. 


No gold standard


One of those given the heave-ho was Nancy Cherry, co-slot or co-supervisor of the news copy desk, now in the incompetent hands of Editor Liz Houlton.


When Nancy left, no one bothered to enforce her strict standards of good writing and accuracy in text, photo captions and headlines.


So, today and nearly every day, the news copy desk runs wild, as in the A-1 headline for the Jobs story.


The co-founder of Apple Inc. becomes the "founder" in the four-deck headline. Two headline no-nos are ending a line with "was" or "of" -- both are violated here. 


Another inaccurate, inelegant and unimaginative headline. On Page 1, no less.


On A-2, there are three embarrassing corrections, one blamed "on incorrect information" from Englewood.


Remixing old news


The front of Sykes' Local section today seems to rehash a lot of old news.


Those Westwood and Hillsdale residents are demanding a solution to flooding, as they did a few weeks ago.


I didn't see any publicity in The Record about last weekend's Korean harvest festival in Bergen County, but here is a story about a second Korean festival, this one sponsored by a New York City group.


Another glowing downtown success story appears at the bottom of the page --this one on Glen Rock, where Scandale lives -- in contrast to total neglect of struggling downtowns in Hackensack, Englewood and Teaneck, the county's most diverse communities.


Police news and news about the police -- not municipal news -- again dominate the section put out by Sykes and her supremely lazy assignment minions.


Cutting to the bone


In Better Living, I no longer see anything from free-lance food writer Amy Kuperinsky, who wrote numerous Starters and Martketplaces in recent years.


Today's Starter, "a first look at recently opened restaurants," is by Bob Probert, whose work has also appeared in (201) magazine.


Related articles

• Another puzzler from Liz Houlton's copy desk (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Where quality control is out of control (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Why isn't anyone held accountable? (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

Get the time element right, stupid

Image by Bill on Capitol Hill via Flickr

The rim (news copy desk) and the slot (supervisor) in the old days.

Since Production Editor Liz Houlton began supervising the news copy desk of The Record and Herald News,  the quality and accuracy of headlines and captions has declined dramatically, and errors abound. 

Of course, anyone familiar with her supervision of the features copy desk could have seen it coming. Numerous errors in food copy got past her cursor, and proofing of pages routinely missed other mistakes. 

Yet, she got a big promotion, to assistant managing editor (before her title was changed); presumably a big raise and her hen-pecked husband, George Cubanski, took over her job as slot of the features copy desk. How cozy.

Houlton apparently is powerless to do anything about the news copy desk -- or rim -- which is spinning out of control under her supervision and the supervision of slot Vinny Byrne. With the departure of co-slot Nancy Cherry in 2008, the desk lost an eagle-eyed editor to whom quality and accuracy mattered.

The Record of Woodland Park today struggles to get the time element right, and columns and other stories are strangled by overwriting. For a daily newspaper, accuracy is essential when describing when something happened or will happen, and yet the former Hackensack daily often misses the boat.

What year is it?

Political Stile Columnist Charles Stile must have been told the column that appears on the front page today would run on Jan. 1 or later, but when it was being processed Wednesday, no one -- not the assignment editor, presumably Deirdre Sykes; Houlton, the copy editor or the slot -- noticed the time element had to be corrected. 

It wasn't, as his lead paragraph shows: "Governor Christie succeeded in seizing New Jersey's political agenda last year." Last year? 2009? He didn't take office until January of this year. The copy editor must have been on autopilot.

On the jump (A-6), Stile says redrawing of congressional districts, based on the 2010 Census, means an incumbent "will find himself out of a job next year [2011]." But the next election isn't until 2012, and the new member of Congress won't be seated until 2013. Autopilot again.

What week is it?

On the front of Sykes' Local section, Staff Writer Michael Gartland reports concerns about cost and accessibility of Saturday's traditional Jan. 1 reorganization of the Bergen County Freeholder Board.

One freeholder is quoted on L-6 as saying "he would rather have held the ceremony later in the week on Wednesday." But the words "later in the week" are inaccurate, because Saturday, Jan. 1, is the end of the week. Those words should have been dropped. Autopilot again.

The reporter also never explains clearly why a Saturday reorganization will cost more than one during the week, and there seems to be no basis for the main headline: "A taxpayer-funded party?"

Nexus, schmexus

Columnist Mike Kelly has been spinning his wheels for a number of years, but I have to recognize him today for being the first at The Record to question the absence of both Governor Christie and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadano during the blizzard clean-up this week.

Still, can't anyone edit this guy and put a stop to his overwriting -- to his apparent belief that a columnist doesn't have to follow the basic journalistic principle of writing simply and clearly? He fails to communicate with readers, who are left muttering, What the F does that mean? Here, try to digest this:

"The nexus between the public and private lives of elected officials is often filled with thorns, emotional fissures and weird detours into secrecy and bad choices."

Another snow job

Blizzard clean-up coverage is banished to L-3 today. Yet, three days after the storm ended, numerous corners at major Hackensack intersections remain uncleared, endangering drivers and pedestrians alike. 

This morning, I watched an FDU student bounding over a couple of feet of snow in front of the Dunkin' Donuts as he crossed Hackensack Avenue, but on the other side he decided to walk in the street rather than repeat the effort. The turn lane at University Plaza Drive was mostly covered by snow.

The Business staff must have taken an early New Year's weekend. Only one byline appears in the Business pages today. The baby boomer shown on L-7 is from Florida.

Screw the photographers

And why are the paper's talented photographers given A-8 for some of their best 2010 photos? The photos are so much more interesting than all the drivel Sykes and Editor Francis Scandale run on the fronts. 

Sykes must really hate them, judging from all the accident photos she has Tariq Zehawi and others chasing.

Not on list of Pulitzer finalists this year

Image via Wikipedia

The Asbury Park Press and Star-Ledger were finalists this year in the Pulitzer Prize journalism competition, but The Record of Woodland Park wasn't -- despite sacrificing local news to carry on investigations that stretch on and on under the unsteady guidance of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, whose weird and constant  laughter in the newsroom drives coworkers crazy. (Photo: Pulitzer Prize.)

The 2010 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting went to a series that sounds suspiciously like an investigation The Record did in 2005 or 2006 about a privately run preschool program for minority children led by Jean Rimbach, a reporter whose byline appears infrequently -- a two-year gap in not unusual. (Rimbach led the pathetic, Sykes-inspired vendetta against Michael Mordaga that took nearly three years and resulted in a single, weak L-1 story.) Here is the citation:

Awarded to Raquel Rutledge of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for her penetrating reports on the fraud and abuse in a child-care program for low-wage working parents that fleeced taxpayers and imperiled children, resulting in a state and federal crackdown on providers.

 I was on the news copy desk and edited Rimbach's series. The first of three parts ran under my headline:

"PUBLIC MONEY, PRIVATE GREED"

I had to make the headline strong because the stories were so weak and full of holes, despite the many months devoted to them. I recall going to Sykes with questions and concerns about the stories, and her replying, "We didn't get that." or "We're not going there."

When the series won a minor journalism prize, a story in The Record never gave me credit for my role -- typical of how Sykes and her assignment desk treated copy editors like shit. Even my supervisors, Vinny Byrne and Nancy Cherry, failed to mention my several days of work on the series in my performance review.