New Jersey and the oil spill -- boring together

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I've been waiting for the story on how New Jersey scientists and residents have responded in the two months since the massive oil spill in the Gulf, so what do the editors at The Record of Woodland Park do? They plaster a long, confusing and, ultimately, boring, piece on mini subs all over Page 1 today.


This story couldn't possibly have been written for A-1. The assignment editor must have fallen asleep while editing it. Even the news copy editor drops the ball on polishing this turd. The headline says,  "Rutgers' mini subs monitor oil spill." Monitor? Watching paint dry is more exciting. An oceanographer is shown "observing" data.


You have to plow through most of it before you find out whether the New Jersey Shore is in danger from the BP spill. That should have been high up in the story. And the reporter never resolves the controversy over whether huge oil plumes exist below the surface, despite all the evidence presented by other scientists that they do.


The lead story on the front page is the murder of another teacher. Unless Governor Christie is a suspect, this doesn't belong on A-1, especially given the Morris County location and the lack of Bergen County news in the paper. 


A better, more relevant story for Page 1 is on A-4 -- the battle over beach access on the Jersey shore. This could have supplanted the mini-sub story, too. That story could have been told by an inside photo and graphic. But news judgment isn't a strong suit among such editors as Frank Scandale, Deirdre Sykes and whoever got stuck working Sunday.

An editorial on A-11 criticizes Christie for proposing huge cuts in legal services for the poor, but in a column on the same page, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin takes the governor's side in  opposing a millionaires tax. I guess Doblin stlll wants to get his weekly check form the wealthy Borgs.

Doblin presumably also edits and approves editorials, including those about Christie's policies, so isn't his column a conflict? And his column usually is so poorly written and juvenile, no reader would miss it.


Local is pathetic. No Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood news, yet another story on the proposed expansion of The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood. The story rehashes the same arguments readers have seen for almost three years. The overly dramatic headline doesn't help.

(Photo: Jersey shore)

More bone-headed news judgment

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A day after giving BP's clueless CEO a huge swath of the front page to showcase his empty apology, the editors at The Record of Woodland Park downplay news that he will be replaced as the company's point man on the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.


It's bad enough that Friday's Page 1 coverage embraced Tony Hayward's crocodile tears -- instead of blasting his seeming ignorance of problems before the explosion and sinking of the oil platform. Now, these editors seem intent on doing more PR for BP on the story of his departure (Page A-5).


The Hayward story would have gone perfectly with the A-1 piece on the New Jersey congressional effort to expose oil companies to greater liability, and the photo of an oil-covered pelican (A-5) would have looked good on the front page.


Local has no Hackensack education, development or municipal news today, but there are two stories on the front about upcoming hearings in Teaneck and Ridgewood. (Municipal reporters love to write about upcoming hearings.)


In Sports, I didn't get past the front of a staff-written analysis on how the U.S. team's winning goal was nullified. I wanted the paper to tell me whether World Cup soccer has an appeals process and if it doesn't, whether there is a move to review and possibly overrule referee's decisions. Wouldn't it be nice if someone like absentee Publisher Stephen A. Borg reviewed the boneheaded decisions by editors of the former Hackensack daily.



In Better Living, a "fresh take on lettuce" by Food Editor Bill Pitcher completely omits mention of pesticides and organic alternatives, but does offer recipes polluted with added sugar, mayonnaise and an egg yolk. He's The Record's BP, after all. Does anybody still eat iceberg lettuce, featured in a "frozen" salad? And the "pickled romaine" appears to be a half-assed attempt at the Korean staple, kimchi.


I wonder what the desperate editors -- Frank Scandale, Frank Burgos, Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, Barbara Jaeger, Liz Houlton, Tim Nostrand, Jim McGarvey (Jim McScreamy?) and their minions -- have in store for readers of Sunday's paper. Let's hope it's more than just covering their asses.

(Photo: Headquarters of BP Americas)

Hey, Monsy, no one really cares

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Hey, Monsy Alvarado, in reference to your L-3 story today in The Record of Woodland Park, no one really cares that a suspended Hackensack police captain wants his pay back while he's on suspension -- except the cop himself. Report the decision when it comes, but stop neglecting all the other news in Hackensack, including details of the proposed city budget and tax hike.


Since last June, you have been writing almost exclusively about the legal troubles of Police Chief Ken Zisa and others in the Police Department -- presumably at the behest of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes. 

I guess you don't have the backbone to tell her you feel bad neglecting other news about the city where The Record was founded in 1895 and where it prospered for more than 110 years. Or maybe you're lazy. Can't you write more than one story a day? More than 30 days have passed on three  occasions without your byline in the paper.


I'm not singling you out. Staff Writer Jean Rimbach averages one byline a year. What's Shawn Boburg been up to? Certainly not writing stories. Productivity doesn't seem to matter to Editor Frank Scandale or Publisher Stephen A. "I'm not in this for the money" Borg.

It's who you know -- and you'd better be in the good graces of Mother Hen Deirdre or one of her minions. What a pathetically weak assignment desk -- Dan Sforza, Christina Joseph and Rich Whitby, to name just three. Just look at today's thin Local section. 


Page L-2 carries a story on Teterboro Airport scholarships -- another way the Port Authority and The Record continue to deflect attention away from what a huge impact the airport has on the quality of life in Hackensack, Maywood and other towns. Does the paper even cover Maywood?


On Page 1, the last part of the five-part youth baseball series appears, and there's an editorial on A-20 -- with no acknowledgment by the editors of how their constant A-1 glorification of sports and the business of sports translates into the abuses reported by Staff Writer Colleen Diskin. I hope her next project is childhood obesity.

At least, there's good coverage of the BP oil spill -- with a dramatic, front-page photo and inside stories. Before the Borg-ordered downsizing and the single-minded, endless investigations inspired by Sykes, that might have been a reporter from The Record in the oil-soaked Gulf.

(Photo: Gulf of Mexico oil spill)

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.