Sloppy, incomplete reporting is continuing to cheat readers

WBGO-FM, the 24-hour jazz station in Newark, celebrated the "Rhythm Review" -- which broadcasts classic soul and rhythm-and-blues every Saturday -- with a 30th anniversary dance party on Wednesday night at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, above and below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Remember Bethany Koval, the Fair Lawn High School student who described herself as an "Israeli Jew" amid the social media uproar over her saying Palestinians are being mistreated?

Well, she is back on Page 1 of The Record today, and readers finally learn that description may not be accurate, if they manage to plow through thousands of words and get deep into the story on the continuation page (A-8).

More troubling than that is here is yet another Record story about the hate campaign against Koval that doesn't quote any of the thousands of North Jersey Jews and Israelis themselves who believe peace with the Palestinians is long overdue.

Deep on A-8, Staff Writer Hannan Adely finally tells readers Koval's father is Catholic, and her mother "was raised Jewish" and converted to Catholicism.

And Koval is quoted -- possibly for the first time in months -- as saying her connections to Israel "are uncertain and came from genealogical research she had done on her mother's family."

End of editing

The blame for all this fudging is Deirdre Sykes, who was promoted to editor in January after a decade or more of mismanaging the local-news section.

Sykes and her minions have simply given up on challenging reporters and columnists, who are encouraged to write on and on to fill space.

No editor challenged Staff Writer John Cichowski's description of a big ethnic supermarket in Clifton as Irv Gerber's "favorite farmer's market" (Road Warrior column on Wednesday's L-1).

In winter? Sorry. Corrado's Market on Main Avenue is a supermarket, not a "farmer's market," and the addled Cichowski is a laughing stock.

Frank Sinatra Jr.

The placement of the story on singer Frank Sinatra Jr. tells you Sykes doesn't care one way or another that he died of cardiac arrest at 72 and his famous father died of a heart attack at 82 (A-8).

This could be an opportunity for The Record to emphasize that heart disease is the No. 1 killer in the nation -- in contrast to all the artery clogging food the paper's Better Living editors promote day after day.

Local news?

Here's a salute to Staff Photographer Kevin R. Wexler for the gorgeous photo of Agnes Kyei and newborn son Elijah Adu Gyamena at Hackensack University Medical Center (L-1).

They share the page with lots of police and court news, and news about the police.

Today's Local section continues Sykes' boycott of Hackensack news.

Editors pander to Jewish fanatics

The Bahamas coat of arms includes a conch shell, and conch salad is a must when visiting the islands. A reporter from The Record is clueless.

"God gave us this land."


What a joke. 


The speaker is David Wilder, one of those fanatically religious Jews in Israel who are the chief impediment to peace with the Palestinians.


The Record reporter who quotes him is Mike Kelly, whose story, "The Mideast that Christie never saw," dominates Page 1 today.


Same-old Kelly


Kelly basically is rehashing the columns he wrote on an earlier visit to Israel. When was that, six or seven years ago?


Editor Marty Gottlieb and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes really know how to push readers' buttons.


Today, Kelly focuses on Palestinians in refugee camps, but in a totally unnecessary move, appears to be seeking "balance" by quoting ultra-Orthodox Jews, including Wilder.


Decades-old tale


This story dates to the dispersal of the Palestinians during the 1948 war that led to the establishment of Israel. 


Since then, they have been pushed to the margins, forced to live in refugee camps and persecuted by Israel and Arab countries like Jordan, where Governor Christie spent a few days.


Why didn't Kelly write about the Peace Now movement in Israel -- Israelis who favor two states? 


Why give a platform to radicals who have to invoke the Bible to legitimize their existence and their "settlements" in a secular state?


Solar plexus


Another story on A-1 today -- a rare instance when trees were cut down to put up solar panels -- gives a bad name to solar power.


Again, here's another negative story designed to push readers' buttons from a daily that has done a poor job of reporting the benefits of alternative energy, as well as solar loans for homeowners. 


Sykes must be really proud of today's Local, which is devoid of any municipal news, except for the round-up on Web sites that leads the section (L-1).


Reporter leaves office


Can anyone figure out why Staff Writer John Cichowski wrote a Road Warrior column on interstate highway safety patrols?


The only good thing is that he appears to have actually left the office to report a story, rather than slavishly writing a column based on e-mails from readers.


Parade of bimbos


In Better Living, a story on Italian-Americans as reality stars gives a bad name to one of the biggest ethnic groups in the state (F-1).


The four shows should be renamed "Big Tits and Small Brains." OK. I'm open to suggestions.


Staff Writer Elisa Ung's column, The Corner Table, is missing today. 


The restaurant reviewer is probably off indulging her obsession for dessert on a weekend that will see dangerously high sugar consumption.


Beef with industry


On the front of Opinion, an article about "pink slime" drives home the message that we have been sold crap by the nation's beef industry for more than 100 years (O-1).


Some of the practices described by Upton Sinclair in the early 1900s -- notably sending lame and diseased cattle to slaughter -- are still being used today.


All the more reason for Ung and other newspaper food writers to tell readers exactly what they are eating in restaurants and fast-food joints, and spend less time promoting chefs.


Untold stories


An editorial on the $75,000 cut in funds for the Englewood Public Library reminds readers that Sykes' assignment desk has never asked why a city getting tax revenue from scores of million-dollar homes, thousands of apartments and an industrial area is having financial problems (O-2).


Today's cover story in Travel is by Staff Writer James M. O'Neill, who writes about trying to save money while staying at the expensive Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas.


Amazingly, O'Neill and his family never tried Bahamian food in one of the local restaurants or sampled the word-famous conch salad.

Frank's Mideast news roundup

Image via Wikipedia

Some restaurant patrons are boycotting dining rooms in Paterson, above, Clifton and other towns where hookah smoking is allowed.

Never mind that readers rarely see anything on The Record's front page about Libyan troops killing rebels and the Syrian military shooting dead an unknown number of protesters.

But when Israeli soldiers kill Palestinians, Editor Francis "Frank" Scandale sits up and takes notice, ordering an A-1 story and photo for today's thin paper.

Like many journalists, Scandale has a limited attention span, but he knows the hot-button issues that inflame passions in the North Jersey Jewish and Arab-American communities.

Smoke screen

And I guess the main A-1 story today -- about North Jersey teens smoking a water pipe called hookah -- is Scandale's idea of a well-balanced Mideast report. 

But the story focuses on teens going wild in nightclubs and ignores restaurant goers in Paterson, Clifton and elsewhere who have begun to boycott hookah smoke-filled dining rooms. 

The lead story today is a real room-clearer: Readers should get a free subscription if they make it to the end of Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson's process story on the national debt (A-1).

Thrifty millionaire

When you blow $3,000 on a Manhattan hotel suite, why pay more for a prostitute? Just get off by attacking the room maid (A-4). 

Dominique Strauss-Kahn denies the sex-assault charges, but a check of French birth records shows his original name is Strauss-Con.

What balls

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section has no Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood news today, but she found room for a book excerpt from a former sports writer (L-1).

Living large

No food editor in memory has lived so publicly as Susan Leigh Sherrill -- the one-recipe-a-week incumbent -- who frequently sends out tweets on where she goes, who she meets and what she eats.

Here are some recent tweets -- or "brain farts" in the words of political satirist Bill Maher -- from Hawaii, where Sherrill is celebrating her 50th birthday. 

She also provides links to photos of the celebration on her and her husband's Web site, Spoon & Shutter. 

susanlsherrill Susan Sherrill

Birthday Trip to Maui - Part II http://wp.me/pNRsK-XV

13 May

susanlsherrill Susan Sherrill

Birthday trip to Maui - Part I http://wp.me/pNRsK-XA

12 May

susanlsherrill Susan Sherrill

Watching polo in up-country Maui, drinking cava and, oh yeah, celebrating my 50th birthday ...

8 May