More local news fit for us yokels

Despite high property taxes in Englewood, schools may be forced to cut programs for minority students while handing over $785,000 in taxpayers' money to help fund Shalom Academy, a Hebrew immersion charter school for whites.

The Record today offers readers another 8-page Local section inspired by the genius of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her tireless minions.

There are two stories about Englewood Cliffs (L-2 and L-6), one about possible Englewood school cuts (L-2) and a scattering of other town news, including a  youth sports photo from Hackensack (L-3), the most populous Bergen County community.

Also on L-2, Sykes presents ground-breaking news:

Hearing on Mahwah retail complex continues

The section also contains feel-good stories about North Jersayans aiding the earthquake recoveries in both Haiti and Japan (L-1 and L-3), and lots of non-profit news.

Readers scanning the front of Local likely did a double take at the byline over a piece about a Wheelchair Seat Belt Law, wondering why Columnist Mike Kelly is eating Road Warrior John Cichowski's lunch.

Two full pages of Local are taken up by death notices.

Page 1

On the front page today, Editor Marty Gottlieb again promotes the viability of reopening Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood under the banner of Hackensack University Medical Center.

But the upbeat story is totally speculative and based on statements from HUMC officials.

On A-2, another embarrassing correction notes Editor Liz Houlton's dysfunctional copy desk failed to identify one of three Girl Scouts in a photo on A-8 in Sunday's paper.

Related articles

• Utility pole news undercuts new editor (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• More wasted Hackensack reporting (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Editor is a day late with full story (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

Mindless repetition is killing us

It's not known whether Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado will accompany the parents of murder victim Aena Hong when they bring her ashes back to their native South Korea.

When a big news story appears in the paper almost every day, readers get tired of seeing it and wonder what they are missing to make room for it. Even the enormity of 9/11 and the media's seemingly endless coverage caused reader fatigue.

Today, the sixth story about murder victim Aena Hong in eight days is all over Page 1 of The Record -- one day after a court hearing for suspect Charles J. Ann was reported on the Local front.

All six stories go over the same ground. Today's piece amounts to a profile of the victim, including her life in South Korea and North Jersey, and her relationship with Ann.

Editor Marty Gottlieb is milking this one for all the pathos he can find, running a big A-1 photo of Hong's grief-stricken parents, who traveled here from South Korea to claim their daughter's body after she was run over repeatedly by a car on Feb. 20 in Fort Lee.

 

Shattered dream

 

"She was a girl with a big dream who came to the United States, but she's going back to her home country as ashes," her father told reporter Monsy Alvarado.

Just below the Hong story, a second story about Pascack Valley Hospital's reopening appears -- one day after state approval led the paper. The hospital isn't going to be ready for 14 months. Why the rush in running a follow-up?

What's leading the paper today? That moron Mitt Romney. I'd be happy if I never read another story about the GOP presidential hopeful until the convention in August.

Snow job

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, Road Warrior John Cichowski has yet another column about roof snow or what he refers to as "dangerous white glop."

Readers have lost count of how many columns on the subject they've been hit with by the lazy Cichowski, who can't seem to get himself out of the office to cover commuting issues.

If Cichowski's repetitious column was dropped, Sykes might find room for some Hackesack news or news about a lot of other towns she doesn't cover too well.

Idiot news

Sykes did deliver breaking news today: a homeless man's 1987 gas guzzler was destroyed by explosions in Hackensack after the emphysema victim lit a cigarette, igniting three oxygen tanks in the car (L-1). 

Despite the photo and a long story that continues on L-2, Sykes' incompetent minions couldn't learn the man's identity.

To make room for repetitious stories about Aena Hong and Pascack Valley Hospital on Page 1, the editors had to demote to L-1 coverage of dramatic testimony in the trial of Dharun Ravi, who has been charged in the suicide of Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood.

Related articles

• Editors love Asian murder case (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Editors try to sell Christie tax cut (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• The big-butt newsroom sisterhood (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Dear Marty: Seven ways to save The Record (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

Insulting readers' intelligence

Image by antonellomusina via Flickr
This turkey and all the trimmings were safely transported in a car
by following advice in today's Road Warrior column in The Record.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg appears to have seized upon "news you can use" in a bid to keep readers, but three pieces in the The Record today go a long way toward insulting their intelligence.


The story on A-6 and the Road Warrior column are especially bad, because they merely pass along a lot of common sense, such as getting enough sleep and eating before a car trip. 


You almost get the feeling the assignment desk believes most readers are completely out of it or have just been released from decades-long prison sentences.


The first supposedly reader-friendly story appears on Page 1 under a really stupid headline, "Think before going to the airport," thanks to Editor Liz Houlton's clueless news copy desk.


The routine photo with the story is by Staff Photographer Kevin Wexler, but interim Editor Doug Clancy continues a tradition of the editors turning their backs on their talented photographers by running an AP photo from Egypt as the central element on A-1.


Hospital follies


At the top of A-1, the headline "Big win for hospital plan" is not about the proposed expansion of The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood -- previewed in a story Tuesday -- but about the reopening of Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood.


The off-lead on the front page -- a story about businesses chasing public contracts at the League of Municipalities Convention -- is eye-glazingly dull and goes on forever.


Look at the silly lead paragraph of the A-6 story on holiday driving: "If you're traveling by car for the Thanksgiving holiday, expect lots of company on the road."


Tie down that pot


In his statistics-packed column on the front of Local, Road Warrior John Cichowski's advice on holiday driving seems superfluous. (I just managed to skim it before throwing up.)


Do the editors really think the commuting columnist should spend time telling readers to tie down pots, trays and plates to keep them from shifting in the car and to bring towels in case of spills?


Instead of doing three pieces on holiday travel, why not wrap it all up in a single story, and eliminate the idiocy?


The only Hackensack news in head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section today concerns the homeless (L-2).

Restaurant inspections return

Image by quinn.anya via Flickr

How clean is the kitchen that turned out the meal you are being served?

They were yanked unceremoniously from the Better Living section, followed weeks later by a letter to readers from the food editor. Now, restaurant health inspections have reappeared in print, though I couldn't find them at northjersey.com under Food & Dining.

Still, today's list in The Record of Woodland Park is positively skeletal. I counted 52 towns (out of the 90 or so in the circulation area), but most report "no activity."  

There is no explanation or note in the Better Living tabloid for the list's reappearance. But readers are urged to contact their health departments for more information.

Hospitals fight over profits

The nasty fight among three big, profit-making hospitals over the reopening of Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood is back on the front page today.

The lead story -- on conservative and liberal opposition to extending Bush tax breaks to the wealthy -- conveniently omits any mention of Governor Christie's tax break for New Jersey millionaires, despite the state's unprecedented fiscal crisis.

Christie's refusal to extend the Corzine tax on the wealthy is a topic The Record's Editorial Page and news columns have avoided like a plague in recent months, probably under orders from Publisher Stephen A. Borg and his puppet, Editor Francis Scandale.

Rare byline

The third A-1 story today carries a rare byline from Staff Writer Jean Rimbach, who doesn't explain why the paper has never reported before that some police recruits pay their own way through training academies.

Rimbach is one of the pets of Deirdre Sykes, head assignment editor. She is among several local reporters whose low productivity is overlooked by editors and managers. 

Last-gasp Democrats

On the front of Local, Staff Writer Michael Gartland reports on continued hiring by the Democratic majority on the Bergen County Freeholder Board. 

The story doesn't say whether Kathleen Donovan -- a Republican who takes over as county executive in January -- will have the power to rescind the appointments of such lightweights as the mayors of Dumont and Little Ferry.

Italian 'fantasyland'

I'm not sure why Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung considers a dining room that resembles a moonlit Italian square to be a "fantasyland." In Italy, restaurant owners give as much care to interior decoration as to buying, preparing and serving fresh food.

She complains about the service at Bella Notte on a busy night, crab cakes and two of the four desserts she sampled, and gives the Little Falls restaurant only two stars (Good) -- equivalent to her rating of Bahama Breeze in Wayne, a faux-Caribbean chain restaurant.