Laziness is infecting the newsroom

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Car dealers have threatened to pull their advertising if Road Warrior John Cichowski and other reporters at The Record of Woodland Park write about mass transit woes.

Staff Writer Shawn Boburg is assigned to cover the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Road Warrior John Chichowski is supposed to write about commuting problems.


So why is The Record publishing Opinion columns today by two outsiders on issues those reporters have been ignoring?


The laissez-faire laziness of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions is clearly infecting the newsroom.


The Record has long been an editor-driven newspaper, where Sykes and her sub-editors are supposed to generate most of the local and regional stories that appear in the paper, as well as handle the heavy editing.


Under Sykes and Editor Francis Scandale, the news copy desk has been relegated to a minor role -- headline and photo-caption writing -- and even warned against trying to do any meaningful editing.


The copy desk under Editor Liz Houlton is at its nadir, producing confusing and inaccurate captions, as in today's paper. Sloppy editing is everywhere.


Sleeping reporters


On the Opinion front, a column by Philip Barbara discusses the continuing impact on commuters of Governor Christie's decision to cancel the Hudson River rail tunnels.


On O-2, Columnist Brigid Harrison exposes Christie's double standard on how he treats public transportation agencies, especially the free hand he's given the Port Authority.


"Governor," Harrison writes, "the state has been yours for a year and a half now. It is time to man up and take responsibility for it: the good, the bad and the mistakes."


Slipshod editing


Editor Francis Scandale has petitioned Congress to conduct a census every two years, instead of every 10 years, so he'll be able to publish more of the results on Page 1, instead of having his staff do any local reporting.


The copy desk really screwed up today's A-1 census story on same-sex couples moving to the suburbs. 


The photo caption identifies one of three youths shown as the male couple's "granddaughter," but the text on the continuation page (A-6) says they have "three children."


The heart-breaking obituary of a 6-year-old New Milford girl (A-1) includes a  family photo (A-6) that recalls the paper's once-great photojournalism -- before Sykes reduced photographers to ambulance chasers.


Sykes' pride and joy


Today's Local news section is a joke, especially for a Sunday.


The big news from Cresskill is higher fees on pet licenses (L-2). 


The first paragraph of a story on L-3 says a car crashed "through" a town house, even though the photo shows nothing of the kind.


In Better Living, Staff Writer Elisa Ung is out of ideas for The Corner Table, her Sunday column on issues facing restaurant-goers, so she literally throws them crumbs (F-1).


In Real Estate, more poor editing detracts from a story on recent grads getting their first apartments. On R-5, a paragraph starts, "Like Arnett...." But the full name doesn't appear anywhere in the story.


If there is a lazier operation than The Record's assignment desk east of Kansas City, Mo., then it's the news copy desk.

Once over -- superficially

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How many Fair Lawn synagogues have closed or merged with others?

The Record's front page today continues to pour thousands of words on the heated debate over teacher tenure, but where is the discussion of family life, parents and other outside influences on student success?

I guess Editor Francis Scandale and Staff Writer Leslie Brody have swallowed Governor Christie's argument that teachers have to go unless they perform miracles in the classroom.

Is it really Page 1 news -- in the form of a large photo, caption and refer to L-6 -- that a Fair Lawn family gave a new torah to their synagogue or should editors be assigning reporters to find out how many Jewish temples in North Jersey have closed or merged with others in recent years?

Towering journalist

Every few weeks, it seems, Staff Writer Shawn Boburg writes a story about the 9/11 memorial or museum, and it appears on A-1. You'd think the Port Authority, the agency he covers, does nothing else.

A story on how Christie slashed legal services for the poor appears on A-3. 

When you have to make up nearly $1 billion you're not getting from taxing millionaires, all other residents suffer.

Local yokels

No Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck municipal news appears today in head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section.

But Columnist Mike Kelly has another 9/11 piece on L-1 today as he reaches for his goal of writing about every one of the nearly 3,000 victims who died that day.

Are the editors a bunch of racists?

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News coverage of minorities has never been a strong suit at The Record. Recall how Editor Frank Scandale got rid of his only Hispanic columnist and, several years later, his only black columnist. Or look at the racial makeup of editors and reporters -- only a handful are Latino or African-American.

Since the move of North Jersey Media Group and its flagship daily to Woodland Park from Hackensack in 2009, the focus of news stories also seems to have shifted west and north -- leaving only scattered municipal coverage of Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood, the three most diverse communities in Bergen County.

For example, when is the last time you read a story about Englewood's segregated elementary and middle schools or a positive report on its large Jamaican community? Is this anyway to treat the city where you grew up, Publisher Stephen A. Borg? (Photo: Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack.)

Today's front page reflects Scandale's jock mentality -- most of it is squandered on the U.S. hockey loss at the Winter Olympics. It also downplays a more far-reaching story that the "odds of obesity appear stacked against black and Hispanic children starting even before birth, provocative new research suggests." A Page 1 item says the full story -- all eight paragraphs -- is on A-5.

The obesity epidemic is -- if you'll excuse me -- the elephant in the newsroom at The Record. The lazy, incompetent editors have resisted for many years launching a project on this important health issue. Food Editor Bill Pitcher also hasn't broken any new ground here.

Instead, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff salaries to keep alive a vendetta against Michael Mordaga, former chief of detectives for the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, producing a single, weak story on the front of Local in December after nearly three years of sleuthing.

Now, judging from the scarcity of bylines from two municipal reporters -- Monsy Alvarado and Shawn Boburg -- Sykes has them chasing another "great story." Alvarado and Boburg -- along with Jean Rimbach and others -- worked on the Mordaga fiasco. Rimbach likely has the fewest bylines of any reporter working for Sykes.