Overemphasis on sports

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The Record of Woodland Park, which has denied the front page to New Jersey Supreme Court justices who have died, today leads Page 1 with a column on a stadium public address announcer most readers have never heard of. The tribute is in the form of a sports writer's tortured prose, and on the front of the Sports section, there's another big story on the dead guy. Bob who?


This likely is the work of Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale, who often dictated what went on A-1 when I was still at the former Hackensack daily. Scandale acts more like a high-fiving, ass-slapping jock than a journalist.

You'd think another front-page story -- asking if homeowners will save money under Governor Christie's proposal to cap property taxes at 2% -- would have gotten the biggest play, but that doesn't happen with Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, who have shown contempt for the concerns of North Jersey residents, especially those who live in Hackensack, where the paper was founded in 1895.

The lack of state and local news must have driven the desperate wire editor to use a story on upscale hamburger restaurants on A-6, when such a story should appear in Better Living. Only one of the new chains uses naturally raised meat -- many years after Fuddruckers began serving natural ostrich and buffalo burgers.

The misplaced food story raises the question of just how much work is being done by the overpaid food editor, Bill Pitcher, who has been filling in for the restaurant reviewer while she is on leave. Although he has written weekly reviews, he hasn't attempted to write her Sunday column. About all he seems to do is edit recipes, run wire stories on food and, this summer, visit farmers' markets.

Today's thin Local section contains no municipal or development news about Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood. Did the Hackensack City Council pass the budget and set the tax hike? Maybe that was reported while I was away, but I am still reviewing a week's worth of papers. (My "Vacation Pack" was missing Thursday's paper.)   


Even if Monsy Alvarado (Hackensack) and the other municipal reporters had gotten off their asses to report and write something, non-profit news today would have prevented the layout editor from using those stories. 

And would you look at all the space the incompetent editors devote to a pair of wealthy Asian Indian sisters from Franklin Lakes who made their "artistic debut" before a select audience of 200 on Saturday (Page L-6). What's next, lavish coverage of bar mitzvahs?


It was Publisher Stephen A. Borg's idea to hire a non-profit reporter, but the editors have never matched his enthusiasm, placing the charity copy in the Business pages for several years before moving it to Local, where it fills space the local reporters can't fill. 

Maybe that was why it was moved to Local,  just as more and bigger accident photos and stories are being run to fill the section, in the absence of basic news every North Jersey resident needs.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

A half-dozen staff members managed to work on the Page 1 heat wave story last Wednesday without leaving the building and interviewing people on how they were coping with the heat. Apparently, the entire story was done by phone. Not a single ordinary person is quoted, not one cook trapped in a hot restaurant kitchen, not one motorist without air-conditioning.


Reporters at The Record of Woodland Park are no fools, and their assignment editors allow them to get away with such incompetence on a daily basis. It just shows you what a great job head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes is doing in inspiring her staff.

The only Hackensack "news" in Local is an L-2 photo showing three men watching a World Cup game at Lazy Lanigan's.  Obviously, it was too hot for Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado to venture out or even to pick up the phone.


An L-7 story reports that Michel Bittan, the Englewood businessman linked to one of those alleged Russian spies, is named as a defendant in a lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault. Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano has yet to report the extent of his holdings in Englewood beyond his ownership of a restaurant and a club.

Is that all there is?

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The Record of Woodland Park produces a meaty front page today, but disappoints on so many other scores, you have to wonder if that's the best Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes can do. 


Did anyone get past the first few paragraphs of the central element on A-1, a mother's plea that her wannabe terrorist son is really a good kid and that he was forced to do wrong by the FBI? This story is a waste of staff effort and readers' time. 

On the proposed breakup of Teterboro, do we really care what political columnist Charles Stile thinks? And why is the paper so eager to give voice to defense attorneys' claims that the convictions of Joseph Ferriero, Dennis Oury and Joseph Congilio may be overturned?

Now, look at the Page 1 promotion, "Two days that captured a nation." Is sports columnist Tara Sullivan delusional? Does she actually think millions were riveted to their TVs for an 11-hour tennis match between nobodys or that most readers actually believe the U.S. team has any chance of winning the Word Cup? Her columns today and Thursday are so full of hype as to be simply unreadable.


On A-20 and A-21 today are an editorial and an opinion column condemning the proposed breakup of Teterboro that were likely edited and written by the same man, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin. The editorial would have been enough. How does he expect to have any credibility?

There is a lot of court and crime news in Local today, but no news of Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood or a lot of other towns in North Jersey.

What's the point of continuing Better Living's Eating Out on $50 restaurant review by free-lancer Jeff Page when only two can eat for that money, in contrast to the original concept, four people eating out for $50? The paper was too cheap to make it Eating Out on $60 or Eating Out on $70, because it didn't want to reimburse the reviewer more than $50, so it cheats readers.


In today's review of a dreadful kosher burger restaurant in Teaneck, Page spends only $35.71 (and likely got reimbursed for only $35.71) and complains mightily of the service or lack of it. A good paper would have shit-canned the piece and asked for another, but frugal Features Director Barbara Jaeger probably balked at spending more money on a new review. She started the $50 review as a cost-saving measure in the first place.

And why is Food Editor Bill Pitcher reviewing A Mano, a pricey, Neapolitan pizza place in Ridgewood that has gotten a lot more ink in the three years it has been open than most other North Jersey restaurants? The only reason might be that it has a great public relations firm that nagged Pitcher for even more publicity. 

He doesn't mention the pizzas are a mere 12 inches and because of the nature of the dough, they can't be baked to a crispy well-done. And his rating of two and a half stars tells readers not to bother -- being just a half-star more than the rating given to a mediocre, faux-Caribbean restaurant called Bahama Breeze last year. Maybe Pitcher felt guilty giving in to the P.R. firm. In the end, it's readers who get screwed.