Local-news editors, reporters can't get act together

Friday morning at 10: A major backup on a quiet street in Teaneck.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

How did Editor Marty Gottlieb, a veteran of The New York Times, and an unknown number of reporters and sub-editors screw-up so badly on today's lead Page 1 story in The Record?

The big, black headline screams about a "midnight rampage" at Teaneck High School, but the text mentions students breaking into the school in the "wee hours" and a "2:11 a.m." burglary alarm.

Doesn't sound like "midnight" to me. How embarrassing. What went wrong? 

And why does this happen time and again -- major errors in headlines and photo captions, all the responsibility of six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton?

Big question

With more than 20 hours to work on the story -- and two sidebars -- no one at the paper asked or answered an obvious question:

Where were the parents of the 62 students when they left their houses in the "wee hours" and traveled to the school to commit the vandalism?

Sleeping, no doubt, like Houlton and the other editors. 

And why doesn't the Woodland Park daily name the 24 students facing charges who are 18 years old?

Sanitizing Ford story

But the problems with today's edition don't end there.

Another front-page piece that goes into great detail, yet still manages to have big holes in it, is the profile of Paramus High graduate Mark Fields, who will become the first Jewish CEO of Ford Motor Co., started by a notorious anti-Semite.

Deep in the text on A-9, Staff Writer Richard Newman, who is a business reporter, mentions the Ford plant in Mahwah closed in 1980.

But Newman says not a word about the despicable company history of dumping paint sludge in Ringwood mines and woods, perilously close to North Jersey's major water supply.

The dumping inspired "Toxic Legacy," an investigative series by The Record, and a lawsuit against Ford on behalf of the Ramapough Mountain People, members of a mixed-race community who were sickened by the sludge and then duped into settling the case.

Ford destroyed the environment is their Upper Ringwood enclave, yet the story praises the current CEO with "shepherding to market a new lineup of ... fuel-efficient vehicles ...." (A-9).

Ford is environmentally responsible, this whitewash from the business staff seems to be saying.

Failed strategy

On today's Local front, Englewood officials say they are hoping new apartments will help expand the downtown economy -- a strategy that has already failed miserably (L-1).

The city plans to knock down the Lincoln School, which was more than 100 years old when it was closed in 2008, and a city firehouse on Williams Street to make way for the new apartments, which will receive a 15-year tax break.

The story doesn't mention that a plan to turn the elementary school into a community center was rejected by city officials, likely because it is located in a minority neighborhood.

Is it that good?

I once tried takeout from Rose's Place in Fair Lawn, which The Record rated three stars, and felt that although the food was good, the portions were small for the price.

And Rose's didn't match my standard for Lebanese fare at time: Vine Valley on Main Street in Paterson, now long closed.

Today, Staff Writer Elisa Ung gives three stars to Rose's of Englewood (BL-20), but I'm not sure that will be enough to lure me away from my current favorite for Middle Eastern food, Paterson's Aleppo Restaurant.

Kelly's self-promotion insults readers

Mike Kelly, a defense official in Australia.

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa.

 

Unlike thousands of us, Editor Marty Gottlieb hasn't been reading Mike Kelly long enough to know the columnist has worn out his welcome.

Even a decade ago, The Record's news copy editors were so sick of reading Kelly, they would choose almost anything else to edit. As deadline approached, supervisors had to order copy editors to process his drivel.

Today, Gottlieb put Kelly on Page 1, where he congratulates himself for the reappearance of an old writing desk that may have been used by Abraham Lincoln and was kept in Teaneck High School.

Who cares?

On Monday, Kelly's original column about the desk ran on and on in Local, examining the disappearance from every angle but the reporter's own asshole. 

Few people in Teaneck, where Kelly lives, and no one outside the township really care about the desk or what happened to it. This is such a waste of space. The follow-up could have been a brief in Local.

At least Gottlieb again gives front-page play to testimony in the trial of Dharun Ravi -- who is charged in the suicide of Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood -- after a couple of days on the Local front.

More road kill

Kelly has a lot in common with Road Warrior John Cichowski, another columnist who has run out of original ideas (L-1).

As with nearly every Road Warrior column, Cichowski relies on e-mails from readers, some of whom hide behind pseudonyms, such as "my lawyer-friend Grumpy John."

His "lawyer-friend" is a moron, claiming North Jersey's potholed roads are "almost Californian." 

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes prizes Cichowski and Kelly for their ability to fill space three times or more a week as her incompetent assignment flunkies scramble to find local news.

Ambulance chasers

There's more filler on L-3 today in a photo and story about a house fire in Upper Saddle River that injured no one, and in a photo on L-6 of an SUV that crashed into the Crow's Nest restaurant in Hackensack.

The photo is by Tariq Zehawi, a talented photographer who has been reduced to an ambulance chaser. 

It's not known whether the SUV driver was unhappy with the food at the Crow's Nest or was just an older person who confused "drive" and "reverse."

Who says Sykes doesn't cover Hackensack?

Hot diggity dogs

I stopped reading the lukewarm review of The Bouwerie in Old Tappan when Staff Writer Elisa Ung said the family of co-owner Dan DeMiglio owned "the late, beloved Callahan's hot dog stands" (Better Living centerfold).

"Beloved"? By whom? Customers who couldn't get enough harmful additives and preservatives, and fried foods?

Ung didn't care much for the food at The Bouwerie, but loved the desserts and the service. But, really, how many readers are going to shlep up to a golf course in Old Tappan to eat out?

Out of touch with many readers

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

The Record today left me unsettled. I was more interested in some of the smaller stories than in the package of feel-good Veterans Day pieces I found in two of the sections. I immediately felt uncomfortable seeing the big photo on Page 1 of a marine who has been paralyzed from the chest down since 2004 after being shot by a sniper in Iraq.

On Page A-6, a short story about loans to install solar panels reminded me of my experience -- it took two years to apply for a state rebate and have panels installed on my Hackensack home. I asked two Record reporters to look into the reasons for the delay, which I was told is typical in North Jersey, but was ignored.

In the Local section, there are stories about re-dedication of a Holocaust Center at Teaneck High School and two stories from Englewood -- the promotion of a veteran cop and  two elderly brothers who fought in World War II. Hackensack? Again, no news from the city where The Record was founded in 1895 and which was its home for more than 110 years.

Let me bring you up to date. The last two stories about Hackensack ran Oct. 13 and Oct. 3 (not counting any police or fire briefs).

In Business, a column on B-2 starts with the words, "Bankers are crooks!" That's refreshing. Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais knows that what happens to him often makes good copy -- a lesson some of the younger reporters should take to heart.