More bone-headed news judgment

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A day after giving BP's clueless CEO a huge swath of the front page to showcase his empty apology, the editors at The Record of Woodland Park downplay news that he will be replaced as the company's point man on the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.


It's bad enough that Friday's Page 1 coverage embraced Tony Hayward's crocodile tears -- instead of blasting his seeming ignorance of problems before the explosion and sinking of the oil platform. Now, these editors seem intent on doing more PR for BP on the story of his departure (Page A-5).


The Hayward story would have gone perfectly with the A-1 piece on the New Jersey congressional effort to expose oil companies to greater liability, and the photo of an oil-covered pelican (A-5) would have looked good on the front page.


Local has no Hackensack education, development or municipal news today, but there are two stories on the front about upcoming hearings in Teaneck and Ridgewood. (Municipal reporters love to write about upcoming hearings.)


In Sports, I didn't get past the front of a staff-written analysis on how the U.S. team's winning goal was nullified. I wanted the paper to tell me whether World Cup soccer has an appeals process and if it doesn't, whether there is a move to review and possibly overrule referee's decisions. Wouldn't it be nice if someone like absentee Publisher Stephen A. Borg reviewed the boneheaded decisions by editors of the former Hackensack daily.



In Better Living, a "fresh take on lettuce" by Food Editor Bill Pitcher completely omits mention of pesticides and organic alternatives, but does offer recipes polluted with added sugar, mayonnaise and an egg yolk. He's The Record's BP, after all. Does anybody still eat iceberg lettuce, featured in a "frozen" salad? And the "pickled romaine" appears to be a half-assed attempt at the Korean staple, kimchi.


I wonder what the desperate editors -- Frank Scandale, Frank Burgos, Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, Barbara Jaeger, Liz Houlton, Tim Nostrand, Jim McGarvey (Jim McScreamy?) and their minions -- have in store for readers of Sunday's paper. Let's hope it's more than just covering their asses.

(Photo: Headquarters of BP Americas)

Corporate B.S. artist hogs Page 1

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BP CEO Tony Hayward said so little of substance before Congress -- and continued to throw around bullshit about the massive Gulf oil spill -- you have to wonder why his photo is all over Page 1 of  The Record of Woodland Park today.


You have to question the news judgment of the editors, who ordered huge, black type on A-1 to trumpet Hayward's apology, despite its insincerity and despite its redundancy -- coming just two days after his boss, BP's chairman, issued a heartfelt apology to the American people in the White House Rose Garden and backed up his words with a $20 billion fund for victims.


Doesn't Hayward's British reserve, captured best by TV news, drive you crazy? Why doesn't someone revoke his visa? Why doesn't Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin take a break from praising just about everything Governor Christie does and write a withering editorial about this corporate buffoon (photo above)? 


Do the editors and Publisher Stephen A. Borg see a kindred spirit in Hayward, whose corporate bullshit parallels the journalistic bullshit they've thrown at readers? Is anyone convinced by the paper's new motto, "The Trusted Local Source," as local news becomes harder to and harder to find in the thin, former Hackensack daily?  Borg ordered that marketing phrase to replace the decades-old "Friend of The People It Serves."


Why does the AP story on A-1 omit Hayward's $6 million annual salary, which he disclosed in his testimony on Capitol Hill? At least he didn't try to fool lawmakers by telling them, "I'm not in this for the money," the preposterous statement Borg made at his first meeting with the paper's employees in mid-2006.


Of course, a year and a few months later, Borg sucked out $3.65 million from North Jersey Media Group to buy a bigger mansion in Tenafly, then apparently started putting together plans for the downsizing of The Record and Herald News, including the exodus of 20- and 30-year newsroom and photo staffers and the move out of Hackensack. Yet, Borg testified before a jury in April that he's just "a salesman."


By placing the Hayward nonsense on A-1, the editors also serve to downplay Christie's plan to take away $91 million in sales taxes generated by the state's urban enterprise zones. The story, on the front of Local, clearly shows the governor, a friend of small business, draws the line when the business owners are black and Hispanic. 



Christie could raise $600 million from the millionaires tax he opposes, and tens of millions from raising the low gasoline tax. Why is he picking on minority business owners and giving a pass to the Borgs and other wealthy residents, and why aren't the paper's editorials beating up on him?


Yet another Local section contains no news of Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood (except for a Teaneck police brief).


In Better Living today, another restaurant review by Food Editor Bill Pitcher demonstrates what a minor light he is, especially when you compare him with such predecessors as Patricia Mack and Mark Howat, who died June 11. Howat, for example, wrote glowingly of dining on vegetables picked that morning and a roast from a pig raised naturally on a local farm -- and this was decades ago.

What do you get from Pitcher and Elisa Ung, the normal restaurant reviewer, who is on leave? You get little awareness of the origin and quality of the food they review, an obsession with desserts and a lot of bullshit about celebrity chefs. At least in today's review, Pitcher sampled some non-meat dishes, which is not always the case.


But he compares a locally run Italian restaurant to chain restaurants, and gives Zocco Ristorante in Hillsdale only two stars -- the same rating Ung gave Bahama Breeze, a faux-Caribbean chain restaurant on the highway in Wayne. That's the kiss of death.