Wayne football jerk-offs grab front page again

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Rush-hour buses already were standing-room-only before the Port Authority raised tolls steeply, sending even more commuters to mass transit. The paper cites agency "data."

If readers thought the departure of Editor Francis "Frank" Scandale would end wasting the front page on sports, they've gotten a good slap in the face with all the coverage of those nine thuggish jerk-offs on the Wayne Hills High School football team.


In fact, high school football dominates Page 1 of The Record today.


Leave it to interim Editor Doug Clancy to beat to death the Wayne football farce. Once a reporter in the Passaic County Bureau, when it was in a Wayne shopping center, he now lives in Pequannock, which borders Wayne.


Meanwhile, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes managed to put an upbeat spin on another front-page story -- reporting Governor Christie has added more than $1 billion in new borrowing to the state's already heavy debt burden.


Unbalanced reporting


Sykes apparently ordered Staff Writer John Reitmeyer to make sure the lead paragraph noted the GOP bully is "borrowing money at a slower rate than governors before him." 


Reitmeyer also left until the last paragraph an additional $1 billion-plus borrowed after June 30, the end of the fiscal year.


The reporter notes that since the second $1 billion was borrowed in the current fiscal year, "it will show up on next year's debt report." 


So, I guess Reitmeyer is saying he is powerless to add up the numbers until it appears in an official state report.


The story also conveniently omits Christie's refusal to tax millionaires or raise the low gasoline tax to pay for road, bridge and rail improvements. Instead, most of the first borrowed billion went to those projects.


Trash transit


The lead story in Sykes' Local section reports more people are taking public transportation to avoid steep Hudson River toll hikes (L-1).


It's time for the assignment desk to tell the paper's transportation reporters -- including the supremely lazy Road Warrior columnist -- to get off their rear ends, ride rush-hour buses and trains, and report on the quality of mass transit, especially in view of the extra ridership.


And Staff Writer Shawn Boburg, who covers the Port Authority, needs to ask agency officials why they've refused in the past decade to add mass-transit capacity in the traffic-choked region, including a second reverse bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.


Winging it


Two more Hackensack stories appear in Local today -- another overlong report on a motion in a criminal case against suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa (L-1), and continued cleanup of the pre-Halloween storm (L-3 photo).


That's not exactly ground-breaking municipal coverage, in view of the city's struggling Main Street, its high property taxes and such quality-of-life issues as round-the-clock aircraft noise.


Related articles

• Shoving the jocks down our throats (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Defending the worst of today's youth (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Sending mixed messages on Wayne thugs (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

Shoving the jocks down our throats

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Since the arrest of a Penn State coach and dismissal of Joe Paterno, perverted football coaches have been coming out of the woodwork.  Was the media ignoring the problem?

In the simple mind of interim Editor Doug Clancy, all football stories are the same -- from the perversions of Penn State to the thuggish players at Wayne Hills High School.


Clancy, like his predecessor, seems to think sports sells the paper, so he is running the Wayne story in the lead position on the front page today -- the fifth time it's been on Page 1 in recent weeks.


Why is this jock-strap itching editor shoving the Wayne farce down Bergen readers' throats when he has a much more suitable place for it, the Passaic-Morris edition?


Clancy boosted the hype of Black Friday sales by running the story on Page 1 on Saturday, so why does he bury the dark side of this naked commercialism on A-15 today?


Road kill


Road Warrior John Cichowski still doesn't get it. Testing the vision and physical coordination of older drivers periodically is far more important than testing their knowledge of driving rules (L-1).


At the bottom of the Local front, a story about a driver who ran into two bicyclists in Saddle River is woefully incomplete.


On L-3, a story about Englewood merchants is the first about that city's downtown in at least five years.


Living dead


The lazy assignment editors do so few profiles of interesting local residents you'd think an obituary about one of them would become a fixture on L-3, where they once ran regularly.


Richard "Ricky Rockit" Torraca, 45, was a drummer and freelance stagehand with hundreds of friends (L-6).


Juvenile journalism


For more than a year now, Better Living staffers have been using their unseasoned palates to test bottled pasta sauces and other food, and  recommending the "best" to readers.


Today, the Consumer Reports of daily newspapers publishes an evaluation of computer tablets on F-1 and F-3.


But what's this juvenile nonsense? Each evaluation lists "sitcom characters who would buy this."

Editors pay back big advertisers

Image by tsImhein via Flickr

Black Friday shoppers. In recent years, The Record of Woodland Park has completely ignored downtowns in Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and other towns.

After being beaten senseless by the repetition of Black Friday advertising and news on TV, readers awaken to a front page dominated by a shopping story as The Record pays homage to the many big retailers that keep it in business.

I do have to congratulate Staff Writers Kathleen Lynn and Joan Verdon -- two Business section veterans -- for finding Marisol Vasquez, a pregnant, 33-year-old teacher from Bergenfield, who actually needed to shop on Thursday night to save money.

The headlines and photo with the Page 1 story are uninspiring, however.  

The shoppers look confused and not very happy. And, of course, all this emphasis on sales at big stores obscures the struggles of Main Street merchants throughout North Jersey.

Thuggish athletes

It's good to see the nine thugs on the Wayne Hills High School football team won't be playing in a championship game, but why does interim Editor Doug Clancy think the story should lead the paper today (A-1)?

And the third story on A-1 -- an upbeat account about North Jersey doctors dedicated to helping Haiti -- deserves far better play.

Local yokels

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section is a complete loss.

Can the photo over line on L-1 be any more unimaginative, especially when a heavy duty truck appears to be headed for the skies in a freak accident involving a crane boom?

CRANE TOPPLES IN WYCKOFF

DURING JOB AT HOUSE

Poor Tariq Zehawi, the staff photographer who raced out of the office to get this spectacular shot.

I can't imagine what Production Editor Liz Houlton is telling the news copy editors she is supervising to get such dull writing. 

COPY EDITOR MOVES BOWELS

DURING SHIFT AT PAPER

The entire Local front today is police and fire news or news about cops and firefighters. There is nothing from Hackensack in the section.

Defending the worst of today's youth

This week's expose on executive pay abuses at the Port Authority came
a few months after the agency OK'd big Hudson River toll and fare hikes.

For the second day in a row, nine high school football players charged with aggravated assault land on Page 1 -- this time for an impassioned defense from their coach.


Wayne Hills head Coach Chris Olsen even disputes the police accounts of what happened the night the athletes allegedly attacked and beat two students from rival Wayne Valley High School, kicking and stomping one of them.


Today's story said the alleged attacks occurred after a house "party," but it doesn't address whether Andrew Monaghan, 18, Wayne Hills star receiver and cornerback, and eight minors had consumed alcohol.


Why doesn't interim Editor Doug Clancy publish an impassioned defense of the Penn State students who rioted after Coach Joe Paterno was fired? 


Why is the Wayne story even on the front page today? 


On Tuesday, The Record was months late with a Page 1 expose on executive bonuses at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey -- some dating to 2002 -- so now Clancy is beating readers over the head with the third reaction story this week (A-1).


Lazy reporting


On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, a large photo shows a Tenafly police cruiser partially submerged in the swimming pool of the Knickerbocker Country Club (story on L-6).


As with so many stories, "details were sketchy," but it's clear that eliminating one of the Police Department's gas guzzlers won't help borough finances much.


When is Sykes' assignment desk going to report that -- despite rising gasoline prices -- departments in Tenafly, Hackensack, Teaneck and other towns haven't done anything to replace their highly inefficient, V-8 powered police fleets.


Four days after a 6-year-old Ridgewood girl was killed in the driveway of a family friend, an L-1 story identifies an au pair as the driver of the vehicle that killed her.


Road Warrior John Cichowski takes the easy way out again, knitting together another column from reader e-mail (L-1).


Sykes rushes news to readers who were sitting on the edge of their seats, wondering when live racing will return to the Meadowlands Racetrack (L-3).


In utility pole and traffic light news, a photo at the bottom of L-3 documents a minor accident on Route 9W in Englewood Cliffs.


Hackensack news? Tune in tomorrow.


Artery cloggers


In Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung notes her first impressions of Vincent's Trattoria "were quite positive" after she saw a board out front advertising "delicious desserts" (Pages 18-19).


But she rates the food and service at the Washington Township restaurant only fair to good. Aw, shucks. I guess Ung can't live by dessert alone.

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• Cats, dogs and just plain animals (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)