Editors are at a loss for words

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Has the departure of Tom Davis meant the end of anti-light rail stories in The Record?

Editor Francis Scandale is like a lot of journalists, including many members of his own staff. Issues bore him. He probably hardly notices the decidedly anti-mass transit slant of The Record of Woodland Park, and you'd have to pull him and other editors kicking and screaming out of their gas-guzzling SUVs.

Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes are probably totally unaware of  the dysfunctional legal immigration system, and, besides, illegal aliens sell papers big time, so don't bother them.

Couple that with the awe in which they hold Governor Christie, who gets support in news stories as well as in columns and editorials by Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin, and you have a newspaper that fails to serve readers day after day. 

Ignoring readers

Serving readers is another issue that bores them, as they struggle to put out a paper with a staff whose overall productivity has plummeted, but the problem is some of them are their "pets."

Look at today's front page. Apparently, there is so little going on in North Jersey, a big chunk of A-1 is taken up by football photos -- this despite surveys that show sports is way down on the list of topics readers want to read about.

The lead story is a preview of the sentencing of an ultra-right-wing radio host who had to threaten to kill federal judges in a blog post before anyone paid any attention to him, and he sucked in the paper and Columnist Mike Kelly, who helped cover his three trials.

Also on A-1 is a story on a bilingual class that readers normally would find on the front of the Local section or on L-2, which carried "daily" education coverage ordered by Publisher Stephen A. Borg until it petered out this year.

Burying genocide

The Local section today isn't even worth mentioning, except for how Sykes buried a new curriculum at Bergen Community College to bring to the fore "the forgotten genocide" of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in the early 1900s (L-2).

Over the years, this issue has been handled with such cowardice by the so-called journalists who run the former Hackensack daily.

And food writer Elisa Ung rubbed salt into the wounds in 2009, when she called South Paterson a "Turkish enclave" and "Little Istanbul" -- even though the Paterson neighborhood had been settled decades before by Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians, some of the very same people who were oppressed by the Ottoman Turks.

Readers' holiday wishes

In Better Living on Sunday, Ung ran a column of comments on "holiday wishes" from wealthy restaurant owners, chefs and others in the food business -- to whom she seems beholden -- rather than from the restaurant patrons who made them rich. 

Here are some of my holiday wishes, directed at some of the food professionals she quoted.

To Tracy Nieporent of Tenafly, a partner in the Myriad Restaurant Group: 

Why were there flies in the dining rooms of Tribeca Grill and Nobu in Manhattan during my lunchtime visits? As you know, flies spend most of their time in shit, and are among the filthiest of insects.

To John Piliouras, executive chef of Nisi Estiatorio in Englewood:

Why do you charge $23 to $34 per pound of whole fish, which is inexpensive for the restaurant to buy?

To Christine Nunn, chef-owner of Picnic in Fair Lawn:

For patrons watching their cholesterol and their weight, do you serve alternatives to dishes with butter and heavy cream that seem to be your specialty?

To all of the food professionals quoted:

If you're not already doing so, please tell your customers more about how the food you serve was grown or raised so they can make intelligent and healthy choices. Not everyone you serve is like Ung, who is blinded by an obsession for dessert.

 

Selling out to Apple

Image by Tim Pritlove via Flickr

Nothing cheapens a paper more than a lavishly promotional story in the news columns that shouts to readers how willing the editors are to sell out. Today, on the front of Local, The Record of Woodland Park completely destroys the line between news and advertising -- and it didn't cost Apple a nickle. 

The story is even promoted on the front page. Is this the Borgs' idea of how to save their once-great daily?

I guess the lazy, incompetent editors decided that readers in Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and a bunch of other places no longer care how officials are running their towns and schools, but are dying to know when the iPad went on sale.

Another driving-related safety story appears on Page 1 today -- just two days after a story on driving deaths with an incorrect headline. It's long past the time when Karen Rouse and the other transportation reporters start writing about mass transit, and I'm not talking about the negative, distorted stuff churned out by Tom Davis and his clueless assignment editor, presumably Dan Sforza, a former transportation reporter. Both are off in La La Land. 

Under a one-column headline, an A-1 story reports the death of yet another single-engine plane pilot. Cessnas and similar small planes appear to be unreliable and dangerous, so why haven't we ever seen a story on why they have advanced so little and why they are still so noisy -- to the consternation of residents of Hackensack and other towns under their flight paths? (Photo: Cessna 152.)

Today's Better Living section contains no food news -- the third day this week without any such stories -- despite a house ad that ran Friday touting "ever day"  coverage.

Someone should tell Mike Kelly (on O-1 today) that he will never be a great columnist until he stops asking questions and starts stating his opinion forcefully and colorfully. We're all sick of your questions and we expect you and other columnist to go out on a limb -- that's why you have a column in the first place. Do you get it? Your assignment editor should have told you this years ago, but maybe you have the one who can't take his eyes off of young staffers' breasts.