Day of the Dead in the newsroom

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Desperate editors had to fill The Record of Woodland Park today with a massively dead proposal for the Meadowlands and five expanded obituaries for the dearly departed. And I thought the Mexican holiday called Day of the Dead wasn't until November.


How does Staff Writer John Brennan sucker the editors into putting his ridiculous speculation on Page 1? Apparently, they are as hungry as he is for any story, whether grounded in fact or not. Today, he raises from the dead a builder's 2002 proposal for a mini-city in the Meadowlands -- including 5 million square feet of housing -- and suggests it might be revived to get the stalled Xanadu project going.

But how accurate is the story? In the first few words, Brennan errs by placing the Mall of America in Minneapolis (it's in Bloomington, a suburb). If he got that wrong, can anything that follows be trusted? And what builder would propose so much housing during the recession?


There was so little local news to publish today, editors scrambled for filler. On the front of Local, Staff Writer Jay Levin's obituary for Dan Resin, a minor stage and screen actor, seems to run on and on, plus it has three photos. 


That's nothing. Music man Mitch Miller's obit has six photos and covers a good-third of L-6. There are three other expanded obituaries on the same page, which follows the usual two pages of death notices.


Local news? Nothing from Englewood or Teaneck, but Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado has a story on a new school board member. Not counting the school board elections in April, Alvarado hasn't written a single story about Hackensack schools in at least 11 months.


Oh, don't fret. She's just taking orders from head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, who clucks over reporting chicks such as Alvarado lest they exhaust themselves by reporting and writing too many stories. Don't forget to get your rest now, Monsy.

Giving readers tabloid news

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 Hackensack readers haven't seen the details of the proposed city budget and tax hike, but the editors have seen fit to order daily coverage of the Passaic County trial of a former nanny accused of having sex with a 12-year-old boy. It's the tabloid side of The Record of Woodland Park -- the kind of sensational news these desperate editors seize on day after day in the absence of legitimate stories.


The front page today reminds me of when The Record was an afternoon paper and editors covered most of A-1 with a "patch" -- a soft-news story and photo or graphic exploring social and legal issues, and many other topics. Shocking what kids say when shielded by anonymity on a social-networking site. But no surprise when you read some of the anonymous comments on Eye on The Record.


The editors waited for a wire service story to report on Page 1 today suspicions that BP hasn't been telling the full truth about the enormity of the gushing oil well or its potential damage, and how government regulators have been hoodwinked. Still, The Record still cannot muster any editorial outrage.


Has Publisher Stephen A. Borg ordered Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin and other editorial writers to confine themselves to New Jersey topics -- as he did initially with Margulies the cartoonist?


There is no Hackensack or Englewood news in Local today. It's no-food-coverage Thursday in Better Living.

Desperate scramble for news

The lazy, incompetent editors of The Record of Woodland Park really must have been scrambling for news by the looks of today's front page. Three sanitation workers in Fair Lawn were sickened by a chemical, but is that any reason to put a huge photo of a garbage truck on Page 1? Are we all in danger? And is the football game promoted under the masthead so earthshaking?

The lead A-1 story is about continuing job losses -- 85,000 in December. Isn't it time the editors assigned reporters to interview victims of the recession to put flesh, blood and emotions into the statistics? I guess they are secure in the knowledge the Borg family is interested only in enriching themselves and will continue to ignore the shameful job the editors are doing in covering local news.

Take a look at the Local section today. Far more attention is being paid to schools in mostly white communities than to those in highly diverse Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood, which has segregated elementary and middle schools.

With no Hackensack news on most days, readers are getting accustomed to waiting for the weekly Hackensack Chronicle, delivered with the former Hackensack daily on Fridays. This week, we learned the city manager asked union workers to forgo their scheduled raises in 2010. The weekly also has carried a story on how Mayor Marlin G. Townes, a computer wizard,  saved the city thousands of dollars by making its computers more efficient, asking nothing in return.


See earlier post: "Did you see this in The Record?"