On A-1: Fat cats, pregnant pigs and a GOP elephant

The owners of Boomerangs in Hackensack are preparing to open a branch of the Caribbean and soul food restaurant on Palisade Avenue in Englewood, above.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Don't look for local news on Page 1 of The Record today.

Editor Marty Gottlieb tried for balance, but ended up with two stories about Governor Christie, a centerpiece on a nasty ruling-class inheritance battle and the sad story of a battered Hackensack woman who breathed her last.

In the past two months, Staff Writer Kibret Markos has been hanging on every word during the Hudson News inheritance battle in state Superior Court in Hackensack (A-1).

Just imagine what he's been missing -- lawsuits, trials and motions he hasn't had time to cover -- as he does a good imitation of a lap dog for some of the richest fat cats in the world.

Christie, meanwhile, finally got a state Supreme Court nominee past majority Democrats in the state Senate (A-1).

And in a second victory, the GOP elephant backed factory farmers and kept helpless pregnant pigs in metal crates (A-1).

Columnist Charles Stile calls this Christie "wielding power and control, and doing it quite successfully."

Over pregnant pigs?

A third story about Christie appears on A-3 today as The Record continues to do a good imitation of being the GOP bully's personal journal.

More animal news

In the Local section, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza couldn't manage to fill his pages with legitimate news.

So, like Gottlieb, he looked to the animal world and plugged a big hole on L-1 with a story on the Meadowlands Racetrack.

On L-2, Hackensack and school board officials shook hands on a deal to pay the full salary and benefits of a school resource officer.

The City Council dropped a demand for seven years of back pay totaling $1 million -- money the board refused to pay.

In utility pole news, check out that 10.5-inch-high photo of a pole fire in West Milford (L-3).

Editors remove heads from assholes

Image via Wikipedia
"The Republicans were protecting fat cats from higher taxes,"a Rutgers University political scientist comments today in The Record.

To Editors of The Record:


Tell us something we don't know, for crying out loud.


"Politics" doomed deficit-reduction talks? Really? Where has Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson been? Living in a cave?


Politics have paralyzed Congress for more than a year. Why does interim Editor Doug Clancy even think it's necessary to label Jackson's Page 1 story today as an "Analysis"?


Clancy had his head buried in newsroom budget books for far too long, trying to figure out new ways to screw the news copy editors and pamper the digital news group, which puts out the clunky NorthJersey.com.


And is it news to anyone who lives in North Jersey that the region is pockmarked with failed chemical cleanups or that the system is broken (A-1)?


What about the "broken" flood-control system, the "broken" home-rule system of local government and the "broken" property tax system?


Failure of government is evident all around us, on the national, state and local levels, but the editors can't stop defending the status quo -- inside and outside the Woodland Park daily.


Even a third front-page story -- on the dangerous chemical BPA in can liners, drink bottles and other metal containers -- is at least a year late.


Of heads and holes


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes continues to cover court motions relating to suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa more than she does the city's municipal affairs (L-3).


Although there is no Hackensack municipal news in the paper today, Sykes found room for two stories from Ridgewood (L-2 and L-6), plus stories from Northvale (L-1) and North Arlington (L-3).


An editorial on A-18 today blasts Republicans in Congress for blocking new, healthier school lunch guidelines, despite an obesity epidemic that seems to have escaped the attention of Sykes and the other editors at the paper.


Chewing the fat


In a talk on Monday to a class of seniors at Bergen Community College, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill noted she also is in charge of health and fitness coverage, but didn't explain why that doesn't extend to healthy food.


Sherrill didn't mention that many of the recipes in her weekly column call for inordinate amounts of artery clogging heavy cream and butter.


Or, that the restaurant reviews she edits rarely mention that most of the poultry and meat served contains harmful antibiotics, growth hormones and animal by-products.


She spoke about consumers' fondness for swordfish, tuna and other large fish, but not that they contain the most mercury or that wildly popular farmed salmon is artificially colored.
  
Isn't it the responsibility of Sherrill, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung and other food writers to supply this information to readers, so they don't have to rely solely on menus, supermarket ads and TV food shows?

More fishing for news

Image via Wikipedia

The desperate editors couldn't run the photo on Page L-3 any bigger -- it's as wide as it can get, as wide as the page. Let down by the lazy assignment and news staff under Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes for yet another day, the layout editors had no news for that page today, and plugged the hole with a photo of people fishing and looking as bored as readers of The Record of Woodland Park.



Who can blame them? No news of Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck and other important towns appears in Local today. Local? Why not call it Yokels, which is how Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale regards residents of key communities. Bears in West Milford get better coverage than Hackensack, where the paper was founded in 1895 and where it prospered for more than 110 years.

On Page 1, the paper reports that failing students in some districts now have to pay for summer school. Isn't that good news for taxpayers? But is it really A-1 news? 

The plan to break up Teterboro -- a plan few thought would be successful -- is on hold, the lead story on the front page discloses. Why did the paper write endlessly about the politics of the proposal, but not bother to report on Teterboro Airport's impact on the quality of life of tens of thousands in Hackensack, Maywood and other towns annoyed by noisy aircraft filled with such fat cats as the Borgs?


For cutting-edge food coverage from Better Living, see the newest junk food on F-1. The copy editor calls a doughnut cheeseburger part of a "culinary renaissance." "Artery-clogging renaissance" would be more accurate. A reader-friendly story would report on what healthy options are available at the fair.

(Illustration: Teterboro Airport. Only two runways, but endless noise.)