'Eye on The Record' is your sounding board

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Do you believe, as I do, that The Record of Woodland Park is being held hostage by lazy, incompetent editors, and that the Borgs are absentee landlords interested only in enriching themselves?

Are you tired of editors playing favorites among the staff? Are you tired of staffers who apparently do little work, and get away with it? Do you disagree with a news policy that largely ignores Hackensack and many other Bergen County towns?

Do you wonder what happened to the diversity of the newspaper's columnists? Do you believe John Cichowski, Mike Kelly and other columnists should be busted back to reporter to refresh their stale viewpoints?

Have you been called into a disciplinary meeting with Managing Editor Frank Burgos or are you one of the unlucky few people he took to lunch when he first came to the paper? Do you believe cliche-ridden Frank Scandale is the worst editor ever?

Please use this blog as your sounding board by commenting anonymously on any post. Just click on "comments" at the end of each entry. It's free, easy and confidential.

-- Victor E. Sasson

Tackling the big story

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No matter how many big stories The Record of Woodland Park covers, each one is a challenge the paper has to rise to.


Today's front-page coverage of the devastating earthquake in Haiti is what you'd expect when you throw nearly 20 newsroom staffers at a story, but The Record isn't going to win any prizes.  

Columnist Mike Kelly really drops the ball, choosing to write about the obvious communication breakdowns rather than criticizing the relief effort or the world's past treatment of the impoverished Caribbean nation (see earlier post, "More drivel from Mike Kelly"). But one of the most useful pieces comes from another columnist, Harvy Lipman, who advises readers to send only cash to a reliable agency if they want to help.

The paper doesn't really answer in any detail the questions on everyone's mind: In the absence of a functioning government in Haiti, when are the search-and-rescue teams, water, medicine and other aid promised by the U.S. and others going to arrive? When will the teams be at work side-by-side with ordinary Haitians to rescue those still alive, care for the injured and bury the dead? The quake hit Tuesday, so why is it taking so long?

Fourteen reporters contributed to the local reaction story, but they buried the best quote I saw in all the coverage: "It's a country that can't get a break." Why Kelly didn't pick this up and run with it is a real puzzle.Where was his assignment editor -- with his head up you know where?

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Meanwhile, the Local section isn't any better today than it is on a day when municipal reporters aren't  pulled off their beats to tackle an international story. There are two garbage-collection stories -- one on the front of the section, one inside -- including the tale about 300 lazy families protesting an Allendale plan to cut expenses by mandating curbside pickup.

As usual, no Hackensack or Englewood stories appear today, but Teaneck reporter Joe Ax's byline shows up for the first time since Dec. 17. Even if you assume Ax was on vacation, why do the lazy, incompetent editors just ignore one of the most important towns in Bergen County?