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.)

Is this really good news?

Image via Wikipedia

Do you ever read the inane stuff that appears every day on Page A-3 of  The Record of Woodland Park labeled "GOOD NEWS"?

Today, the incompetent editors shoved into that space a staff-written story about a proposed new traffic control tower at Teterboro Airport to improve safety at the hub. The tower would be built by 2016.

But what about the safety of homeowners and high-rise dwellers when those low-flying private jets skim Hackensack rooftops on their approach to the airport? What about the seemingly endless racket and the impact on quality of life from big and small jets, small planes and some of the vintage aircraft that use Teterboro? On these subjects, The Record and transportation reporter Tom Davis have long been silent.

In the Local section today, there are no fewer than eight crime stories, but no municipal, education or development news about Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck. Ridgewood? No. Glen Rock? No. Westwood? No.

But on the front of the section is an expose about town workers on the 'gravy train.' You'd think a newspaper like the former Hackensnack daily would have done this story years ago. But, then, you don't know how lazy the editors and  local reporters are. You don't know how little time the reporters spend in the towns they are supposed to cover or how some of them are sidetracked for months, even years on an interminable "investigation."

It's likely few local reporters have ever asked to examine the budget of the town they cover -- line by line -- or questioned the manager or administrator about employees' paid absences. So, when you have a newspaper like that, you wait for a report exposing these corrupt practices, as in this case. This one, from the State Commission of Investigation, is just like the one the paper waited for before detailing the ridiculously high salaries and perks of schools superintendents a couple of years ago.