Editors ditch their objectivity

Image by Eric Rice via Flickr

Along Railroad Avenue in Hackensack, many blocks of tracks are unfenced.

Interim Editor Doug Clancy gives The Record's front page a strong North Jersey slant today, but drops the ball badly with inaccurate headlines, incomplete stories and a serious loss of objectivity.


If the reborn Xanadu shopping and entertainment complex will be getting a $400 million tax break over 20 years, then an A-1 drop headline declaring "taxpayers are safe" is speculative at best.


Of course, Clancy could do much better than to use the front page for a complex, eye-glazing process story on financing of the Meadowlands project, but the developer made its pitch directly to unidentified members of the paper's Editorial Board, who appear to be solidly behind business interests.

Train deaths drive new approach to safety

Message needs to get to kids and adults

These headlines on a second A-1 story are so inaccurate, you have to wonder what Editor Liz Houlton, supervisor of the news copy desk, is smoking.


The story by Staff Writer Karen Rouse doesn't outline a "new approach," but merely regurgitates NJ Transit's old campaign of blaming the victims and labeling pedestrians who are killed by trains as "trespassers."


Where is the "new approach"? There is not a word here about improving the safety of crossings and unfenced tracks or posting transit police at busy stations before someone is killed (A-6).


Lazy editors


In fact, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions are so lazy, they have never sent Rouse or another reporter to the neighborhood where a 12-year-old Hackensack Middle School student was killed by a train in 2010 -- along a multi-block stretch of unfenced track.


No resident has ever been interviewed about the safety of trains roaring down what is basically the middle of the street. Hackensack officials are mulling a name change from Railroad Avenue to Railroad Death Avenue.


Copping out


A third A-1 story -- on arrests in a detective's killing in Paterson -- is incomplete, containing not a word on the alleged role of the suspect's girlfriend.


However, the assignment editors found room to list police brass at the press conference -- including Paterson Chief James Wittig -- but they've never attempted to assess what a poor job Whittig has done in controlling gun violence in the Silk City.


Finally, Clancy shied away from trying to find independent observers to discuss the poor showing of Governor Christie's candidates in Tuesday's election.


So, he went with Columnist Charle Stile, who merely perpetuates the partisan rhetoric that has paralyzed the legislative process (A-1).


Parade of teachers


Check out today's Local section, Sykes' pride and joy. The main element on the front is a photo-and-text package about a cop's motorcycle bursting into flames. Wowwee. Gee whiz. Golly. Did you see that? Amazing.


The sergeant's pants were burned, but he wasn't injured. His gonads are intact.    Is there a product liability lawsuit here or was the motorcycle poorly maintained?


There is a ton of news today about teachers and education -- the state rejects a contract (L-1), a teacher is charged with theft (also L-1), Columnist Mike Kelly comes to the defense of a teacher's freedom of speech (L-3), a fired teacher files a lawsuit (also L-3) and Teaneck fights a charter school (also L-3).


Hackensack news? C'mon. What do you think this is, your local newspaper?


Related posts

• Editors railroad readers again (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Editors know crime is an easy sell (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Bad headlines, lazy editing, more errors (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

Why is this on the front page?

Image by birdphone via Flickr

Aren't we all sick and tired of the belly aching by Ridgewood residents opposed to the expansion of The Valley Hospital (photo)? This controversy is more than two years old, and there have been numerous stories about it, yet here it is again today on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park.


Were the editors desperate to put something -- anything -- on the front page? Did they ever play similar protests over the expansion of Hackensack Medical Center on A-1? What's so special about the Ridgewood protest? Is this journalism by demographics?


The news copy editor probably thought the headline was really clever: "Hospital expansion called a health hazard." And the reporter actually quotes residents alleging years of construction will expose children to "potential hazards." One hallucinating protester refers to Ridgewood as "our little village." Can't you hear the violins?


I can think of several construction projects in Hackensack on school routes (there is no busing in the city). What about the hazards Hackensack kids walking to school are exposed to? Don't black and Hispanic kids count in the eyes of the editors?


Another headline on Page 1 appears to suggest teachers are stalking the state education czar. Was this head intended to be ominous?

Teachers track their target

Some observers would suggest it's the teachers who are the targets of state aid cuts and pension reform.

In Local, there are detailed stories on two trials in Superior Court, Paterson, but none on cases in state court in Hackensack. For another day, news of Hackensack , Teaneck or Englewood is missing, likely due to the incompetence of the assignment desk under Deirdre Sykes. But there is a long story on a murder in Butler -- outside the paper's circulation area.

For at least the fourth year, Food Editor Bill Pitcher has prepared his annual guide to grilling -- which appears today in Better Living -- and for at least the fourth time, he omitted any mention of how processed meats, such as hot dogs, and charring food have been linked to cancer. Good appetite.

No longer a must-read

Image via Wikipedia

It's a pretty sad commentary. My son went out and got our copy of The Record of Woodland Park today. I looked it over briefly, putting the sales circulars, classifieds and Sports section into the recycling bin, then went back to reading my Costco Connection magazine.

After I finished the magazine, I read the former Hackensack daily -- no longer a must-read -- even on a Sunday.

The Page 1 story on the war between Governor Christie and public schools is another in a series in which The Record has portrayed teachers and police officers as the main reasons municipal property taxes are so high.  

Maybe if New Jersey's finances weren't so screwed up, it could fund public schools completely, as many other states do. And how reliable is coverage of unions by a newspaper that has none -- the Borg family having fought successfully against employees who sought to organize them?

On the front of Local,  one storm clean-up story is about Palisades Park and the other concentrates on towns to the north and west, with nothing about Hackensack, Englewood and Teaneck, not to mention a bunch of other towns -- not even the name of the Hackensack man who went into cardiac arrest while shoveling snow and died Friday.

Obituaries on L-1 recall the lives of two dedicated history teachers -- one in a public school -- a seeming argument against the governor's call for big education cuts.

 An editorial in Opinion salivates over the prospects that Teaneck and Bogota police will merge, and that West Milford will successfully cut three officers. Is that really a good idea in this sprawling township (see map above)?

Before you know it, readers will be turning against the cop on the beat as well as their kids' teachers, if they believe the newspaper's drumbeat that they keep property taxes high.