Who ate the jelly beans?

Image by skpy via Flickr

There is lots of soft news in The Record of Woodland Park today, but even with this, the paper struggles. A ridiculous story about a menorah filled with jelly beans is bungled, with two color photos showing no jelly beans at all.

The lazy, incompetent editors must have thought a great deal about this story, because they promote it on the front of the Local section. Here, a copy editor or a layout editor screws up, saying the Hanukkah menorah is "made of jelly beans," when it's actually supposed to be clear PVC pipe filled with 96 pounds of kosher jelly beans. The same photo on the front of the section is blown up and runs on Page L-6 with the story, but it's clear from the photo, the tubes are empty. Will the paper acknowledge the error tomorrow?

But, for the first time in years, there is a story inside the Local section about Hackensack High School by Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado. In an interview, the principal dispels "stereotypes" that "our kids and HHS [are] thought of as a 'ghetto' school, with violence and problem students."

Of course, what goes unsaid is that the former Hackensack daily -- by moving out of the city and at the same time, drastically cutting coverage of education and other issues -- is a major contributor to those stereotypes. I said in an Oct. 29 post that I had heard rumors about the high school, where my son would be going, but had read nothing in the paper about the place since I moved to Hackensack in August 2007.

The Local section also has stories about Jersey City and Pompton Lakes, but no municipal, education, development or quality of life news from Teaneck or Englewood. When is the paper going to tell us in detail what is being done to integrate elementary and middle schools in Englewood, where the Borg family lives in a big house on the East Hill?

When you take a look at Better Living today, you have to wonder why Bill Pitcher, the food editor, has  assumed such a minor role. Unlike the veteran he replaced in 2006, Pitcher writes none of the major pieces. He seems to put most of his energy into editing recipes from other newspapers and the wire services, and drives around North Jersey so he can chronicle the opening and closing of every pizza place, bagel joint and restaurant.

He leaves the restaurant reviews to Elisa Ung, an inconsistent voice for the consumer who loves to glorify chefs and enthuse over the allegedly "high quality" of their food. Sadly, she is error-prone and has an incomplete grasp of food issues, and her writing often is awkward.

On the front of Better Living today is a story about a Teaneck bakery and how busy it is during the holidays. Duh. This is a real yawner by Staff  Writer Alfa Garcia. But on Page F-3, a far more important topic, the challenge kids face in eating properly at this time of the year, is left for a wire service, and Pitcher makes no attempt to localize the story. So we read about people in California, Chicago, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- everywhere but North Jersey.

The front page is covered with Sunday accident photos, but information on injuries is scarce. This seems much ado about nothing, but it's on Page 1 simply because the editors and skeleton weekend staff couldn't come up with any real news.