Hey, Monsy, no one really cares

Image by DigitalGlobe-Imagery via Flickr

Hey, Monsy Alvarado, in reference to your L-3 story today in The Record of Woodland Park, no one really cares that a suspended Hackensack police captain wants his pay back while he's on suspension -- except the cop himself. Report the decision when it comes, but stop neglecting all the other news in Hackensack, including details of the proposed city budget and tax hike.


Since last June, you have been writing almost exclusively about the legal troubles of Police Chief Ken Zisa and others in the Police Department -- presumably at the behest of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes. 

I guess you don't have the backbone to tell her you feel bad neglecting other news about the city where The Record was founded in 1895 and where it prospered for more than 110 years. Or maybe you're lazy. Can't you write more than one story a day? More than 30 days have passed on three  occasions without your byline in the paper.


I'm not singling you out. Staff Writer Jean Rimbach averages one byline a year. What's Shawn Boburg been up to? Certainly not writing stories. Productivity doesn't seem to matter to Editor Frank Scandale or Publisher Stephen A. "I'm not in this for the money" Borg.

It's who you know -- and you'd better be in the good graces of Mother Hen Deirdre or one of her minions. What a pathetically weak assignment desk -- Dan Sforza, Christina Joseph and Rich Whitby, to name just three. Just look at today's thin Local section. 


Page L-2 carries a story on Teterboro Airport scholarships -- another way the Port Authority and The Record continue to deflect attention away from what a huge impact the airport has on the quality of life in Hackensack, Maywood and other towns. Does the paper even cover Maywood?


On Page 1, the last part of the five-part youth baseball series appears, and there's an editorial on A-20 -- with no acknowledgment by the editors of how their constant A-1 glorification of sports and the business of sports translates into the abuses reported by Staff Writer Colleen Diskin. I hope her next project is childhood obesity.

At least, there's good coverage of the BP oil spill -- with a dramatic, front-page photo and inside stories. Before the Borg-ordered downsizing and the single-minded, endless investigations inspired by Sykes, that might have been a reporter from The Record in the oil-soaked Gulf.

(Photo: Gulf of Mexico oil spill)