Image via WikipediaThis is the post for Friday, July 23, 2010.
Those laughable, Cold War-era Russian spies were swapped more than two weeks ago, and readers promptly forgot about a story that didn't amount to anything in the first place. But here is Jackson and Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale selling out to the well-oiled Hollywood publicity machine by linking the spies to "Salt," a movie starring Angelina Jolie that, guess what, opened today. There's also a lukewarm review in Better Living.
In view of the downsizing of The Record and Herald News and the decline of local news, can the former Hackensack daily really afford a Washington correspondent? Couldn't Jackson be of better use in Trenton or Woodland Park? How much does he actually contribute? If today's story is any example of his worth, I say, Throw the bum out.
The Local news section is a standing joke, thanks to head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, who has so many "pals" among local reporters, productivity has plummeted.
Road Warrior John Cichowski has an L-1 column today on roadside curiosities. Gee-whiz. Approaching his seventh anniversary as a columnist, he has become a curiosity.
Leading A-1, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado and Staff Writer Nick Clunn weigh in with the seventh straight day of coverage on the Prospect Avenue parking-garage collapse, in a story that demonstrates the continuing decline of assigning, reporting, writing and copy editing at the paper.
The collapse occurred last Friday or seven days ago, not six, as she reports. She says residents removed "select belongings" from their apartments. What kind of belongings are those?
In all seven days of coverage, readers never get any real sense of what it means to be thrown out of a luxury apartment in a heat wave, possibly without a car. Alvarado never spent any time with the evacuees or told of their experiences. Today, she reports the new Mercedes of one tenant, a trauma surgeon, was crushed, but doesn't tell readers how the woman has been getting around.
TV news says the building's landlord is paying tenants' hotel bills and other expenses, but are the tenants still required to pay rent? Your guess is as good as mine.
Local has no municipal news from Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood today. The paper didn't correct Thursday's error on when the Hackensack budget was adopted, nor has there ever been a story on the budget and tax levy. The reporter, Erik Shilling, had the wrong month.
On L-2, the caption with a photo of Paterson's new mayor doesn't explain why he held his inaugural ball in Garfield.
In Better Living, Food Editor Bill Pitcher seems to have a lot of reservations about food quality and preparation at Segovia Steakhouse in Little Ferry, yet he gives it a two-star rating. He refers to mussels he didn't eat -- because they were so foul-smelling he "couldn't get more than a few" past his nose -- as a "ration," a word better suited to describe military or prison slop.
In Starters on Page 17 of Better Living, free-lancer Amy Kuperinsky misspells the Greek word for large lima beans. They are called gigantes or giants.
(Photo: Hollywood studios in 1922.)
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