Image via WikipediaIf you doubt the editors of The Record of Woodland Park are stalled in the summer news doldrums, just look at today's dreadful paper -- especially bad for a Sunday. There's nothing special here, not on the front page or on the front of Local, nor will you find any news about such important towns as Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood.
Page 1 brings us a massive story on infrastructure -- will the decades-old Route 17 bottleneck between Routes 4 and 80 be fixed? The lead is about a parolee from South Orange who stabbed his wife in Florida. Another road trip for readers. Finally, the third story speculates on a higher retirement age.
It's the editors who should retire, along with the tired Sunday columnists -- John Cichowski, Mike Kelly and Bill Ervolino -- they continue to use as filler. Editors Frank "Castrato" Scandale, Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, Jim "McScreamy" McGarvey and others are doing their best to bore readers and deprive them of the news they need.
Does Publisher Stephen A. Borg really know what turkeys he has working for him?
The so-called Sunday special on the front of Local should have been published weeks ago, before the start of the summer camp season. Was it held? The Route 17 story on A-1 belongs here, in the Local section. On L-2 and L-3, minor accidents become major photos -- to take up the space of local news Sykes' reporters didn't bother to cover.
You won't find anything on the proposed Hackensack budget or tax hike or the city's new mayor. That's too basic for Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado, who supposedly is assigned to cover the city, but with Sykes' help, covers her ass. Education news today? Just the dean's list.
In Better Living, food coverage consists of a wire-service story urging readers to eat more vegetables. Really? Vegetables are good for you? Now, that's real news.
Readers who can't afford an exorbitantly priced second home at the Jersey Shore likely enjoyed the Real Estate front on more affordable lake homes, but the story doesn't discuss whether big boats and personal watercraft are allowed. They would certainly shatter the peaceful, bucolic scene.
Today, CliffviewPilot.com discusses childhood obesity. Along with past entries on the challenges facing older drivers, Jerry DeMarco's Web site is taking up The Record's slack on public service to local readers.
And here is belated recognition to Cichowski, whose Road Warrior column on Friday finally listed the help available to older motorists, whose pedal confusion often leads to fatal and near-fatal accidents. But isn't this subject bigger than a single article (apparently the first in Cichowski's nearly seven years as a columnist)?
If Sykes and Scandale can chain several reporters to a so-called investigation of former lawman Michael Mordaga for nearly three years -- all for a single story last December that was so weak they had to run it on the front of Local -- then older drivers, their victims and their families deserve far more attention than they have been receiving.
The sorry Mordaga vendetta will forever be known as the editors' $500,000 boner (a guesstimate of the staff salaries squandered on the project).
Looks like your regular commentators are still on vacation. Incidentally, my sources tell me that while Burgos still shows up at the office every day, his position is history.
ReplyDeleteThat's certainly good news. Can anyone recall what he contributed to the newsroom?
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