Day of the Dead in the newsroom

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Desperate editors had to fill The Record of Woodland Park today with a massively dead proposal for the Meadowlands and five expanded obituaries for the dearly departed. And I thought the Mexican holiday called Day of the Dead wasn't until November.


How does Staff Writer John Brennan sucker the editors into putting his ridiculous speculation on Page 1? Apparently, they are as hungry as he is for any story, whether grounded in fact or not. Today, he raises from the dead a builder's 2002 proposal for a mini-city in the Meadowlands -- including 5 million square feet of housing -- and suggests it might be revived to get the stalled Xanadu project going.

But how accurate is the story? In the first few words, Brennan errs by placing the Mall of America in Minneapolis (it's in Bloomington, a suburb). If he got that wrong, can anything that follows be trusted? And what builder would propose so much housing during the recession?


There was so little local news to publish today, editors scrambled for filler. On the front of Local, Staff Writer Jay Levin's obituary for Dan Resin, a minor stage and screen actor, seems to run on and on, plus it has three photos. 


That's nothing. Music man Mitch Miller's obit has six photos and covers a good-third of L-6. There are three other expanded obituaries on the same page, which follows the usual two pages of death notices.


Local news? Nothing from Englewood or Teaneck, but Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado has a story on a new school board member. Not counting the school board elections in April, Alvarado hasn't written a single story about Hackensack schools in at least 11 months.


Oh, don't fret. She's just taking orders from head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, who clucks over reporting chicks such as Alvarado lest they exhaust themselves by reporting and writing too many stories. Don't forget to get your rest now, Monsy.