Choking on tabloid news

Image via Wikipedia

















After being chased by police, a suspect runs his car into a police cruiser at slow speed in Ridgefield. It's all over the front page of The Record of Woodland Park today. I'm so bored, I wonder whether the dead woman found in the passenger seat was belted in.

Bret Schundler is back in the lead, A-1 story, and the fired state education czar admits he is personally responsible for scratching out budget data that sunk the application for a $400 million federal education grant. Will Governor Christie, who fired Schundler, ever admit he made a mistake of any kind?

Staff Writer Leslie Brody says the Schundler-Christie story is "an unfolding drama that has riveted the education world and outraged taxpayers." Gee. Aren't taxpayers really outraged the governor let the Borgs and his rich friends off the hook by not imposing a special tax on millionaires?   

What local news?

The front of Local today has lots of law and order news, and there is more inside the section, which has no municipal stories from Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood or a host of other towns. In fact, there is so little local news, the desperate layout editors had to run just about every photo as large as possible to fill space.

Of course, the victims of this kind of coverage are the readers.

The hot weather returned with a vengeance Sunday, but Editor Francis "Frank The Castrato" Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes and their minions are cooling their heels in the office and don't think a heat wave is worthy of mention. 

Calling all carnivores


There's no sign of the new food editor, but the old food editor left behind a poorly disguised advertisement for two North Jersey steakhouses that serve drug- and hormone-filled beef at prices only the Borgs can afford (Better Living, F-5).

(Map: Bergen County, at the top of the state, at the bottom in The Bergen Record.)