The editors just don't care

Do you think Francis Scandale, Deirdre Sykes and other editors at The Record of Woodland Park lose sleep over the trash they produce day after day? Forgetabout it. If their jobs depended on circulation figures, they would have been out the door long ago.


The only incentive editors were given when I worked there was to stay within their newsroom budgets. That produced a bunch of stingy managers, including  Features Director Barbara Jaeger, who used to berate staffers over their spending habits. She even barred restaurant reviewers from purchasing alcoholic beverages.


The two New Jersey stories on Page 1 are classic crap -- instant turn-offs to readers who are largely left in the dark about what is going on in their towns.

What justifies leading the paper with the EnCap indictment of a former senator, who is in prison, and a lawyer? It's justified by all the ink EnCap got -- first the gee-whiz promotional stories about golf courses and housing built atop garbage, then the paper's tedious investigation to uncover wrongdoing long after it occurred.

And the vast majority of readers already know New Jersey is a corrupt state; just run it inside with a refer, and be done with it. As for the major element on A-1, who outside of horse-racing fans in the newsroom really care if the industry goes the way of the horse and carriage? 

                                     
The death of a well-know North Jersey chef gets bumped back to L-1 today, but the staff still struggles with documenting whether financial problems were behind his suicide. And yet, for a second day, no reporter apparently attempts to talk to Chef Joseph Cerniglia's family or the staff at his Fair Lawn restaurant, Campania. This is Reporting 101.


You can read comments about Cerniglia from readers of Jason Perlow's food blog. Just click on the following link:  Off The Broiler

There is no Englewood or Hackensack news today.


Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado worked her fingers to the bone, filing five stories in a seven-day period ending Sept. 17, but I haven't seen anything about the city since then. The last two Englewood stories I saw were written by Staff Writer Ashley Kindergan, not Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano.


Maybe head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes has Fabiano working on some endless project, imparting the "Loafs A Lot" philosophy to yet another member of the local staff.