Image via WikipediaTake a good look at the Page 1 photo in The Record of Woodland Park today -- the one showing classmates and friends mourning the 12-year-old Hackensack boy killed by an NJ Transit train. Much has been written about his use of an electronic device, but nothing about the irresponsibility of the transit agency, which does little to keep people off the tracks.
It's right there in the photo: There isn't a fence in sight along the entire length of Railroad Avenue to prevent 12-year-old boys or anyone else from walking on the tracks that divide a neighborhood. And what does The Record do? It blames the victims.
Read the short follow on the front of Local by Staff Writer Erik Shilling. He's relatively new to the paper, but his story focuses on the distractions of cellphones and other devices, and is missing so much detail.
Why doesn't the reporter tell readers Caeser Muloki was walking home from Hackensack Middle School, where the dismissal bell rings at 2:55 p.m. Why doesn't the reporter tell readers there is no school busing in Hackensack, and that if the boy was on a bus, he'd still be alive today? Why doesn't the reporter know Caesar always walked home with another student, but didn't Tuesday? Why didn't the reporter talk to the boy's parents?
Why? It's because Shilling and the white editors don't care one bit about this handsome African boy, and whether he is alive or dead. It's because the lazy, irresponsible editors, who spend most of their day in the office in meetings, don't care about Hackensack students and whether they have busing or about the added pollution and stress of hundreds of parents jockeying for parking spaces morning and afternoon in front of schools.
It's another royal F.U. to readers by the elitist Borg family, now represented at North Jersey Media Group by Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg's two spoiled brats, Stephen and Jennifer (Jenniphen, Stepher, Stephenfer?).
And that F.U. is delivered day after day by Francis Scandale, the editor, and Deirdre Sykes, the head assignment editor, and the minions that jump at their command. Instead of challenging authority, these editors and others at the paper roll over and play dead.
Hey, would you look at the A-1 photo and refer showing our bully of a governor getting in the face of a heckler at a political rally in California. Reporters love Chris Christie. He makes good copy. Unfortunately, he makes bad policy and has screwed more middle- and working-class residents than any New Jersey chief executive in memory, while favoring the Borgs and other wealthy residents.
But that doesn't stop The Record from quoting him in the A-3 story as telling the heckler, "We're here to bring this country together." What bullshit. He's done nothing but divide the Garden State into the haves and have-nots.
On the front of Local today, the great journalist Mike Kelly has nothing better to do than pick on an 84-year-old woman who is partially blind and deaf. Shame on you, you hack. Readers will find two stories about Emerson inside the section, but nothing about Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck.
Don't look for any local food coverage in Better Living today. So far, Susan Sherrill, the new food editor, has fallen flat on her face.
In discussing this past Saturday's paper in the previous post, I neglected to mention the A-1 story on Jewish rituals for Yom Kippur, another in a series of such stories by Staff Writer Deena Yellin, herself an Orthodox Jew. She followed that with a story on sukkahs.
The editors are so desperate for copy, they are running these stories, but neglecting other religious groups and conducting a smear campaign against the imam behind the mosque proposal near Ground Zero. That's more inspired journalism.
In time, Victor, more & more people who've been discarded like trash will see the wisdom of banding together to show the public the hypocrisy, prejudice & ignorance/laziness you speak of. They will boost the sets of eyes, the creative, observant minds, who will find ten times more goofs and gaffes and outright insensitivity than we alone could.
ReplyDeleteWho knows? They may even be willing to testify on your behalf.
I'm seeing that happen with police, not only in North Jersey but across the U.S., in the wake of my story on PoliceLink.com (Journalist Comes to Defense of Police Salaries). I spoke not only what was in my heart: I spoke the truth.
Just remember: You're walking a tightrope when you say a product doesn't meet its claims. But the law products your right to call spineless weasels like Laughing Boy a douchebag and evil-spirited two-faced c u next Tuesdays like Mama Crass clueless.
I will use this opportunity, if I may, to point out that I've hit RR safety head-on more than once on CLIFFVIEWPILOT.COM, unlike the handmaidens who don't want to burn the pals they've made in government. When an NJT spokesman tried to go off the record, with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge attitude, I told him I wasn't interested. His argument: The victims truly are to blame. Period.
Bullshit.
Sure, we won't change the minds of the power-holders about what they do. They put their heads on the pillow believing they know better, calling us the problem -- or rationalizing that they had to do what they did in order to put food on the table. And that's fine. Keep diggin', folks.
We still must always speak truth to power, for silence means complicity. Silence means approval.
I quote the Australian rock genius Peter Garret: I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
So keep fighting. You never know where it will lead.... especially now that a certain group has begun dissecting Christie's appointments to state government, as well as to the bench.
As the group already has noted, Chris boasted of bringing US attorneys to the Statehouse. It will get more interesting when they start looking into those he took into the US Attorney's Office from his Seton Hall Law School graduating class.
Trust me: Of this I know.
Before I forget: Toward the end of my tenure, a particular editor stepped up to play attack dog for MC. She came at me in meetings and in the newsroom. Trouble is: She's more than somewhat dumb. Actually, she's a dope.
She may very well be the flame-thrower.
Rumor has it that some of your favorite targets are no longer going to be available. Tom Davis is rumored to be headed to Patch (that's an Internet startup, which obviously needs an ace transportation reporter, tee hee). Tom Trombone, I mean Troncone, will be rumoredly tooting his horn at Bloomberg, and even your favorite but rarely mentioned photo display editor, Monsieur Daveed Adornato, is rumored to be leaving, but I forget to where.
ReplyDeleteLove the Peter Garret quote. A staff that is so frozen in fear, so afraid that they will annoy the emperor, they can't be inspired or creative. Beaten down by their despicable management, convinced they could never get jobs anywhere else. Sad.
ReplyDeleteGood riddance to all. The paper might be slightly better without them.
ReplyDeleteAs for Adornato, I could never figure out what he did except sit in the newsroom all day.
With Davis gone, we won't have to withstand any more anti-light rail diatribes or selective reporting. The holes in his story were big enough to drive an NJ Transit train through.
He and one of his predecessors, Dan "Forcemeat" Sforza (a noble Italian family name for hundreds of years shared by Dina Sforza in the legal department), ignored the bus system, and never rode the trains and reported on the quality of the service.
When NJ Transit bought new cruiser buses for its Manhattan routes at more than $300,000 each, Sforza couldn't be bothered reporting on their screeching rear brakes and loud engines, which disturbed people living along residential routes. (A letter to the editor today refers to those noisy brakes, but the writer is mistaken about the brakes' effectiveness.)
Hey, Tom Trombone, good luck with commuting into the city, the exorbitant New York taxes you'll have to pay and all the other crap that goes along with that higher salary at Bloomberg. You're going to be working your ass off and encouraged to eat in the company cafeteria. Enjoy. Don't choke on the food. Ha, ha, ha.
Were you afraid you'd never get off the night shift? Even a non-entity like Rich Whitby overcame that stigma, enabling this most untalented assistant assignment editor to work side by side with some of the babes in the newsroom, including Oshrat Carmiel and Stephanie Akin.
Some of the greatest reporters in Manhattan wrote a subway column, but you wouldn't catch a transportation reporter for The Record on a bus or train giving voice to readers' complaints. Look at the Desk Warrior John Cichowski, a disgrace to his profession.
Troncone is a good night assignment editor, but like most of his colleagues and their boss, head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Ram It Through the Copy Desk" Sykes, his priority has always been to process the copy, no matter how problematic, incomplete or inaccurate.
What is this choking fetish of yours? Elisa Ung's baby, now Tom Troncone?
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's a fetish. Just seems appropriate for those two.
ReplyDelete