Image by aftab. via FlickrThe Record of Woodland Park published four editions in a row with front pages dominated by crime or police news.
This crime-against-readers spree began on Friday, Sept. 17, with nearly three-quarters of A-1 covered by the arrests of 53 people in a Korean-American inspired bank-fraud ring, and ended, weakly, on Monday, Sept. 20, with an inane Mike Kelly piece about speeding enforcement in Mahwah, accompanied by that idiotic, unflattering photo of the columnist.
Is he laughing, leering or sneering? That sheepish grin matches so well with his sheepish columns, where he always seeks refuge in cop-out questions, rather than forcefully stating his opinion. The speeding column is no exception.
"The police in Mahwah are enforcing the law. This is a good thing, isn't it?" he writes lamely in his last two sentences after wandering all over the landscape in the column, including a discussion of acne-treatment ads on a speed-trap Web site. What a cowardly journalist. Who is this reporter's assignment editor, passing along this crap time and again?
There was no Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood news in Monday's paper, but the front of Better Living regaled readers with a long story about a Ridgewood cheese shop, where a "recent deal" was an item selling for $25.99 a pound.
The front page on Sunday, Sept. 19, was dominated by a story on the spread of heroin to suburban teens -- a reprise of the blanket condemnation of Paterson as a drug bazaar that an investigative team produced several years ago. That story, championed by Francis Scandale, the editor, and Deirdre Sykes, the head assignment editor, included a user-friendly map showing readers exactly where they could buy the hard stuff.
In view of the editorial decisions Scandale and Sykes have been making for years, you'd think they were on something themselves.
The lead A-1 story this past Sunday was a rare appearance of Staff Writer Jean Rimbach's byline over a report on a serial killer's confession to a 1967 slaying in Little Ferry. The killer "quietly pleaded guilty last month" -- newspaper code for Bergen County Courthouse reporter Kibret Markos completely blowing it by missing this big story.
In Sunday's Local section, Hackensack and many other towns continue to be ignored, while precious space is devoted to a story on Leonia seeking bids on solar panels for the DPW building and municipal pool. Wow. That's real news.
In Better Living, Elisa Ung, who returned recently from maternity leave, reports on fine-dining with infants. Let's hope her poor son doesn't choke on a piece of cheesecake shoved down his throat by the dessert-obsessed restaurant reviewer.
The paper on Saturday, Sept. 18, leads with a plot against the pope's life, but there is little else of interest in the thin paper.
In Local on Friday, Sept. 17, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado weighs in with an upbeat, first-anniversary story on the county homeless shelter, which is next to the county jail.
She omits any mention of whether shelter residents are still wandering into the nearby Hudson Street neighborhood -- the source of many complaints after the building opened.
Hopefully Ung goes on maternity leave again very soon. I am willing to email a list of afrodisiacs to her husband.
ReplyDeleteI think it's funny that even the thought of any child choking has entered the diatribe, I mean dialogue, of this website.
ReplyDeleteFunny? I think it's sad that a mother might be destined to saddle her newborn son with the same destructive eating habits she has.
ReplyDelete