No real news on Page 1 today

Image by Shaun Greiner via Flickr













The three stories on the front page of The Record of Woodland Park today could have run yesterday, tomorrow or never, and readers would have been no worse off. They don't amount to more than holiday weekend filler in the absence of any real news.

The main element on A-1 isn't a story at all, but a graphic on the bleak New Jersey job picture. That's not news, as the tens of thousands of jobless residents know, and with companies like North Jersey Media Group around, it's not likely to get better anytime soon.


What does a company do with its millions of dollars in reserve? Should it hire more editorial workers to improve its product, in this case local news? Absolutely not. 

It forked over $3.65 million in the form of a company mortgage to dim-witted Publisher Stephen A. Borg so he, his wife, and their kids can escape the confines of a $2 million mansion in Tenafly, then downsized The Record and Herald News, bidding adieu to dozens of loyal and hard-working employees.


The lead story today is a speculative one about politics and the November elections. These are among the most-boring topics in The Record or any other medium -- so far removed from most readers' concerns with paying the mortgage and their property taxes, and sending their  kids to college.


Will the media ever stop reporting every bill, every law, every government program in terms of its impact on the next election? Why not write more about the victims of recession -- not charts with up and down arrows, but profiles of people facing their biggest challenges?


The third story on the front page today is on the hot-button issue of illegal immigration, and deportations in New Jersey. I have yet to see a story as extensive on the need for reform of the legal immigration system, which is the cause of much illegal immigration.


In Local, Mike Kelly is back for a second day in a row, like a bad case of indigestion.

His L-1 column on the Ground Zero mosque controversy reads like a news story. He quotes both sides and an expert, but refuses to venture an opinion of his own. Why is this a column? He breaks no new ground. He calls himself a journalist, but as a columnist, he doesn't have the balls to take a stand.


Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado has her second story in nine days on L-1 today. The Police Department, it seems, may hire experienced officers laid off by other towns. Hey, Monsy, don't overwork yourself.


Alvarado quotes City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono on police hiring, but apparently doesn't take the opportunity to ask him about the new property tax rate, plans for solar panels on public buildings, a proposal to change the zoning of downtown to encourage development along Main Street and other pressing issues she has ignored for more than a year.


Monsy, I know you're just obeying head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, who always tells you: "We're not interested in Hackensack, anymore. It's so passe. It's so far away [from Woodland Park]. It's so tres, tres fey."

As are Teaneck and Englewood, it seems, two other diverse communities that are ignored for yet another day. 

(Photo: Labor Day parade.)