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| Age pyramid for Bergen County, based on Census 2000 data. |
owns consider tax lien sales
How long did it take you to figure out what the lead headline on the front of today's Local section says? Or didn't you bother, seeing the embarrassing typo -- "owns" for "Towns" -- as another sign of The Record of Woodland Park's precipitous decline in quality -- writ large? (On Friday's Page 1, a subhead had "overuns" instead of "overruns.")
After all, this Local section is head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' pride and joy. It's where this lazy, incompetent woman and her clueless assistants showcase their best local news. Today, the best they could do is to lead with a process story on tax liens. Yawn.
Overall, the section has become Sykes' trash can -- often filled with minor police and fire news and accident photos that are blown up as big as possible to take the place of real news the staff didn't generate.
Holes in is head
Thank God Brockhuizen Lane in Hawthorne finally has been paved. Hopefully, we won't hear anymore about it from White Road Supremacist John Cichowski, the columnist who continues to ignore his mission of writing about commuting problems.
Is this his fourth or fifth column on the handful of bitchy families who were outnumbered by their dinky little street's potholes (L-1)?
Joseph Ax, the Teaneck reporter, was on weekend duty Saturday, when he was assigned to cover Nicole Polizzi, the reality show bimbo who is also known as "Snooki," signing autographs at Westfield Garden State Plaza (L-3). Is this news? It's hard to believe there was nothing better to cover. See how far Ax has fallen. The Record sent him to Haiti to cover the earthquake's aftermath.
Real news on A-1
On Page 1, there is real news for a change -- the battle for Bergen County executive -- the most important election for Bergen residents next month. Democratic incumbent Dennis McNerney and challenger Kathleen Donovan, the Republican county clerk, have debated twice, but those stories were relegated to Sykes' disgraceful local section to make room for the Yankees or some other nonsense on A-1.
Democratic voters finally have a real alternative to McNerney, who has been too cozy with three political figures who were indicted and who seems determined to keep the county police force, though few residents can tell you what it does except issue traffic summonses and drive him to a baseball game in the Bronx.
You'd think a bunch of overpaid athletes like the Giants would be eating nothing but wild-caught seafood, grass-fed beef and lamb, and organic produce, but there's no mention of that in Staff Writer Kara Yorio's silly story on the Better Living front today. She says one player focuses on "quality real ingredients."
Shut Pizza Hut
With all the great pizza available in North Jersey, does anybody really care how Pizza Hut makes one of the worst pies out there or would want to read a book by someone who spends time trying to recreate it? Look at that recipe and the one for Cheesecake Factory's red velvet cheesecake (F-3).
Does The Corner Table Columnist Elisa Ung think readers want to chain themselves to the stove and try these, long, complicated recipes? Maybe she gets paid for doing that, but we don't. Hey, Ung, get real, and try to overcome your obsession with dessert. You're out of touch with thousands of your readers.
If you thought there was little good food coverage when Bill Pitcher was food editor and glorified recipe editor, the emphasis on sweets and recipes has reached new lows under Food Editor Susan Sherrill, Ung's supervisor.
Whew, WTG Johnny Chick, thanks for letting us know they finally paved Brockhuizen Lane in Hawthorne. Wait ... where's Hawthorne?
ReplyDeleteOh my god, I just read Cichowski's column. He ought to be ashamed of himself. First, he gives his column credit for getting the road paved. It appears he only found out about this road because he visited someone, probably a friend, there -- and to think, he actually got in his car and drove to the site of one of his columns! But the true shame of this column is that he buries at the bottom the tidbit about the eight families having to pay $400,000, or $2,500 a year each for the next ten years. That's the kind of story that should put Brickhuizen Lane on A-1: How a community got ripped off by either a developer or their town and had to pay to have their own road paved. Somebody sure got ripped off there, besides the readers of this waste of space column.
ReplyDeleteA new low, even for Cichowski.
ReplyDeleteCalling him White Road Supremacist is a bit of a stretch, bordering on libel. Are you working for the New York Post now?
ReplyDeleteLet's see. He writes almost exclusively about cars, drivers and roads.
ReplyDeleteHe's never written about minorities who can't afford to buy cars and have to make do with the decrepit local bus system -- and don't send him a blizzard of e-mails bitching about potholes or MVC regulations.
When he takes the No. 780 from Englewood to Passaic, and expresses the outrage a journalist should feel that people are being treated this way, I'll withdraw the term.
He doesn't have to, but he might want to compare the local buses to the ones on the routes into Manhattan. It's a clear case of discrimination.
But we know he's too lazy to do any of this, and his editors don't care what he does as long as he fills space three times a week.
So it seems you're alleging he's a racist, and while you constantly bicker about something that would make for a valid entry for his column, you're assuming it's racist, and therefore, he's racist. That's libel.
ReplyDeleteAre you a lawyer? Are you his lawyer? Are you the paper's lawyer? If you think it's libel, then act accordingly.
ReplyDeleteThis is not the first time in a post I've focused on Chick's total disregard for minorities who use mass transit and it won't be the last.
The same can be said for the other transportation reporters, one of whom is African-American.
Staff Writer Karen Rouse can't be bothered with any story that requires her to leave the office and, God forbid, ride a bus or a train. She specializes in reports, surveys and other stuff that flow diarrhea-like from the newsroom fax machines.
No on all counts. But in this company that loves gossip so much, I'm pretty sure word will get around. It's obviously not my call. You should be glad it's not my call.
ReplyDeleteThat's not too clear. "You should be glad it's not my call"?
ReplyDeleteThis is funny. I assume if it were anonymous's call, anon would instruct Johnny Chick to sue the pants off Victor, which would be pretty costly, since Victor doesn't exactly buy his pants at Walmart. Personally, I don't think such a suit would stand up, since Victor could narrow the definition to issues involving the "road," and Johnny Chick does seem to ignore minority transport problems. I'm not a lawyer either, but I think this would be a neat case for Judge Judy.
ReplyDeleteThanks for putting this in perspective.
ReplyDelete