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| Bob Sumner, who set high standards when he was chief of The Record's news copy desk in Hackensack, lived in the rural Warren County community of Hackettstown. |
By Victor E. Sasson
Editor
Bob Sumner, the legendary chief of the news copy desk at The Record, when it was based in Hackensack, has been spinning in his grave.
Under Production Editor Liz Houlton, the number of grammatical and factual errors; the poorly written headlines and captions, and the huge holes in published stories have wiped out all memories of the standards Sumner set.
His 1991 obituary in The Record noted that in more than 20 years as chief copy editor, Sumner "helped instill a love of language in a generation of editors."
Although there are problems throughout the paper, the Road Warrior column has become emblematic of the lack of standards on the copy desk under Houlton's supervision.
A concerned reader has been sending e-mails to The Record's top management, editors and Staff Writer John Cichowski, imploring them to fix repeated inaccuracies in his Road Warrior column -- to no avail.
Here are excerpts from the reader's latest e-mail (see the full text on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers):
"As you are well aware, the Road Warrior reached a one-year anniversary on Sept. 12 with an unenviable accomplishment.
"The Road Warrior had 109 of his mistake-filled and irresponsible columns published in just 1 year. While it amounted to around 70% of his columns being unfit for reader consumption, the frequency of problem columns and number of mistakes in each column have gotten progressively worse.
"In one 2 month stretch from 5/17/13 -- 7/17/13, he had a record streak of TWENTY-SEVEN mistake-filled, misleading columns.
"Road Warrior's problem columns had a total of 847 mistakes, which averaged around EIGHT per column, that were misleading, false, irrational; contradictory to the laws of science/nature; contradictory to reports in The Record or his own columns, unsafe, illegal or contradictory to NJ laws/statutes, filled with false rumors, or just plain lacking in any common sense. Some columns contained close to TWENTY mistakes.
"Road Warrior frequently quotes and elaborates/validates statements from government officials and "experts." who are biased, have a vested financial interest or have limited knowledge, that conflict with well-known facts, common sense, safety, and NJ laws.
"It is also clear from the Road Warrior columns that he is unable to consistently do simple math, count, reference calendars, use a map, analyze and get correct facts from published studies/reports, and provide correct or relevant Internet addresses.
"Many times, Road Warrior cherry picked his correct facts, which were irrelevant, to support many of his baseless claims and conclusions.
"The Record's management and Road Warrior, John Cichowski, have not taken responsibility or made significant progress to check, correct, or improve any of his 109 atrocious or unprofessional columns, each of which I identified with all of the specific mistakes/problems, that frequently mislead readers.
"I have also had separate e-mail communications with various managers and executives that led to NO positive results or corrections, or where I did NOT receive any response.
"In response to hundreds of major mistakes, The Record has published only 2 corrections to minor mistakes on A-2 and Road Warrior has published maybe 2 corrections to minor mistakes.
"John also treats the Road Warrior columns, which are supposed to be somewhat educational, as his personal blog, which is NOT the intended purpose of the Road Warrior columns, that also includes unsubstantiated, unsafe, legally conflicting (or illegal), impractical, faulty, biased, or inane comments, advice, and conclusions from local contributors or the Road Warrior without any thoughts as to all of its consequences if people believed or acted on this wrong and many times illegal information, comments, and advice.
"All these contributor problems could easily be prevented from being published if he chose to substantiate their statements or drive and check out the referenced situations for himself since the facts, laws/statutes, and situations frequently do not agree with these contributors. If he leaves in any faulty information or comments provided by contributors, the Road Warrior needs to provide brief counterpoints to explain their fallacies.
"His
responses in his columns to readers' questions or comments that challenge Road Warrior's
reported wrong info or advice are usually condescending, derisive, and more
importantly misleading or mistaken.
"His column responses to readers' questions for help or info are many times faulty, unsafe, contrary to NJ laws, or unhelpful. Many times, he gives a long winded answer about an associated issue, but never directly answers the reader's question.
"His column responses to readers' questions for help or info are many times faulty, unsafe, contrary to NJ laws, or unhelpful. Many times, he gives a long winded answer about an associated issue, but never directly answers the reader's question.
"Some
of his reporting, stories, and advice are so ludicrous and
over exaggerated that they seem to be made up to simply fill his column
space.
"Many of his attempts at humor are sickening at best and harmful and dangerous to others at their worst.
"Road
Warrior's response to all of his problems is to repeatedly claim that
he is a "know-it-all.” His capabilities are very far from "know-it all"
and show a lack of understanding and common sense about road, personal,
and mass transportation, and an inability to discern any problems with
his faulty reports.
He [Bob Sumner] had his faults but he's never been replaced, not even close. He had a way of terrorizing copy editors but he was actually a decent fellow. As you probably know as well as I, just about everybody in management worked under him at one time or another, like Deirdre, although they quickly forgot that the copy desk was once an entry level position to management. I remember when Bob was very ill and needed transportation to the hospital. I sent a memo to Mac asking if he'd arrange for it and he said he wouldn't. You could print that without naming me, that's sure to get under some people's skin. Sumner was especially protective of the serial comma, as if he'd invented it, god forbid you should leave one out.
ReplyDeleteWhen I moved from reporting to the copy desk of The Record, Bob Sumner had an important message for me:
ReplyDeleteHe told me that when I was writing stories, I could always count on someone down the line -- my assignment editor, the layout editor, the copy editor or the copy desk chief -- catching any errors, misspelled names or writing and reporting problems in my stories.
Now, as a copy editor, I was the person down the line who was responsible for fact-checking, and fixing all of the spelling and style and grammar problems, and if I didn't catch them, they'd likely end up in the paper, reflecting poorly on the credibility of The Record.
That last line of defense, that damage control no longer exists at The Record, where Liz Houlton, who had earned a reputation as "Queen of Errors" on the old features copy desk, was promoted into the six-figure job of supervising the copy editors.
Of course, Deirdre Sykes, Dan Sforza and the other assignment minions are terrible editors and fact-checkers, and don't help matters.