'Grateful' editors seek news handouts

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

AOL offices in Palo Alto, Calif.

 

Giovanna Fabiano, who did such an awful job covering Englewood, Englewood Cliffs and Leonia for The Record, is the latest staffer to jump ship for the online local-news site called Patch.

 

Fabiano follows in the footsteps of former reporter Tom Davis and the gorilla steps of former Night Editor Tom Troncone in joining the AOL-financed effort. 

 

Troncone was dubbed the night editor for the numerous times he would say, "Good night."

 

You have to wonder why they would leave the Woodland Park daily for this ify news operation -- unless they just got sick and tired of working for, with or under Editors Francis Scandale and Deirdre Sykes, and their clueless sub-editors.

 

Now, they've got their hands out looking for tips. I found this on the Ridgewood Patch site:

"Send us a news tip

"Enter your tip here and it will be sent straight to James Kleimann, Tom Troncone, Giovanna Fabiano, and Laura Bertocci, Ridgewood Patch's (incredibly grateful) editors."

Patch editors work from home. Can't you just see Troncone getting fat on beer and preservative-laden bratwurst?

Judging from how many stories she ignored or missed in Englewood, Fabiano must have spent the last few years working from home while on The Record's payroll.

Actually, the Woodland Park daily is good training for Patch aspirants. The assignment editors under Sykes honed the art of sitting back and waiting for the news to come to them.

From Big Cheese to small potatoes

Image via Wikipedia

A couple of weeks ago, Tom Troncone was night editor of The Record of Woodland Park. Now, he is an editor at AOL Patch -- the local news site -- posting a photo of pumpkins with a story on a pumpkin patch on Ridgewood Patch.


All those patches confusing you? What does Patch mean, anyway? Patched up? Patched together? Pumpkin patch? Turf? Territory? Your guess is as good as mine. It just seems like small potatoes.


This is a link to the story about Ridgewood's only pumpkin patch. It's chatty, but not well-edited.

Pumkin patch on Ridhewood Patch

The first paragraph notes there is no hay ride, but there are plans for one next year. Later, we read this:

"There's no muss, no fuss, no expensive farm markets or rip off expensive hayrides."

 A little off-message, don't you think? 

Patch is covering only four towns in Bergen County now, and hardly represents a threat to The Record, even though local coverage in the paper is, well, patchy.