Boring readers with the process

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Why has Teaneck High done a better job than high schools in Englewood and Hackensack in keeping a diverse student body? You won't find that story in the Woodland Park daily.

"More precise, uniform teacher evaluations statewide" and "a new tenure law" may be laudable goals, but does The Record really expect readers to follow every step of the process leading up to them?


Yes. The story dominating Page 1 today purports to be an inside look at supervisors "learning to conduct more keen-eyed classroom observations." 


If you're not asleep yet, take a gander at this sentence, also on the front page:

"For four days this fall, a dozen principal and supervisors visited classrooms in groups of three or four for 10 minutes, then met in a conference room to trade notes."

Only 10 minutes in a classroom? Trade notes? How exciting. Even Leslie Brody, one of the paper's top reporters, can't save this snoozer.


Hey, Deirdre Sykes, as chief assignment editor, why are you wasting your staffers' time on this drivel? Hey, interim Editor Douglas Clancy, is that all you had for A-1?


More education questions


What readers really want is a lot more information about Governor Christie's drive to create charter schools, draining tax dollars away from public schools already hurt by deep cuts in state aid.


On the front of Local, a photo of a Teaneck High School class suggests the township has done a far better job than Englewood or Hackensack in keeping a diverse student body.


Why The Record has paid so little attention to increasing segregation in the latter two communities is something only the editors know.


Burning issue


On L-3, a story quoting Fire Official John Hansen reports a cigarette likely sparked the Christmas morning fire that destroyed a Park Ridge house. 


Hansen related what the occupants told him, but the story triggered a backlash, judging from comments on NorthJersey.com.


Here are two of the comments, which seem likely aimed at the insurance company that will be asked to pay for the damage:

• Marylu Frisco Trenery

  Perhaps Merry Firschein should have found out the facts before she wrote her article. I would consider this article an outright lie in many areas, not to mention terribly insensitive to the people who just lost not only all of their material possessions, but a lifetime of memories. Shame on you Merry Firschein.

  Reply · 2 · Like · Follow Post · 22 hours ago
• 

  Jaclyn Kristin · Rutgers University

  I am one of four survivors of this house fire and this article is a complete fabrication of what actually happened. We do not know how this fire started but we know that it destroyed everything that we once called home. We did not get "comfortable" in the garage nor were there couches there to smolder. Our garage doors were not left open for the cats to "feed the fire" and the pieces absolutely do not "fit together". We are so thankful for the support that so many have given us but this article is insensitive and very hurtful to the people who have just lost so much of themselves.

  Reply · 1 · Like · Follow Post · 22 hours ago

Front page is making my eyelids heavy

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T-Rex at a train station. Fossil fuel meets mass transit.

Today's photo of a dinosaur at the Secaucus Junction train station provides just the comic relief readers need when facing a front page full of serious subjects.

Did Interim Editor Doug Clancy intend the lead story on Page 1 of The Record to be an expose of lawmakers steering federal dollars to their home districts? Is there really anything wrong with cranberry and blueberry research or laptops for Leonia police cars?

Aren't lobbyists a lot more corrupt than that? This story seems to celebrate how clever our lawmakers are, but doesn't explain why Congress can't get the big things done.

School daze

The upbeat charter school story at the bottom of A-1 minimizes the many hundreds of thousands of dollars taken away from public schools to fund the charters, and never fully discusses whether those districts are having to cut back as a result. 

In a letter to the editor on A-13, Robert Singer of Teaneck asks a question the paper's editors should have asked lawmakers years ago:

"When will automobile drivers stop getting away with what amounts to murder? This is not just a traffic accident, and 'I just didn't see him' isn't good enough.... Maybe if more of these careless drivers were charged with vehicular assault or manslaughter and faced serious criminal consequences, the message would get out to pay attention to motorcyclists [pedestrians and other drivers] and to share the road."

Hackensack news leads the Local section, pride and joy of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, but it's not municipal news or anything about the city's struggling Main Street. 

In fact, the L-1 story about a family crediting the Virgin Mary for saving them from carbon-monoxide poisoning belongs on the Religion page.

Sinking career

The major element on L-1 is a Mike Kelly column on the decline of the Binghamton ferryboat restaurant that recalls the reporter's own deterioration. 

Does the headline really fit a boat that was launched in 1905 and served as a restaurant in the 1970s:

Grand vessel in fast decline

A story on animated dinosaurs coming to Laurel Hill Park in Secaucus actually includes ticket information, even though the exhibit isn't opening until May 26 (photos on A-1 and L-5, story on L-1).

It's amusing to see an animated Tyrannosaurus rex, which epitomizes fossil fuel, recognizing the importance of taking mass transit.

Burg in crisis

Even though there is no Hackensack or Teaneck news in the section today, Sykes found room for a story from her hometown of Harrington Park (L-7).

It seems one of the nine police officers is injured and can't work, precipitating a crisis or as the reporter puts it: "a new setback in manpower."

Although Sykes has virtually ignored Main Street businesses in Hackensack, Teaneck and many other towns, Better Living today has a feature on local holiday shopping in Englewood (F-1).

However, a wine bar called Grand Cru is the only eating place pictured. Publisher Stephen A. Borg and Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg, his big sister, once invested in the place.

Another attack on public schools

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State and local tax dollars -- a total of $15.4 million -- would help pay for a proposed online charter school for 1,000 based in Teaneck. Above, Teaneck High School.

The Record has blamed the generous salaries of police officers and public school teachers for budget woes and high property taxes in many North Jersey towns.


So, it's not surprising Editor Francis Scandale thinks every charter school proposal deserves Page 1 play -- as in today's report about an online school that expects to have a $4.7 million surplus after its first year.


That's after the school grabs $15.4 million in state and local funding -- some of which would come out of the public-school budget in Teaneck. Let's hope state officials put the kabosh on this ridiculous plan. 


Beating a dead horse


Of course, Scandale pushed the charter-school story to the bottom of the front page to give as much space as he could to the stale news of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's death.


Today, as in the past, Scandale grasps desperately at an international story that has been repeated endlessly on TV, because he doesn't have any North Jersey or New Jersey news to fill Page 1. 


There are other, potential A-1 stories in the paper, if the assignment desk under Editor Deirdre Sykes only developed them.


For example, readers learn on A-3 today that a new executive director of the Port Authority will be paid an obscene $300,000 a year -- this after the bi-state agency raised Hudson River tolls and fares, but made no promises about improving mass transit.


Greece seems to be self-destructing (A-6), but I have yet to see any reaction stories from the many wealthy Greeks who live in North Jersey.


Local news drought


In Local, four-plus pages of higher education news mean there is no  municipal news from Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck and other towns.


Road Warrior John Cichowski again strays from his mission to report on commuting problems by reprising a fatal accident involving a teenage driver "last August" in far-off Atlantic County (L-1).


Cichowski blesses his few remaining readers with one of the most awkward phrases in today's paper: "nanny-state social engineering" -- hyphenated, no less. What could he possibly mean?


Stuffed blouse


Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung tells readers in just her second paragraph the best-selling item at Park West Tavern is a grass-fed beef hamburger ($14), but then completely loses her train of thought and fails to say whether bacon, veal, steak and other items she sampled also were naturally raised (Better Living centerfold).


After describing a noisy family tavern with high prices, Ung says it wouldn't be appropriate for anyone "expecting fine dining." Thanks for stating the obvious.


Related articles

• 'Chocolate Face' discovers mass transit (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Readers lose big bet on local news (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• N.J. considering 42 new charter schools (nj.com)

Christie again hits public schools

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Governor Christie's charter-school initiative is front-page news for a second straight day, but The Record of Woodland Park is downplaying how badly those 23 privately run schools will screw public-school students, especially in Englewood, an important community in Bergen County.

For example, you have to plow through today's story and turn to the continuation page (A-8) before you learn charter schools are supported by hundreds of thousands of tax dollars taken from public-school districts, which now face a 2% cap on spending increases.

Just take a look at the helpful definition of charter schools supplied by two veteran education reporters, Staff Writers Pat Alex and Leslie Brody. Not only is it on the continuation page, but it doesn't mention public funding of the charters -- until further down in the story, where the Englewood superintendent is interviewed.

Are we to assume Editor Francis Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes believe readers are so intimately familiar with education funding that the paper doesn't have to provide important background information high up in the story -- in this case, on Page 1?

Or is this and other stories slanted to put Christie's programs and policies in the best light possible, especially by minimizing how each charter school hurts public school students in the same district?

Oy vey!

In Englewood, the state approved a Hebrew immersion school that will serve students in that city and neighboring Teaneck, two communities with a significant number of Orthodox Jewish residents.

Richard Seagall, the Englewood superintendent, says only 15 families expressed an interest in the school, and that his district will be paying to educate children who are attending private schools now. 

"It's going to be a pretty big hit," he said of the money taken away from the Englewood public schools, which are predominantly black and Hispanic.

So, here's the scam: Orthodox Jewish families refuse to send their kids to public schools, but have to pay thousands in school taxes anyway. Then, on top of that, they have to pay $10,000 or more a year to send their kids to private Jewish days schools. Now, with the charter school, the public schools will pay for most of that private education.

The charter schools are another example of how Christie blows his wealthy supporters, while blowing off the middle and working classes.

Mac is livid

I'm sure Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg is cursing that there were no charter schools when he spent a fortune to send his spoiled brats, Jennifer and Stephen, to expensive private schools. What does he get in return: They pushed him aside and now run North Jersey Media Group, ignoring the journalistic standards that had been built up over so many decades. 

Look at all the crap on A-1 today. Why lead with a story on the $98,000 pension for the former head of a controversial Bergen County agency, if despite reforms, he was grandfathered in to receive benefits for life? Half a page on travel plans of Jets fans? Give me a break.

More rich folks

Why do most of the 2011 PEOPLE TO WATCH -- the series running on the Local front this month -- seem to be rich and famous, and live outside North Jersey? 

Sykes' pick today is builder Ara K. Hovnanian, who has coped with the depressed housing market by laying off nearly 75% of his workforce, not by cutting his and other executive salaries, nor by reducing his order of custom-made clothing.

His second home is listed as Locust, Monmouth County, a hamlet I have never heard of. Hmm. Is that locust, as in the insect that destroys crops? The Hovnanian story is paired with a six-column luxury auto dealer's ad above the fold.

The snow and freezing rain Tuesday morning proved a nightmare for pedestrians in Manhattan, many of whom slipped and fell. But there's nary a word of how North Jersey pedestrians fared in the photo caption with a weather photo on L-3 today.

Kitchen nightmare

If you count the thumb nail of the smiling food editor, a dozen photos and lots of directions in small type accompany a single recipe in Better Living today. Who besides a newspaper editor has all that time to spend in the kitchen?

Laughter amid the tears

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I've said it before and I'll say it again: Editors Francis Scandale, Deirdre Sykes, Jim McGarvey and the rest of that sorry lot at The Record of Woodland Park cannot handle The Big Story.

Today's tabloid-like front page is dominated by the sad tale of a father who killed his two young children in Ringwood, then took his own life; and the indictment of suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa on new charges. 

Both stories have problems, and near the end, the latter story provides comic relief by reporting, "Zisa....comes from a family of public servants." What a joke.

How many decades is The Record and other media going to report there were no outward signs of trouble and the neighbors were shocked or stunned after a murder, suicide or other tragedy, and never do the story on 1) how superficial our relationships with our neighbors truly are, and 2) is there anyplace a troubled person can turn for help in North Jersey? 

Instead, 11 reporters, a photographer and a graphic artist are thrown at assembling the main bar under the questionable leadership of Editor Jim McScreamy. The bodies were discovered Monday night at 8, so either the late police checks missed this important story or the cops withheld it until Tuesday.  

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Why are there no interviews with Hackensack residents on the indictment of  the police chief?

Turning to the Zisa story, why did the Hackensack reporter find it necessary to attribute the indictment to the Prosecutor's Office, and why didn't any editor catch that clunky construction in the lead story on Page 1? 

Why are there no interviews with residents, who flooded northjersey.com with comments (see previous post)? Where is the sidebar on whether Zisa's legal troubles, lawsuits filed against him and cops' disciplinary hearings have affected the morale of the department or the quality of policing? Does the public still have confidence in the department?

In short, when is Sykes and her minions going to get their heads out of their ample asses, and give some real direction to Monsy Alvarado, who has been pursuing the Zisa story for nearly two years, often to the exclusion of basic news about the city, where the newspaper was founded in 1895?

Even when the paper's employees filled four floors at 150 River St., only a few blocks from Hackensack Police Department headquarters, I cannot recall a story on the Zisa family dynasty and the nepotism, in what many refer to as "Zisaville."

Do you think Karen Rouse or any other reporter who covered the New Jersey Turnpike Authority in recent years ever asked to see the agency's budget? (See A-1 story today on "$43 million in waste.")

In Local, a story reports a Hebrew-immersion elementary school in Englewood is applying for designation as a charter school -- just what that city needs to further segregation in the lower grades.


Food Editor Susan Sherrill's "In Your Kitchen" column debuts in Better Living today (F-1) with two recipes from a French cookbook that use butter, cream and pancetta (similar to bacon). The F-2 photo is by her husband. If you're watching your cholesterol, please turn the page.

Editor Barbara Jaeger's Better Living section is always designated "F," as in F.U. to readers who want to eat healthy meals.

Lots of numbers don't tell the story

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About the best thing you can say about coverage of the nor'easter in The Record of Woodland Park today is that Staff Writer Charles Stile rekindled the fire of his early columns by noting Governor Christie's lack of visibility during state residents' time of need.

Still, I thought his Page 1 piece handled Christie too gently.


As for the rest of the coverage -- on the front page, inside and taking up almost all of Local -- it doesn't have the sweep of a storm that affected virtually everyone and one everyone still is talking about nearly three days later. Just listing a lot of numbers doesn't tell the human story.

Mike Kelly, the columnist, wasted his and readers' time by going to PSE&G's "war room." Stories on several towns are in Local, but there is virtually nothing about the impact on Hackensack.


That schools were closed by power outages is only part of the story. What about office buildings? Did doctors cancel appointments? Did lawyers give their paralegals a few days off? What about restaurants and supermarkets?

Readers fight to survive

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"Charter schools fight to survive."

"Libraries feel pinch."

These headlines in The Record of Woodland Park today easily could have read: " Readers fight to survive" and "Readers feel pinch."

The more the lazy, incompetent editors ignore the diversity of Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck and other towns, the more readers find the paper irrelevant to their lives.

Even the stories they do run often are incomplete or superficial -- evidence that head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes and her sub-editors don't know anything about the 70 towns in Bergen County or simply don't care.

For example, the Page 1 story on charter schools doesn't say much about the Englewood initiative or why there aren't more charter schools there, given that city's segregated public elementary and middle schools. The Wayne library is featured in the story about funding on the front of Local, but there little detail about Hackensack or other Bergen libraries. And the L-1 story on Lyndhurst's downtown only serves to highlight the absence of stories about Hackensack's downtown, among others. (Photo: Church on the Green, Hackensack.)

When he took over in 2006, Publisher Stephen A. Borg ordered the desperate editors to institute daily education and food coverage -- even though everyone knew that was just hype and nothing of the sort happened -- but he forgot all about the paper's mission: local news. And so have the reporters and editors.