Third story on small-plane crash still doesn't get it right

Abma's Farm & Market in Wyckoff was closed on Labor Day.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers know Labor Day is what editors call "a slow news day," but that's still no excuse for the third story in four days on pilot Jack Rosenberg.

The Spring Valley, N.Y., man is shown in a Page 1 photo today, recovering in a hospital bed from broken bones and other injuries, wearing what looks like a skull cap.

The Record's story not only doesn't say whether Rosenberg is an Orthodox Jew or if the slice of pizza he ate was kosher (A-6), it raises other questions.

Why is the Woodland Park daily doing a third story on the crash, and why is it all over the front page?

What's the big deal? 

Don't all small-plane pilots who go down after their engines conk out try to avoid injuring or killing other people on the ground?

Flawed story 

And why was first-day coverage of the crash on Friday missing the crucial details about Rosenberg deliberately turning his crippled plane away from cross-country runners and others on a Tenafly field?

Or, as the overworked police reporter, Staff Writer Stefanie Dazio, put it:

"As Jack Rosenberg looked out the window of his small plane ... hurtling 60 [mph] to 70 mph over the Cresskill and Tenafly border and saw dozens of young faces on a school field that would have made a perfect landing site, the father of seven knew he'd have to find another spot" (A-1).

Even my shortened version of that lead paragraph is enough to choke a horse.

Small-plane menace

Small planes like the one Rosenberg was piloting seem to crash all too often, usually with fatalities. 

When they're not crashing, small, medium and large planes, and the noise they make, have a huge impact on the quality of life in Bergen County, especially if you live in Hackensack, Teaneck and other towns near Teterboro Airport.

One story on Rosenberg would have been enough, but The Record's reporters and assignment editors never seem willing to hustle and do the legwork needed for such thorough reporting.

The two follow-ups corrected an error in the first account that Rosenberg contacted air-traffic controllers at La Guardia Airport; it was Teterboro Airport.

Overlooked pilot

Instead of a rehash and regurgitation of pilot Jack Rosenberg's crash, some enterprising editor should have put the obituary of a Tuskegee Airman on the front page today.

You'll find the compelling life story of Calvin Spann, 90, a former Englewood resident, literally buried in the back of Local (L-8).

The obit illuminates how African Americans in North Jersey still face discrimination today.

As a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps, Spann flew 26 combat missions, including the longest bomber escort mission of the 15th Air Force.

When Spann returned home, he wanted to become a commercial pilot, but the major airlines wouldn't hire African Americans.

The sub-headline on Spann's obituary says incorrectly he "faced segregation after war." 

He "found a job in pharmaceutical sales and settled in Englewood," the obituary notes.

Spann faced discrimination, but the black and Hispanic children attending Englewood schools today still face segregation in the elementary and middle-school grades.

Virtually all of the white children in Englewood attend private schools, and officials have sought to desegregate only the high school.

Laziness is infecting the newsroom

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Car dealers have threatened to pull their advertising if Road Warrior John Cichowski and other reporters at The Record of Woodland Park write about mass transit woes.

Staff Writer Shawn Boburg is assigned to cover the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Road Warrior John Chichowski is supposed to write about commuting problems.


So why is The Record publishing Opinion columns today by two outsiders on issues those reporters have been ignoring?


The laissez-faire laziness of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions is clearly infecting the newsroom.


The Record has long been an editor-driven newspaper, where Sykes and her sub-editors are supposed to generate most of the local and regional stories that appear in the paper, as well as handle the heavy editing.


Under Sykes and Editor Francis Scandale, the news copy desk has been relegated to a minor role -- headline and photo-caption writing -- and even warned against trying to do any meaningful editing.


The copy desk under Editor Liz Houlton is at its nadir, producing confusing and inaccurate captions, as in today's paper. Sloppy editing is everywhere.


Sleeping reporters


On the Opinion front, a column by Philip Barbara discusses the continuing impact on commuters of Governor Christie's decision to cancel the Hudson River rail tunnels.


On O-2, Columnist Brigid Harrison exposes Christie's double standard on how he treats public transportation agencies, especially the free hand he's given the Port Authority.


"Governor," Harrison writes, "the state has been yours for a year and a half now. It is time to man up and take responsibility for it: the good, the bad and the mistakes."


Slipshod editing


Editor Francis Scandale has petitioned Congress to conduct a census every two years, instead of every 10 years, so he'll be able to publish more of the results on Page 1, instead of having his staff do any local reporting.


The copy desk really screwed up today's A-1 census story on same-sex couples moving to the suburbs. 


The photo caption identifies one of three youths shown as the male couple's "granddaughter," but the text on the continuation page (A-6) says they have "three children."


The heart-breaking obituary of a 6-year-old New Milford girl (A-1) includes a  family photo (A-6) that recalls the paper's once-great photojournalism -- before Sykes reduced photographers to ambulance chasers.


Sykes' pride and joy


Today's Local news section is a joke, especially for a Sunday.


The big news from Cresskill is higher fees on pet licenses (L-2). 


The first paragraph of a story on L-3 says a car crashed "through" a town house, even though the photo shows nothing of the kind.


In Better Living, Staff Writer Elisa Ung is out of ideas for The Corner Table, her Sunday column on issues facing restaurant-goers, so she literally throws them crumbs (F-1).


In Real Estate, more poor editing detracts from a story on recent grads getting their first apartments. On R-5, a paragraph starts, "Like Arnett...." But the full name doesn't appear anywhere in the story.


If there is a lazier operation than The Record's assignment desk east of Kansas City, Mo., then it's the news copy desk.

Are the Borgs still proud?

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It's hard to imagine how the Borg family still could be proud of The Record of Woodland Park. The former Hackensack daily has moved out of Bergen County and largely abandoned readers who could once count on it for news of their towns.

Does Malcolm A. Borg, Stephen A. Borg and Jennifer A. Borg even read the paper? They seem to have been working at cross-purposes in the last few years.

The spoiled siblings -- he's the publisher and she's vice president and general counsel -- engineered the abandonment of Hackensack, slowly moving production of their two daily papers and then a downsized staff out of the city. The elder Borg, chairman of North Jersey Media Group, has insisted in keeping his office in the old headquarters building and seems determined to be carried out of 150 River St. feet first.

Today's front page carries only two stories -- neither of which seems worthy of Page 1 play. The DNA identification of a Cresskill woman missing 10 years leads the paper, but the story doesn't explain why it appears more than six weeks after the I.D. The rest of the page is devoted to purchase of two steel shipping containers -- just two -- for use as housing in Haiti.

Local is filled with court, crime and fire news -- what passes for local news these days -- and a story on two northern Bergen towns concerned about trains blocking emergency vehicles, as if they are the only communities with that problem.

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You won't find any Hackensack (map) or Teaneck news, but Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano reports new Mayor Frank Huttle will form a task force to ask residents about programs they want. This in a wealthy community with separate elementary and middle schools for whites and for blacks and Hispanics, and no community center, unlike Fort Lee, which built a beautiful one several years ago.

This is Fabiano's second story about Englewood in two days. Wow. That's covering your town.