Editors love TV, anniversaries

A 9/11 reflecting pool in lower Manhattan. The stalled museum building is behind the pool, right, and the New World Trade Center is under construction, left.

What would the editors of The Record do without the junk on TV to cover or such anniversaries as 9/11?

In the second day of reports on the "Hell's Kitchen" finale on Fox, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung today claims Justin Antiorio "really represented New Jersey," in the words of the sous chef's godmother (BL-1).

Well, state residents must have sunk pretty low, if an unemployed chef who smokes and curses, and who lost the expletive-filled competition, is all we can find to represent us.

Another trite column

Today also marks another day of covering the 9/11 anniversary, and the editors produce the same predictable stories and Mike Kelly column.

But Staff Writer Justo Batista deserves praise for scooping the national media with a Monday night deal on funding the stalled National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum (A-1).

Even National Public Radio was reporting as late as this morning that a financial dispute had stopped the museum project.

Talented photographer

And look at the gorgeous front-page photo by Staff Photographer Mitsu Yasukawa, who was sent to the 9/11 Memorial in Jersey City (A-1).

But the big news on Page 1 today is a new legislative report putting the state $254 million behind in tax collections, throwing more cold water on Governor Christie's proposed income-tax cut.

Christie -- who unfortunately does represent New Jersey -- denounced the report, continuing to peddle the myth that tax cuts create jobs.

Little local schmooze

The Local news sections today and Monday are more disappointing work from head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her chief flunkie, Dan Sforza.

The last Hackensack municipal news -- a planned streamlining of zoning laws to encourage downtown redevelopment -- appeared Sept. 2.

Even with 9/11 stories to help fill the paper, Editor Marty Gottlieb came up with a real clunker on Monday -- an eye-glazing, A-1 account of tax sharing in the Meadowlands that is of absolutely no interest to anyone outside the 14 towns involved.

NJMG fires reporter over story on bullying

Image via Wikipedia

The Record of Woodland Park on Wednesday started a three-part series on bullying even though some believe there is at least one bully on the North Jersey Media Group payroll.

North Jersey Media Group fired a freelance reporter after she wrote about cyberbullying for one of its weekly newspapers, AIM Vernon in Sussex County.

On Wednesday, The Record of Woodland Park started a three-part series on bullying, and the focus of Thursday's Page 1 piece is cyberbullying. The first part drew this comment on northjersey.com, the publishing company's Web site:

Wednesday March 30, 2011, 3:19 PM - RosieLee says:
"North Jersey Media Group fired a reporter two weeks ago after they published her article on bullying and the bullies called and threatened to sue the newspaper. Now they are doing a series on bullying? Seems ironic and hypocritical in my opinion."

A source familiar with the firing told Eye on The Record: 

"Jessica Zummo, a wonderful reporter for one of their weekly publications, did an article on cyberbullying by adults. She named two people in her article and had a significant amount of documentation to back up her article. The people she named in the article called [NJMG Corporate Attorney] Dina Sforza repeatedly and threatened to sue the paper, if they [NJMG] didn’t fire the reporter. Even though the editor approved the article and even helped the reporter with it, Sforza berated the reporter terribly. NJMG then fired the reporter. This happened about two weeks ago."

Zummo worked as a freelance reporter for AIM Vernon for about four years, and was paid $50 a story. I was told she was the weekly paper's only reporter.


Here are links to a Facebook page and a Web site:


Inside Vernon

 www.insidevernon.com

Today's paper 

The move of The Record's newsroom to Woodland Park from Hackensack -- along with all the employees who spurn a healthy lifestyle -- hurt Passaic County in a survey of the healthiest counties in New Jersey (A-1).

Deirdre, Tim, Liz, Elisa -- you know who you are. Key factors in the rankings include obesity, binge drinking and access to healthy foods.

Even though she ignores virtually all other news about Hackensack, reporter Monsy Alvarado is a day late on a ruling by a federal judge who dismissed claims in a lawsuit filed by two police officers (A-11).

Resident kvetch

In a letter to the editor on A-12, Mickey Applebaum of Cliffside Park complains about the increasing number of Korean signs in neighboring Fort Lee on "establishments ... that exclude most of the public."

Hey, Mickey, many of those "private, money making operations" are restaurants and catering stores that would welcome you with open arms.

Fashionista

You can just guess at the sad state of local news by the daily coverage of a woman's lawsuit against her plastic surgeon, and the huge photo of the plaintiff on the front of Local, the section that is head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' pride and joy.

The well-groomed woman, who lives in Bloomingdale and apparently shops at Bloomingdale's, could serve as an example to Sykes, Liz Houlton and other fashion-challenged editors who have bad-hair days every day.

Unfortunately, Staff Writer John Petrick reports the $115,000 jury award without telling readers the plaintiff will be lucky if she sees half of that -- once her lawyer deducts his 33% contingent fee, plus expenses for any investigation, expert witnesses, exhibits and so forth.

Picture a dysfunctional assignment desk

Image by Pragmagraphr via Flickr

The Record's assignment editors read a lot of competing papers to get ideas.

Editor Francis Scandale's desperation is clear today with the ho-hum photo of a small fire on a utility pole as the major Page 1 art.

With pedestrians slip-sliding all over the place, cars smacking into each other on icy roads, government-backed thugs battling protesters in Cairo -- there were so many other photo possibilities. Why this? 

Waiting for spring

Has the assignment desk run out of ideas? Are head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and minions Dan Sforza, Christina Joseph, Rich Whitby, etc. hunkering down to wait for spring?

The Page 1 story in the package with that utility pole fire is stiffly written by reporter Colleen Diskin, who reels off "life-management skills, "elastic child-care arrangements" and other jargon in telling the story of parents scrambling to handle weather-related school-opening delays, early dismissals and closings. 

Smoking out news

Kibret Markos, the reporter assigned to the busy Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, should be applauded for writing about something besides the usual trials, indictments and lawsuits -- most of which he misses while on smoking breaks outside the Main Street entrance to the building. 

Today, he leads the paper with launching of The Last Resort Exoneration Project for wrongly convicted inmates in New Jersey -- ahead of the official announcement. Why the quote marks around the project name on A-1?

Clean-out of the troubled, smelly Passaic Valley Sewerage Commissioners continues and The Record of Woodland Park continues to play it on A-1. A rare, fourth story on the front is another Charles Stile column on political slush funds.

Editors bite readers

Two stories that are of much wider interest than the political ones are relegated to A-3: toll hikes and computer problems affecting the unemployed and customers at motor vehicle agency offices.

Is that all Sykes had to lead her section -- a follow-up on the Fair Lawn man who got bit by his pet cobra? He was instantly forgettable. (A correction on A-2 notes the four reporters who worked on the A-1 cobra-bite article Wednesday misspelled the name of an expert they quoted.)