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| A 1996 Ford Explorer SUV like the one involved in a horrific accident on Route 80 (photo from Wikipedia). |
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
They are the editors and reporters who seem like they have been around forever, and whose contributions to the newspaper -- in quantity or quality -- are in inverse proportion to their long years of service.
Some of them are so obscure, they escaped Publisher Stephen A. Borg's rampage through The Record newsroom after he took over in mid-2006.
Borg folded every features section except Travel, giving klutzy Jill Schensul tenure in the editor's job.
Not far away, fair-weather columnist Ray Edel survived the culling, as did Charles Saydah, editor of letters to the editor, who hid out in a back office except when taking his midday jog, leaving his pages filled with typos and inaccurate headings.
But others are far more visible, and command much higher salaries.
Today, the centerpiece on Page 1 of the Woodland Park paper is by Staff Writer Jean Rimbach, who racks up what is believed to be only her second byline of the year with yet another story about quirky Teterboro. Are we to believe this piece took her months to report and write?
On the Local front, Columnist Mike Kelly has another laughable column. When I was still a news copy editor, his stuff was so bad, copy editors had to be ordered to edit it and write a headline.
John Cichowski, the Road Warrior columnist, has a workload few columnists can manage. He has to turn out three commuting columns a week, and his nonsense tells you he long ago ran out of ideas and should be getting out of the office more often to ride and rate mass transit, which he seems to abhor.
Editor Frank Scandale
Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale got rid of several hard-working, productive veterans, including Columnists Miguel Perez and Lawrence Aaron, the only Hispanic and black columnists, respectively; and Elaine D'Aurizio, at the time the only woman writing a column outside Sports.
Young Borg moved against others for no apparent reason, most notably Assistant Managing Editor/Photography Rich Gigli and Joanne Hoerr, supervisor of news clerks.
But Rimbach, Kelly and Cichowski are three do-nothing reporters who won't go quietly or otherwise, likely because they are protected by editors, including head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes. Are Sykes and Rimbach friends, and is that why the editor is pampering the least productive reporter on a staff of about 50?
Is anybody assessing the quality of Kelly's and Cichowski's columns? Today, Kelly pushes around hundreds of words about bears, but does he add anything to the debate over an issue that affects a minority of the paper's readership?
For years, he has merely rehashed old news, too timid to go out on a limb with his own opinions, hence all the rhetorical questions he asks in his columns.
Cichowski's Sunday column was about keep right/pass left laws -- just another obscure debate among drivers that he grabs onto in desperation. At least we should be grateful he isn't doing another column on potholes or license-plate tags for teenage drivers.
Teterboro on A-1
Rimbach's splashy A-1 story today portrays Teterboro as a bastion of nepotism and a tax haven for industry, but didn't we know that already from several stories that ran recently in reaction to a legislative proposal to break up the borough? She doesn't even assess if town officials are in their right minds for insisting on living near the incredibly noisy airport.
A far more engaging front-page piece today would have been Sachi Fujimori's well-written story on Closter farms, free vegetables for residents and an honor system for buying brown eggs (Better Living front). Charming.
Five days after the paper hailed Sheriff Jerry Speziale in Passaic County as a jet-set celebrity, a story at the bottom of A-1 today reveals a darker side to the free-spending lawman:
Lawsuits alleging cronyism, neglect and worse at the county jail. Another mixed message from a staff that struggles to handle breaking news.
In Local, there is no Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood news, or anything from many other towns.
On the front, a horrific Route 80 accident (story and photo) occurred near the exit for the Garret Mountain Plaza building where the paper has its newsroom.
More savvy editors would have said whether the 1996 Ford Explorer involved in Sunday's fatality was one of those recalled for its allegedly defective Firestone tires.
Inside, Monsy Alvarado's follow-up to Saturday's head-on collision in Englewood fails to mention that the Bergen County cop's car crossed the double-yellow line, an important detail also missing from the original coverage by three reporters.
