Editors always ask, 'When will the jury reach a verdict?'

Working for The Record on Sept. 11, 2001, Photographer Thomas E. Franklin captured this iconic image of three firefighters raising an American flag above the rubble of the Twin Towers. But the photo didn't appear on the Sept. 12, 2001, front page of The Record, then headquartered in Hackensack. However, Franklin's photo did show up on the cover of the New York Post on Sept. 13, 2001, missing any credit to him or The Record.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If you're a reporter covering state or federal courts, you soon get used to stupid questions from the editors directing coverage in the newsroom.

"When is the jury coming back?" is an especially annoying question courthouse reporters hear -- in view of the jurors' secret deliberations.

You can bet editors asking stupid questions led to Page 1 stories today and Tuesday trying to predict what will happen at the federal trial of two former allies of Governor Christie in the George Washington Bridge lane closures three years ago.

On Tuesday, Staff Writer Paul Berger, who covers the Port Authority, weighed the chances of Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni, the former aides and confidants, being convicted -- like the 190 other men and women facing "federal charges in New Jersey in the past six years."

Today, Berger and Peter J. Sampson, who covers federal court in Newark for The Record, provide readers with another tutorial -- Jury Selection 101 (A-1).

The headlines are especially ridiculous, because the jurors are the triers of facts, and will decide the guilt or innocence of the defendants:

"Bridgegate
trial could 
hinge on
jury picks

"Judge's first challenge
is finding unbiased panel"

And on the continuation page:

"JURY: May swing GWB trial"

No. They definitely will "swing" the trial.

Bridgegate whitewash

A Bridgegate editorial appears on A-8, noting Christie once joked he moved the traffic cones himself to close access lanes to the bridge, triggering five mornings of gridlock in Fort Lee.

"Little would surprise New Jersey residents ... even if Christie's jest turned out to have been the truth."

And for the first time, The Record is calling the publicly funded $8 million report from a law firm that exonerated Christie "a whitewash."

New York skyline

The star of today's front page is the story on the renewal of the Manhattan skyline, part of The Record's coverage of the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America (A-1).

Don't miss the centerfold by Staff Writer James M. O'Neill -- "REACHING NEW HEIGHTS" -- which amounts to a love letter from North Jersey residents who have watched the transformation of the skyline since the Twin Towers were leveled (A-4 and A-5). 

9/11 flag recovered

The story on recovery of the flag raised over the rubble of the World Trade Center recalls one of the darkest days in The Record's Hackensack newsroom, which was in use until 2009 (L-1).

The events had nothing to do with the terrorist attack itself or the column of black smoke rising from the rubble -- clearly visible through the big windows of the fourth-floor newsroom, where the staff had just put out an extra and were working on the morning edition of Sept. 12, 2001.

When the flag-raising photo captured by Staff Photographer Thomas E. Franklin was transmitted to the newsroom, the front page had already been made up with a photo showing pretty much what every other paper had -- an image of the smoking towers or a plane flying into one of them.

Photo Director Rich Gigli couldn't persuade Editor Frank Scandale and the woman he succeeded, Vivian Waixel, to put Franklin's photo on Page 1, because bean counters decided remaking the front page would be too expensive.

Franklin's photo ended up on a back page in the paper of Sept. 12, 2001, and that likely destroyed his chances of winning a Pulitzer Prize for Photography.

That same business mentality was used when The Record reprinted thousands of copies of the Sept. 11, 2001, extra without correcting a front-page photo caption that misidentified the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center.

Franklin's photo

In the years that followed, Jennifer A. Borg, then vice president and general counsel of The Record, jealously guarded the copyright of Franklin's iconic photo.

But that didn't stop the advertising department from inserting a glossy 8-inch-by-11-inch copy of the 9/11 flag-raising image into the paper one day.

On the flip side was an ad for All American Ford in Hackensack.

Rubbing salt in his wounds

Image via Wikipedia

A great newspaper acknowledges its mistakes. But at The Record of Woodland Park, editors do everything possible to hide their boneheaded decisions from readers. A perfect example is the brief story on Page A-4 today reporting that readers of the New York Post voted a Record staffer's 9/11 photo as the tabloid's cover of the decade.

Of course, The Record story carefully omits any mention of  how Editor Frank Scandale -- handling the biggest story of his life -- shamefully put money over journalism on Sept. 11, 2001, keeping Record photographer Thomas E. Franklin's unique flag-raising photo off of the front page and shoving it so far back in the paper, it ran on Page A-32 on Sept. 12, 2001. Although the photo was available in plenty of time for The Record's first edition, Scandale was told it would "cost too much" to remake Page 1.


The Post ran the photo on its front page the next day, Sept. 13, without giving credit to Franklin or The Record. The photo was used later on a U.S. postage stamp, but failed to win the Pulitzer Prize -- maybe because The Record and Scandale treated it so shabbily. It shows three firefighters raising the American flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center -- an image that has become one of the most famous in the history of photojournalism and recalls the iconic photo taken during World War II on Iwo Jima (photo below shows monument.)

Image by dbking via Flickr

This may be why Scandale talks incessantly about what he did at the Denver Post more than a decade ago or at Reuters wire service before that, but never boasts of what he has done since he came to The Record.