Columnist bashes Hackensack, gays

The Record of Woodland Park continues to dump on Hackensack, its former home.

Here comes Chicken Kelly to tell us on Page 1 of The Record that the sky is falling in Hackensack after its once-powerful police chief was convicted of official misconduct and insurance fraud in Superior Court.

In keeping with the local-news policy under head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, Mike "Chicken" Kelly doesn't lower himself and actually interview any ordinary residents of the most populous community in Bergen County.

In fact, much of Kelly's front-page column today describes the Police Department as it was years ago, when Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa -- a member of the family that ruled the city for decades -- was at the height of his power as police chief. 

Fie on Hackensack

Since The Record and North Jersey Media Group moved out of Hackensack in 2009, Sykes and the other editors have covered the county seat as if it were a foreign country.

Why is Kelly's column the first in decades to  describe the Zisas' political power and the retribution visited on disloyal employees in Zisaville? 

Can he be trusted? This is a journalist whose work cries out for editing. See how he pushes around words without any regard for facts (A-1 and A-8):

" ... the crooks that plague the City of Hackensack."

" ... a roller-coaster trial that lasted six weeks."

" ... the verdict seemed to unlock an emotional Pandora's box of accusations."

The trial was a "roller-coaster" for whom? Those "emotional" Pandora's boxes are the worst, as we all know.

More errors

Kelly says the next City Council meeting is Monday night, but my city-supplied calendar lists it on Tuesday night.

I moved to Hackensack in August 2007, and the city appears to be as safe and well-run now as it was before and after Zisa's arrest in 2010 and his conviction on Wednesday.

On two occasions, I went to police headquarters as a complainant, and have nothing but compliments for the police officers and detectives I dealt with. 

I have noticed changes on Main Street since The Record abandoned its nearby headquarters and pulled out hundreds of employees, but the Woodland Park daily has never reported them. 

Suicide linked to Zisa case

The A-1 story below Kelly's column links the suicide of a suspect in a holding cell at Hackensack police headquarters to the "tumultuous" aftermath of the Zisa conviction, but incorrectly reports the suspended chief was convicted on "criminal misconduct charges." 

Editor Marty Gottlieb publishes three more articles in a long series about Democratic opponents in the 9th Congressional District primary (A-1, A-3 and O-2). 

But readers in Fair Lawn, Hackensack, Teaneck and many other towns continue to be in the dark about the contests in the 5th Congressional District.

Gay bashing

Kelly returns with a second column on today's Opinion front, this time weighing in on the upcoming sentencing of Dharun Ravi, who was found guilty of bullying Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood.

Does anyone but Kelly doubt that's why Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge?

Why did Editor Marty Gottlieb and Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin publish homophobe Kelly's  appeal for a non-custodial sentence in the bias intimidation of Clementi, who was gay?

On Thursday, Doblin's editorial said Ravi is no scapegoat -- he's a convicted felon who deserves prison and deportation to India.

Kelly so abhors homosexuals his three-page Sunday Record story in 2000 completely ignored their role in the revival of Asbury Park.

On the same exact day Kelly's story appeared, an upbeat cover story in The New York Times' New Jersey section reported that urban homosexual men and women were leading the way in reviving the run-down resort, drawn by affordable, stylish homes and gay clubs. One photo showed two women on the beach with their arms around each other.

Seeing red

Road Warrior John Cichowski -- another columnist whose replacement is long overdue -- again gives voice today to speeders and other bad drivers upset by the number of red-light and other cameras (L-1).

Gottlieb found room for Kelly's semi-fictional account of Hackensack on A-1, but banished a story on "unprecedented" poverty in New Jersey to the front of Local (L-1). 

Money to burn

The Better Living cover story today is about building an outdoor earth oven for cooking food -- an article aimed at the half-dozen readers crazy enough to try such a thing (BL-1).

In another highly relevant food piece, Staff Writer Elisa Ung's The Corner Table column promotes two caterers instead of exploring restaurant issues facing readers (BL-1). 

In Friday's Better Living section, Ung gave a lukewarm 2 stars to a Greek restaurant, Opa in Wayne.

That amounts to the kiss of death from the restaurant reviewer, who also bestowed 2 stars on a faux-Caribbean chain restaurant on Route 23 in the sprawling township.

 

Hackensack is front-page news again

Next week, a jury is expected to begin weighing official misconduct and other charges against suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa and his ex-girlfriend.

Looking at The Record's front page today and on Friday, readers in Hackensack were greeted by something they rarely see -- news of their city.

On Friday, a large A-1 photo showed high school students leaving early to protest the school board's decision to block contract renewal for three administrators.

Today, Editor Marty Gottlieb presents another A-1 story, this one on closing arguments in the official misconduct trial of suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa.

What is remarkable about today's Zisa story is that it is the most even-handed account of the prosecution and defense cases since the trial began in Superior Court.

Zisa family rule

City residents, who have been chafing under Zisa family rule for decades, hope the chief and former assemblyman and his former girlfriend will be convicted on the charges, which include witness tampering, insurance fraud and conspiracy.

Also today, a story on the Local front reports what happened at an emergency meeting of the school board on Thursday night -- early deadlines or laziness kept this story out of Friday's paper.

Two trustees explained they blocked the rehiring of the three administrators in an attempt to end "what they called a network of cronyism and patronage."

Sudden news spurt

Indeed, all this A-1 news about Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa and alleged school patronage makes readers think:

Editor Deirdre Sykes and all of the other heavyweights running the assignment desk suddenly awoke from their collective diabetic coma, looked out their Woodland Park windows and realized they weren't covering Hackensack anymore.

Back to India

The lead A-1 stories today and Friday are about the sentencing of homophobe Dharun Ravi, the Rutgers student who drove poor Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood to suicide.

Let's hope he gets deported, even if he escapes prison, and takes his superior ways back to India, where there are millions of unfortunates he can mock and scorn.

Millionaires' pal

Was anyone surprised by Governor Christie's veto of affordable health insurance for those without it (A-1 on Friday)?

If it doesn't involve millionaires and multimillionaires, Christie can't be bothered. That's why Publisher Stephen A. Borg's editors praise the GOP bully so highly.

Page 1 Ravi round-up is more pure hype

Syke's warbler suggests the parents of Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood might ask the judge to show leniency when he sentences Dharun Ravi on May 21. See Page 1.

Editor Marty Gottlieb of The Record continues to test the patience of readers with the 15th story on the Darhun Ravi trial since the verdict was reported a week ago today.


Gottlieb's voice has been clear since he took over in late January: Today, the lead paragraph of the Ravi round-up claims the gay-bias case has "captivated the nation."


Recently, a long A-1 story on a homeless man who nearly blew himself up in Hackensack supposedly "captivated the region." The tortured tale of seven Wayne high school athletes "gripped" the township. 


Polishing a turd


Many readers just want to see Ravi deported to the turd world he came from. The jury has spoken. He was found guilty on multiple counts for spying on his gay Rutgers roommate, Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide. 


Ravi declined to testify in his own defense, so why are the media knocking themselves out to publish or air his patently false statements? 


Today's round-up, written by the reporter who covered the trial, is pure hype. It says nothing new, but merely rehashes the last few days of front-page stories, calling them "revelations as surprising and insightful as the trial's outcome."


In the last paragraph on A-1, the story poses a bizarre rhetorical question: whether the Clementis will ask the judge to show leniency to Ravi when he is sentenced May 21. 


Is Gottlieb, with the aid of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, just trying to keep the Ravi story alive to sell more papers or has the lazy, incompetent assignment desk run out of any other compelling local news?


Christie setback


For the second day in a row, Governor Christie has suffered another embarrassing defeat, as reported in the lead A-1 story today on Port Authority retirees, who have won back free tolls and parking the GOP bully cut in January 2011.


Can anyone find the sentence in the slanted story with the number of retired electrical workers affected? Does the alleged savings of $1.5 million sound credible?


Why does Sykes report, in her typically lazy fashion, "the benefit would be worth more than $2,000 annually for a daily, weekday commuter traveling at peak hours" (A-3)? 


These are retirees; they don't commute daily at peak hours, for crying out loud.


Local news diet


Hackensack readers searching Sykes' Local section for news find only a brief on the arrest of a prostitute on L-3.


Teaneck news leads the section, and there are three items from Englewood (L-2 and L-6). The Dean's List fills out the section (L-2).


Another great job by Sykes and her dysfunctional assignment desk.

Democrats answer Christie's racism

The New Jersey Constitution requires the state Supreme Court to provide parking.

When Governor Christie dumped the only African-American on the state Supreme Court in 2010, he claimed the respected judge didn't fit his "ideology," Columnist Charles Stile reports today.


The Record and other media not only didn't question Christie's motives, they also didn't explore whether racism played a part in the unprecedented move against Associate Justice John Wallace. Most of the stories that followed even omitted any mention of Wallace's color.


Kimchi chronicles


Now, Democrats have denied Christie's nominee, Phillip Kwon, the chance to become the first Asian-American on the high court, and let's hope they do the same for his second nominee, Bruce A. Harris, a gay black lawyer who is an abomination to most of the state's church-going African-American community.


Today, Editor Marty Gottlieb delivers two news stories and Stile's column to explore a major political defeat for the GOP bully, who usually gets his way through bluster and a veto pen (A-1 and A-8).


Winding up Ravi


Also on Page 1 today, Gottlieb runs two more stories about Dharun Ravi, the homophobe who was convicted of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation against his gay Rutgers University roommate, Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood.


These are the third and fourth A-1 stories about Ravi in the past three days, but the first to tell readers the former student is on a "media tour." How easily he has manipulated Gottlieb, despite all the years the editor spent at The New York Times.


I guess even a veteran newsman like Gottlieb can't resist the urge to sell newspapers for Publisher Stephen A. Borg.


Prison mentality


Road Warrior John Cichowksi continues to be the laughing stock of the Woodland Park newsroom, ringing his hands today over license plates instead of writing about commuting problems (L-1).


Hackensack reporter Stephanie Akin reports yet another development in the lawsuits police officers have filed against Police Chief Ken Zisa, who has been suspended pending a criminal trial (L-1).


Small-town news


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes has been responsible for better coverage of her hometown, Harrington Park, and other small communities than for Hackensack, the county seat and onetime home of The Record for more than 110 years.


When Sykes sends out Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi to chase ambulances and come back with images of fender benders and non-fatal rollover accidents, she runs the blown-up photos on L-1, L-2 or L-3 to fill the space of local news she doesn't have. 


Today, his artistic shot of the GWB shrouded in fog gets buried on L-8.


Raw deal for readers


Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung and her two guests were crammed into a table for two; charged $65 for 25 pieces of sushi with "chewy, stringy toro," the expensive belly meat of the endangered giant blue-fin tuna; and treated brusquely by the manager -- yet she gives Yamagata in Fort Lee two and a half stars (Good to Excellent).


Maybe it's because her grandmother was Japanese. But her abysmal lack of knowledge about raw fish continues to grate.


Women of child-bearing age like her are warned about consuming regular cuts of raw tuna, as well as toro, because of the fish's high mercury content. And nowhere does she mention whether Yamagata freezes or uses frozen fish for sushi and sashimi, as the law requires, to kill parasites in the raw flesh.


The cramped, noisy Yamagata isn't the only high-end Japanese sushi restaurant in Fort Lee, and Ung doesn't convince readers it is the best (Better Living centerfold).

The Jets that matter played the Sharks

The only Jets who really interest readers of The Record of Woodland Park once roamed the West Side of Manhattan and rumbled with the Sharks.

Hey, Editor Marty Gottlieb, readers of The Record don't care much for the Jets, another football team from New York that offends us by refusing to adopt New Jersey in its name.


In fact, the Jets we love sang a West Side story:


When you're a Jet, 
You're a Jet all the way 
From your first cigarette 
To your last dyin' day. 

When you're a Jet, 
If the spit hits the fan, 
You got brothers around, 
You're a family man! 

You're never alone, 
You're never disconnected! 
You're home with your own: 
When company's expected, 
You're well protected! 

Then you are set 
With a capital J, 
Which you'll never forget 
Till they cart you away. 
When you're a Jet, 
You stay a Jet! 


Most of the front page is taken up today with another silly column by Staff Writer Tara Sullivan. Who can -- or cares to -- follow this tortured sports tale?


Exploiting the media


Meanwhile, the lead A-1 story continues to promote the rehabilitation of Dharun Ravi after he was found guilty of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation when he used a Web cam to spy on a tryst involving his gay Rutgers roommate, Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood.


This is the 12th story since the Ravi verdict and the second on Page 1 in two days. On Wednesday, The Record discussed Ravi's "strategy" for appealing his conviction.


Boy, Ravi's defense attorney, Steve Altman, is having such an easy time manipulating The Record and other media, but he fell flat on his face with the jurors who convicted his client.


Time to deport Ravi 

What a joke. The main headline is a quote from Ravi: "I didn't act out of hate." Does anybody but Gottlieb believe that?

What about poor Clementi, who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge, and his grief-stricken parents? Can you imagine their rage at all this attention Ravi is getting? Ravi can't get deported fast enough.



Maybe Ravi can try to make up for his crimes by doing community service in India, a turd-world country mired in poverty.

Lazy assignment desk

Don't bother turning to head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, if you're interested in municipal news, whether from Hackensack, Teaneck or many other towns.


Today's 8-page Business section is unusual. Business pages usually appear inside Local, except on Sunday, when a standalone section is published.


Want a good laugh? Check out the B-2 photo of an ancient Datsun 210. Nissan is reviving the brand, so where is a photo of the new car?


The Business section also contains legal notices with local school budgets, as did pages in Wednesday's paper. Take a good look. You'll never see that kind of detail in the news columns from Sykes and her lazy, incompetent minions.

Why seven stories on one verdict?

TYLER CLEMENTI

If Editor Marty Gottlieb argues he is justified in running six news stories and a column on the Dharun Ravi verdict because the trial gripped North Jersey, why did he bounce the testimony and jury deliberations onto and off of Page 1 in the past few weeks?

And even if six news stories are justified, what's the point of the Mike Kelly column on Tyler Clementi's reasons for committing suicide in September 2010, if the reporter  merely rehashes a lot of unanswered questions and uses trial testimony as filler?

You'd expect this kind of coverage from Gottlieb, who spent many years at The New York Times, but you don't expect shaky headlines and reporting.

Basically, the Ravi verdict headline, over line or kicker and drop headline all say the same thing: he may not go to prison.

Appeal awaits sentence

But the reporting is wrong that "Ravi's attorneys plan to appeal the verdict." They would appeal the verdict and the sentence, so it's unclear if the judge will grant a stay of the sentence until the appeal is decided.

A sidebar that would have been far more useful than Kelly's wordy column is the view of legal experts on the potential success of an appeal. 

To me, Ravi's defense -- that he set up a Web cam in the dorm room he shared with Clementi because he was afraid his iPad would be stolen -- is preposterous. Obviously, the jurors saw through him as well as rejecting Ravi's seven so-called character witnesses. 

Gay roommate

An editorial on A-13 says Ravi was not comfortable with his gay roommate. "It was a despicable invasion of privacy, one motivated by Clementi's sexual orientation."

Today's front page has another weighty story: the newspaper's court action to obtain police station videos and a "use of force" report in the fatal shooting of Malik Williams, 19, on Dec. 10, 2011, in Garfield.

The A-1 sports column by Bob Klapisch must have been intended as comic relief.

The correction at the bottom of A-2 today brings this week's total to six corrections or clarifications.

Another crash photo

In mass-transit news, a large photo on the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section documents the forceful removal from the road of a gas-guzzling, global-warming SUV.

Sykes has a staff of talented staff photographers at her beck and call, so readers continue to wonder why non-fatal accident photos are used as filler in the local news section, especially on the front. 

Abandoning Hackensack

Staff Writer Stephanie Akin was so exhausted from three straight days of covering an 82-year-old homeless man and his rescuer she didn't manage to come up with any Hackensack municipal news today.

Where was Sykes and the other assignment editors -- on a three-day weekend?

What's the explanation for the awful photo with the obituary of Terence Pellegrino, a retired Paterson fireman (L-6)?

Below that, there is a brief on a ground-shaking procedural change in Moonachie, where the DPW will join two other departments in inspecting "grease traps in restaurants" (L-6).

(201) magazine

The March 2012 Spring Fashion Issue of (201) magazine continues to pile up corrections from the sleepy editors of Publisher Stephen A. Borg's favorite publication. See Pages 16, 18 and 20.

On Page 20, an "update" on Harry Carson, the former football player, quotes him as "considering a run for Congress," but the issue came out after Carson was quoted in The Record and other media saying he won't be a candidate.

Englewood whitewash

On Page 44, a full-page feature on Englewood -- which is a classic two-sides-of-the-tracks community -- appears under this headline: "City chic with suburban living."

Only five of Englewood's "popular eateries" are listed, but the editors made sure to include Grand Cru, a wine bar in which Borg and his big sister, Jennifer, have or had a financial interest.

Bitch, bitch, bitch

On Page 153, Bob Probert reviews Biddy O'Malley's, an Irish pub in Northvale that serves enough artery clogging food to fill the cardiac wing of a major hospital.

No prices appear in the review. His strongest criticism is that the baked macaroni and cheese with three cheeses, sausage and green apples didn't have enough "sauce."

Borg puts on tie

Stephen Borg pulled himself together for a photo at the bottom of Page 128, which reports on the Best of Bergen Party, Feb. 2, 2012.

Photo No. 3 on that page shows six people, but only five names appear in the caption, including "Alex Joanne Parlamis."

More crime in paper than in life?

The afternoon news meeting in Woodland Park.

Here is another edition of The Record filled with police and court news or what the editors like to call Law & Order coverage. 

The amount of Law & Order news in The Record seems to increase in proportion to decreasing municipal news from the desk of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes.

Sykes has her talented staff photographers chasing ambulances, seemingly to capture every damaged utility pole or rollover accident, and loves to fill local news pages with those gee-whiz photos.

A new elephant

Today, the front of the Local section shows readers a new elephant in the newsroom -- from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus' arrival in East Rutherford -- but the photo caption's reference to "Dragons" is puzzling.

To show how few dragons Sykes is slaying, four other elements on the Local front are Law & Order stories. Four more police or crime stories appear inside, as does the obituary of a local police chief -- likely just a coincidence.

Columnist Charles Stile is running out of ways to describe his hero, Governor Christie, so today he argues the elephant-like GOP bully is an "all-seeing, all-knowing yogi" (L-1). What a joke.

There is no Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck municipal news, but readers find yet another story on a Fort Lee traffic study in connection with proposed 47-story residential towers (L-3).

More Law & Order

On today's front page, Editor Marty Gottlieb relies on three Law & Order elements, including the invasion of privacy trial in the suicide of Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood. 

Here's another example of a long, poorly edited lead paragraph, which lower cases "bacardi," a brand name.

The big A-1 photo of synagogue fire-bombing suspect Aakash Dalal in his prison jumpsuit makes readers wonder why Gottlieb couldn't come up with a better photo from his talented photographers.

Talking turkey

Even the "bright" Page 1 story about a missing, one-legged wild turkey in Washington Township makes some readers ask why this tiny community gets far better coverage than many larger towns.

In Better Living today, a cover story on "eating right" is just what the doctor ordered after numerous restaurant reviews and recipes have promoted artery clogging desserts and other dishes loaded with butter and heavy cream.

Related articles

• Utility pole news undercuts new editor (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• We're sick of reading about cops (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

If you're gay, newsroom is your refuge

Fort Lee police are alarmed by a recent spike in "pedestrian-involved vehicle collisions," The Record reports today.

How does Editor Marty Gottlieb explain an apparent attempt to get a Page 1 photo of "M.B." after he testified about his intimate sexual encounters with Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood?

M.B. is "considered the victim of a sex crime," The Record reports today, but isn't he being victimized by the media? 

I believe Gottlieb would have published a photo of the witness, if his staff photographer had gotten one.

As it is, the photo of M.B. being shielded from photographers outside the New Brunswick courthouse mimics those of criminals and other defendants who flee the media, but M.B. has done nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, the newspaper has protected the identity of gay staffers, even when they write about such issues as gay marriage. That seems contradictory, but journalists always hold themselves above everyone else.

Something missing

NJ.com, the news Web site of The Star-Ledger, identifies Aakash Dalal as a "religious agnostic," but nowhere in The Record's long account of his arrest or in a profile is there any reference to his religion (A-1, A-8 and A-9).

At least 10 reporters worked on the stories. Dalal, the alleged "instigator" in the January synagogue firebombings, has known suspect Anthony Graziano since middle school.

But a line on the front page -- referring readers to Dalal's profile -- sends them to the wrong page, A-6. 

In the A-1 story about testimony in the trial of Dharun Ravi, poor editing of the lead paragraph produced this awkward phrase: "trysts at the privacy invasion trial of Clementi's college roommate."

More Christie 

Following upbeat coverage of Governor Christie's visit to Westwood this week (two news stories and a column), head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes asked Staff Writer Leslie Brody to get up before dawn to cover Christie's appearance on a Friday talk show (L-1).

Brody's text and the photos took up so much room in the Local news section, the layout editor had no space for stories from Hackensack and many other towns.

On L-3, the lead paragraph of a Fort Lee story reports "a recent increase in pedestrian-involved vehicle collisions."

As this edition shows, readers can always count on top-notch editing from Sykes' assignment flunkies and rigid quality control from Editor Liz Houlton's news copy desk.
 

Mindless repetition is killing us

It's not known whether Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado will accompany the parents of murder victim Aena Hong when they bring her ashes back to their native South Korea.

When a big news story appears in the paper almost every day, readers get tired of seeing it and wonder what they are missing to make room for it. Even the enormity of 9/11 and the media's seemingly endless coverage caused reader fatigue.

Today, the sixth story about murder victim Aena Hong in eight days is all over Page 1 of The Record -- one day after a court hearing for suspect Charles J. Ann was reported on the Local front.

All six stories go over the same ground. Today's piece amounts to a profile of the victim, including her life in South Korea and North Jersey, and her relationship with Ann.

Editor Marty Gottlieb is milking this one for all the pathos he can find, running a big A-1 photo of Hong's grief-stricken parents, who traveled here from South Korea to claim their daughter's body after she was run over repeatedly by a car on Feb. 20 in Fort Lee.

 

Shattered dream

 

"She was a girl with a big dream who came to the United States, but she's going back to her home country as ashes," her father told reporter Monsy Alvarado.

Just below the Hong story, a second story about Pascack Valley Hospital's reopening appears -- one day after state approval led the paper. The hospital isn't going to be ready for 14 months. Why the rush in running a follow-up?

What's leading the paper today? That moron Mitt Romney. I'd be happy if I never read another story about the GOP presidential hopeful until the convention in August.

Snow job

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, Road Warrior John Cichowski has yet another column about roof snow or what he refers to as "dangerous white glop."

Readers have lost count of how many columns on the subject they've been hit with by the lazy Cichowski, who can't seem to get himself out of the office to cover commuting issues.

If Cichowski's repetitious column was dropped, Sykes might find room for some Hackesack news or news about a lot of other towns she doesn't cover too well.

Idiot news

Sykes did deliver breaking news today: a homeless man's 1987 gas guzzler was destroyed by explosions in Hackensack after the emphysema victim lit a cigarette, igniting three oxygen tanks in the car (L-1). 

Despite the photo and a long story that continues on L-2, Sykes' incompetent minions couldn't learn the man's identity.

To make room for repetitious stories about Aena Hong and Pascack Valley Hospital on Page 1, the editors had to demote to L-1 coverage of dramatic testimony in the trial of Dharun Ravi, who has been charged in the suicide of Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood.

Related articles

• Editors love Asian murder case (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Editors try to sell Christie tax cut (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• The big-butt newsroom sisterhood (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Dear Marty: Seven ways to save The Record (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

More problems on the news copy desk

Image via Wikipedia

Two headlines on A-6 of today's edition give me pause and prompt me to ask once again: What is going on with the news copy desk at The Record of Woodland Park?


The copy editors represent damage control. They are supposed to fix all the problems in a news story, but now they have become the problem. Where is the copy desk supervisor -- the slot, in newspaper lingo -- asleep at the computer?

Dull and uninspiring headlines are one thing, but more and more I am seeing inaccurate or questionable headlines that are in poor taste.


On A-6 today, the continuation of the Page 1 Tyler Clementi vigil story carries this jump headline: 

Vigil: Tyler Clementi mourned

Mourned? That's the word used when reporting funeral services, not a candlelight vigil at Rutgers, where Clementi's homosexual encounter was shown in an Internet video, prompting him to jump off the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22.

I have a bigger problem with the jump headline on the front-page story about the reelection bid of Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., who is shown on A-6 in a Paterson classroom talking to a third-grade girl who stands next to him:

Pascrell: Seven-term congressman still enjoys little things

You mean, like the little girl in the photo? I scanned the story, and I'm not even sure what the headline writer is referring to as "little things." 

This embarrassing headline comes just a day after the continuation of a sex slave story on A-1 ran opposite an ad showing the makeovers of six young teenage girls, who looked a lot more alluring than they should for their age.

Of course, after The Record's new publisher, Greedy Stevie Borg, made the incredibly stupid decision to move printing of the paper to Rockaway Township from Hackensack, the copy desk no longer received the first copies off the press so copy editors could look for and correct such problems.


From the looks of things, the copy desk in Woodland Park still doesn't see "good copies," meaning all of these bad headlines, typos and errors are delivered straight to readers.


You've got to wonder where Editor Francis Scandale is on the decline of news copy editing and headline writing. He has done everything in his power to thwart the copy desk, working in concert with head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, but he once scolded copy editors for their dull headlines, which, in his opinion, weren't selling enough papers.


The third, A-1 story today -- about a political battle over the bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund -- notes that Governor Christie "has vehemently opposed increasing the gas tax" to pay for road repairs and mass transit improvements, but doesn't say why he is against it. Another great story from The Star-Ledger.


You can thank Sykes for another crappy Local news section. As we have come to expect on Mondays, there is no news from Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood, Westwood, Norwood, Ringwood, Deadwood or Peckerwood.


Sykes is the problem, along with the dead wood on her assignment desk and reporting staff.

See two more new posts below

More clunky editing and headlines

Image via Wikipedia

Teterboro Airport has two runways for the noisy aircraft that land there.

The sad story of Ridgewood's Tyler Clementi has spread far and wide, but his family's hometown daily newspaper continues to handle it with the competence of some crappy weekly. The headline over today's third-straight day of front-page coverage in The Record of Woodland Park is as clunky as ever:

"Emotions pour out"

Not only is the headline repeating the obvious, it duplicates words in a quotation printed just above it that came from the family of the Rutgers student, who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22 after his dorm mate outted him in an Internet video. Here is a far better headline:

"Call for compassion"

And for the third day, The Record's coverage contains almost nothing about the Clementi's roommate and a second perpetrator, and no comments from their lawyers or families about just what kind of people they are. The most telling comment I heard came from a student who appeared on television news. She said gay and lesbian students weren't "safe" in their own dorm rooms.

Another A-1 story -- about Palisades Park becoming the first New Jersey town to offer Korean language instruction in public schools -- fails to mention what a sea change this represents. No one at the paper seems to remember the bitter lawsuit Korean merchants filed when the town barred restaurants from staying open 24 hours a day -- a suit that was settled when restaurants agreed to close a few hours each night.

Today's Local section will help you catch up with police and court news you might have missed.  

All Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado could come up with is another story about cops, two of whom were charged with fraud in connection with an accident. One story she hasn't done is whether the quality of policing or public confidence in the department have been affected by suspended Chief Ken Zisa's legal troubles, all the lawsuits filed against him and the occasional rotten apple.

Another story she hasn't done appears in The County Seat, the weekly published by the Zisas, about an after-school haven for children who live in public housing. And apparently she could care less whether Hackensack can follow Teaneck's example and save $250,000 a year by merging the Police and Fire Departments.

Of course, those stories would take a little legwork, something that is discouraged by Deirdre "Loafs A Lot" Sykes, head assignment editor, who apparently spends more time menu planning than telling her local reporters to get out there and cover their towns. There is no Englewood or Teaneck news in the paper today.

Talk about bad editing. If so many lives were saved, why is the story about the runaway jet on L-3?

Nick Clunn's lead states unequivocally that an arrestor bed at Teterboro Airport stopped a jet from running off the end of the runway -- "saving the lives of nine people onboard and countless others on the ground." Countless? Even the business jet that hit cars on Route 46 and then a warehouse in 2005 didn't kill anybody.

Was it Clunn's assignment editor who wrote this fanciful lead paragraph? What about referring to concrete blocks as "a special cement"? Pathetic. What's wrong with arrestor bed? If the reporter or editor stopped spending so much time making things up to hype the story, we might have learned the names of the pilots and the passengers.

Now, will the paper do a follow to supply this information and ask the most important question of all: Was it pilot error, mechanical failure or overloading that caused this latest accident at Teterboro? 

I'm not hopeful. For years, Publisher Greedy Stevie Borg, Editor Francis Scandale and Sykes have turned their backs on residents who live near the airport and their concerns over safety and noise.

Blast from The Record's past: 

Steve Crabill was shopping at Fairway Market in Paramus on Saturday morning. He left the former Hackensack daily 10 years ago for The Star-Ledger, where he is business editor.

Investigative team plays catch-up

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Last November, a team of reporters published the results of a nearly three-year investigation of Michael Mordaga, former chief of detectives in the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. But the findings were so weak -- despite the stewardship of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes -- Mordaga's name didn't appear in the lead paragraph.

And despite what I'd imagine was pleading, begging and cajoling, Sykes couldn't get the story on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park to justify the expenditure of an estimated $500,000 in staff salaries. To make matters worse, the story described an alleged conflict that had ended nearly two years before.


Now, these same reporters -- Jean Rimbach, Shawn Boburg and Monsy Alvarado, who has severely neglected her coverage of Hackensack -- are playing catch-up, but they have to rely on raw, untested allegations in a civil lawsuit, as detailed in a Page 1 story today that claims Mordaga had a "personal and business relationship" with a reputed mobster more than three years ago.


This story is part of a pattern that exposes the paper's inability to uncover wrongdoing while it is going on. The reputed mobster died in 2007.


The front page is dominated by second-day coverage of a Ridgewood teen's suicide, with some powerful comments by Governor Christie. The two dorm mates accused of goading their fellow Rutgers student into jumping off the George Washington Bridge continue to hide behind the "no comments" of their lawyers. 


Today's story also quietly corrects the lead paragraph of Thursday's A-1 story, which misquoted Tyler Clementi's Facebook message about jumping off the bridge Sept 22. The suicides of Clementi and, two days later, of Chef Joseph Cerniglia call into question whether the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey should immediately release information about jumpers.


Sykes has a terrific Local news section for readers today, though you won't find any municipal news from Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck. nor any discussion of whether the first two should follow Teaneck's example and merge Police and Fire Departments, at a projected annual savings of $250,000.


The major story on the front of the section is about a former cop who used a "wooden board" to prevent his girlfriend from leaving his apartment in South Hackensack. There is a lot more crime and court news inside the section, too.

Has cost-cutting by Features Director Barbara Jaeger started to effect the restaurant reviews? In today's review of La'Ziza in Clifton, Elisa Ung appears to have sampled only three or four entrees in two visits to the Lebanese restaurant, and somehow missed one of the best -- fried whole whiting (ask them to hold the fried pocket bread that comes with it). 

Most newspapers allow the reviewer to invite three others to visit a restaurant twice, so as many dishes as possible can be sampled. It looks like Ung was accompanied by only one other person, a co-worker who is part Lebanese. Was that Charles Saydah, the letters editor?


Ung also appears to be unfamiliar with Middle Eastern food and nomenclature. "Pita" is the Israeli word for the pocket bread eaten by Syrians, Lebanese and so forth. The word "kibbeh" and "balls" should never appear together, as they do in her review. It's just kibbeh, which are meatballs in various sizes and shapes, made of varying ingredients, such as meat and bulgur (wheat).

Did you see the lavishly promotional Star-Ledger story carried on the front of The Record's Business section on Wednesday about the Tata conglomerate from India? Reporter Joseph R. Perone quotes one of Tata's mucky mucks as saying, "We see ourselves as servants of society."


What a joke. Perone, who once covered the automobile industry, knows full well that Tata sells tens of thousands of Land Rover and Jaguar motor vehicles -- some of the worst gas-guzzlers around.

(Photo: Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack)

Shootings, suicides and slapstick

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They're mowing them down on the streets of Paterson, and The Record of Woodland Park is there with its body-count journalism. A distraught teen and an equally distraught chef apparently jump to their deaths from the George Washington Bridge two days apart. A man falls off a roof on top of another man.


The Record's crack assignment desk, under the leadership of Deirdre "Loafs A Lot" Sykes, covers it all, with stories as detailed as today's front-page takeout on the Ridgewood teen suicide to others with so little detail they are merely filler. No names, no comment. 

Desperate Editor Francis Scandale probably wakes up every day in his Glen Rock home, shaking from a nightmare of having no real news to run on the front page. So he has made sports, police, fire and court news the new local news, especially when Sykes has sacrificed local coverage to embark on endless investigative voyages that get lost in the doldrums.

The stories lack detail, because a lot of reporters are encouraged by their lazy editors to do them by phone; who has time to do legwork? We don't pay overtime. People are charged with crimes, then hide behind their high-priced lawyers' "no comment."

I'm waiting for a Record reporter to confront a lawyer who has pocketed a big retainer, but who suddenly loses his tongue, and say "no comment" isn't good enough.

You certainly don't see that in today's "Ridgewood teen takes life" on A-1, paired with a story about that wasteful high school sports organization and another shamelessly hyped piece on horse racing.  Could the headline be any duller? Was Vinny Byrne supervising the copy desk Wednesday night? Did he allow this clunker to get past him?

The New York Times and The Star-Ledger did far better:

Private moment made public,

then a fatal jump

That was the Times headline on Page 1 today. The Star-Ledger took the Ridgewood teen's Facebook message for an effective main headline:

"jumping off the gw bridge sorry"

That's weird, because The Record quoted the Facebook message in its lead paragraph this way: "Going to jump off the gw bridge sorry."

Then, four of the paper's best reporters tell us way too much about this troubled Rutgers student, and way too little about the dorm mates who exposed him in an Internet video showing his intimate encounter with another male student.


Why run thumbnail photos of the two 18-year-old perpetrators with big smiles on their faces? Where are their mug shots? What was their relationship? Were they doing it? Is there video of that, too? Is this a case of two know-it-all Asian kids ganging up on the white guy? 


An A-5 story about the arrest of Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei appeared in The Record on Wednesday, but there was no mention of the suicide seven days before by Ravi's roommate,  Tyler Clementi, who left his wallet behind. His leap from the GWB on Sept. 22 was followed two days later by the suicide of Chef Joseph Cerniglia of Campania restaurant in Fair Lawn.


The chef's death led the paper on Monday -- three days after it happened -- but the staff was never able to pin down whether financial problems were the cause. Apparently, no reporter spoke with family members or the restaurant's staff. 


Will these two bridge suicides prompt editors to assign a story on what the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is doing to prevent people from jumping? If it can be done by phone, maybe. But the suicides, like the deaths of pedestrians killed by NJ Transit trains along unfenced stretches of track, make far better copy.

When is the last time you saw an expanded obituary about a suicide? Yet, don't these front-page stories about the Ridgewood teen and the Fair Lawn chef amount to long, elaborate re-tellings of their lives -- just to sell newspapers?