Editors take a long holiday weekend

Delays common to many criminal proceedings have become major news in The Record's blanket coverage of suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa's trial.

The Good Friday edition of The Record isn't very good for readers.

Editor Marty Gottlieb and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes appear to have scrambled for legitimate news and struck out -- again.

Many readers will simply pass over the dull stories on Page 1. But they won't find much else to read elsewhere in today's edition.

Just look at the A-1 headlines: 

"Inflated SAT scores," "Soaring sales of pain pills," "Latest airport breach forces evacuation" and "Two more gift card providers will stop selling in N.J."

The front-page photo is a real yawner: Opening Day for the Mets.

This is niche journalism, pitched at small segments of the readership. 

The vast majority of readers simply don't give a shit about these minor -- very minor -- slices of life or the Woodland Park daily's doomsday predictions.

In the front-page column of briefs, a photo of Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg was inadvertently substituted for Charles Manson.

Zisaville trial

The headlines on the front of Sykes' Local news section today hint at what readers are going through:


The coverage of the Ken Zisa criminal trial in Hackensack has turned "into a test of patience" for readers, who were hit with stories nine days before testimony began this week (L-1).


The latest delay is due to the illness of defense attorney Patricia Prezioso. A photo of her with Zisa, the suspended Hackensack police chief, shows teased Jersey Girl hair (L-6).


Despite the dated headline on jury selection, coverage of the Zisa official misconduct trial in today's Hackensack Chronicle fills in a lot of the holes in The Record's stories.


Prezioso, for example, is quoted in The Chronicle as saying she is not being paid by the city to defend Zisa -- unlike the $700,000-plus going to the lawyer defending the errant chief from civil suits.


And The Chronicle reports Zisa and onetime girlfriend Kathleen Tiernan turned down two plea offers from the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.


Another dead end


Road Warrior John Cichowski has yet another column about drivers 16 to 34 (L-1). 


Cichowski's survey rewrites -- which he has done for years to avoid doing original reporting -- are "getting old" -- very old.


Sykes and her lazy, incompetent flunkies on the assignment desk came up with so little local news she had to run three weather photos (L-2, L-3 and L-7).


Gut check


In Better Living, Staff Writer Elisa Ung serves another tepid restaurant review, this time for M & E Caruso's Ristorante in Totowa.


She recommends only four dishes at the 2-star BYO with "gut-busting portions," and two of them are desserts.


Whose "gut" is she referring to? Certainly not hers. Her stomach has been stretched and stretched by all the artery clogging dessert she consumes every week.


Blinded by the sun


Travel Editor Jill Schensul's April 1 cover story on the new Revel Resort and Casino in Atlantic City was an April Fool's joke on readers who might want to stay there.


She goes on and on, but never divulges room rates.

Burying the lede

Image via Wikipedia

Readers thought Wednesday's Page 1 takeout told them everything about so-called reforms at Hackensack University Medical Center after a federal trial exposed payments to a corrupt politician. 

So what's the explanation for today's A-1 story disclosing a $7.7 million salary and severance package for John P. Ferguson -- who was forced out as president of HUMC -- and millions more for other executives and employees?  

Why was this held until today?

Ferguson is the same man who, on July 25, enlisted The Record of Woodland Park to publicize his new venture with a Page 1 story that had negligible impact on North Jersey residents.

The July story reported -- apropos of nothing -- that Ferguson was president and CEO of a company that plans to open up to 20 upscale hospitals outside the U.S. to cater to affluent travelers and residents, the first in wealthy Dubai.

Why are federal tax filings containing Ferguson's 2009 pay package coming out just now? Did Jennifer A. Borg, a former HUMC board member, have anything to do with the splashy July story or with delaying today's story about the hospital, one of the paper's big advertisers?  

Borg is vice president and general counsel of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, and big sister of Publisher Stephen A. Borg.

Praying for a good headline

The main element on A-1 has an overline and a headline that seemed designed to turn readers off, not engage them. You'd think the news copy editor would have been inspired by a terrific photo showing a woman in court praying for a favorable ruling, and then written a photo overline and headline that drew readers in.

Instead, the photo overline uses the phrase "conflict resolution," which is about as dull as you can get:

Conflict resolution is their specialty

Who is "their"? The main headline below the photo says, "Court handles cases towns can't." Exciting, isn't it?

There are more problems with this A-1 package. The photo caption shows Mark Oprihory and Mary Foley, her hands clasped in prayer, on a court bench and, nearby, George Lahood, and says the first two await a ruling "in a case against" Lahood.

But the story doesn't even mention Mark Oprihory and Mary Foley.  

Police and court news

In head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, all the stories on the front are court and police news, and there is a lot more Law & Order coverage inside.

The entire section contains municipal or education stories from four towns, but no Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck news, or anything else from other major towns in North Jersey.

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