Why working at The Record is a gas

An act familiar to anyone who has worked on The Record's news copy desk.

There is more important news on Page 1 and elsewhere in The Record today, but the item you really want to read is buried on L-3 in the Local section.

Under a generic headline, "Neighbor threatened with gun," a six-paragraph story reports a 72-year-old Teaneck man was charged for "allegedly threatening his neighbor ... for passing gas outside his apartment."

"Passing gas"? How quaint. As in, My hybrid car is passing gas stations.

'Farting' on the Web

However, on NorthJersey.com, the same reporter wrote the man allegedly threatened his neighbor with a revolver "for farting outside his apartment." 

The suspect told police the neighbor "farted" as he walked in front of the apartment -- a loud expelling of air through the narrow sphincter muscle that could be heard inside.

The headline says, "Police: Teaneck man, 72, pointed gun at neighbor over flatulence."

Here is a link to the story on the Web:

Man allegedly draws gun over fart 

By 6 p.m. today, nearly 900 readers had recommended the story on Facebook.

Room clearer

Why did head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza shy away from using "farting" and "farted" in the paper?

Why didn't Editor Liz Houlton, supervisor of the news copy desk at the Woodland Park daily, flag "passing gas" as hopelessly outmoded?

The news copy editors should have been especially sensitive, because one of them has a malodorous reputation for farting throughout his shift, which usually begins in late afternoon and can run to midnight and beyond.

Zillions of farts

The farting has gone on for decades and no one except the copy editor himself knows whether it is an obscure medical condition -- fartonitis -- or can be traced to something he eats or is a result of severe lactose intolerance. 

Of course, the copy editors who sit near this gaseous bag have long complained -- to no avail.

That's why working at The Record has always been a gas.

And that's why Publisher Stephen A. Borg and Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg, and some of the editors who work for them, long have targeted all of the "old farts" in the newsroom.

All of them except the veteran news copy editor who really smells up the place.

Page A-1 v. Page L-1

Three strong front pages on Monday, Tuesday and today have readers wondering why the Local news section remains so weak.

Page 1 on Monday informed readers the mild winter of 2012 meant nearly 2,000 fewer deaths.

At the bottom of the page, a profile of defense Attorney Robert Galantucci was the equivalent of a million dollars worth of free publicity, especially because it omitted what he charges his clients.

Today's front page reports another 1,000 jobs will be lost when Roche closes down its plant in Nutley and Clifton.

The two towns will lose about $14 million in tax ratables.

Roche is one of those so-called job creators Governer Christie and other Republicans are falling all over themselves helping with tax breaks and other favorable treatment. 

It's rare, but the news copy desk today came up with a clever headline over an A-1 report on nepotism in Garfield's schools:

Friends and family plan

This week's continuing coverage of a lawsuit filed Friday by the Giants and Jets shows the attempt to shut down the entertainment and retail complex called American Dream on Sundays has gone over like a lead balloon. 

On the Local front today, the Big Moron behind the Road Warrior column wrote a first paragraph about "the big bridge on the Hudson" and "the big mall called Willowbrook."

Circulation's royal F.U. to the editors

The Achilles' heel.

The Record's Circulation Department, which is headed by one of those overpaid vice presidents, has long been an Achilles' heel.

It wasn't until I retired and started paying for a home-delivered copy -- instead of picking one up in the newsroom -- that I learned more about how Circulation is working at cross purposes to the editors and reporters who knock themselves out every day.

If your paper is wet -- as mine was this morning and has been on too many mornings in the past -- you have to call before 9:30 a.m. to ask for a replacement.

Skip today's paper

Usually, you'll deal with an automated system, and when you follow the prompts, you are offered two days' credit instead of a dry replacement copy.

Can you imagine how little regard the people running the dysfunctional Circulation Department have for all of the editors and reporters who race to meet deadline and put out a paper every night?

To them, journalism and this once-great newspaper are reduced to little more than sopping wet newsprint that isn't even worthy of replacement.

This morning, my paper was in two plastic bags, and the ends were knotted. But the bags are so flimsy, they often tear when they hit my concrete driveway, and allow water in. 

Early deadlines

When I worked nights on The Record's News Copy Desk, we often were told the deadlines were being moved up because Circulation needed more time to deliver the paper when it was snowing or raining or even when precipitation was forecast.

Among other things, that meant late municipal meetings couldn't be reported and late sports scores couldn't appear. 

And when we proofed the first good copies off of the press, errors we caught often went uncorrected. 

After years of this, I felt that even if someone spit on the sidewalk, the ragtag Circulation Department would need more time to deliver the paper.

Then, one night, Co-Slot Nancy Cherry told us that even though the deadline was moved up 30 minutes on so many nights in the past, the papers sat in the warehouse, because the independent drivers who delivered them hadn't been told to come in 30 minutes early. 

Mixed messages

Cherry left The Record several years ago, and the copy editing standards she fought so hard for went with her.

Today, with error-prone Production Editor Liz Houlton in charge of the news copy desk, the quality of editing and headline writing continues to decline.

One rule I see violated is the one against "echoes" -- the use of the same or similar words in different headlines on the same page.

On Page 1 today, the echoing words -- "Historic," "Historical" and "History" -- are in headlines over three stories, from the top to the bottom of the page. 

Unbelievable.

More disturbing is the A-1 story about the arrest of a 26-year-old Clifton teacher accused of having sex with a 16-year-old student -- a day after Page 1 glowed about a kinky but fictional relationship between a wealthy businessman and a "virginal" college student.

Editorial Page

Margulies' desperation is clear in the A-22 editorial cartoon about the primary battle between two Democrats in the 9th Congressional District.

In what fantasy world has he ever heard a candidate pushing free-range chicken and hybrid cars over that crap from Perdue and gas-guzzling SUVs?

Hackensack news

Hackensack readers are pleasantly surprised by a story that has nothing to do with the trial of suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa (Local front).

In other momentous city news, a two-car accident knocked down a light pole on Main Street (L-1 photo).

Stop the presses.

Editor lives to sell newspapers

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Should a local newspaper put the Steve Jobs obit on Page 1?

What kind of news world does Editor Francis Scandale of the Record inhabit?


Scandale is not accountable to the public or his absentee publisher, so he's accustomed to doing what he wants with Page 1.


His only problems are his famously flawed news judgment and wrestling stories away from Deirdre Sykes, the immovable head assignment editor and real power in the Woodland Park newsroom.


The murder of a 23-year-old Teaneck woman wasn't front-page news on Wednesday, but the arrest of her husband leads the paper today. Why? To sell newspapers?


Then, Scandale demotes to the bottom of the page an engaging story about more aggressive forms of cancer in African-American women than in white women. That would have made a great A-1 patch.


Here's Job 1


A-1 is dominated today by the obituary of Steve Jobs, 56, a founder of Apple Inc., but why does Scandale put his death from cancer out front while uniformly banishing obituaries of prominent local residents to inside Local? 


Unfortunately, Jobs and other tech wizards have paid little attention to how their computers and smart phones continue to confound people 50 years old and older. 


So, it's no surprise Scandale makes such a big deal of his death. 


The editor has always ignored older newsroom workers, and apparently made no objection when Publisher Stephen A. Borg culled them as if they were chickens on the way to the slaughterhouse. 


No gold standard


One of those given the heave-ho was Nancy Cherry, co-slot or co-supervisor of the news copy desk, now in the incompetent hands of Editor Liz Houlton.


When Nancy left, no one bothered to enforce her strict standards of good writing and accuracy in text, photo captions and headlines.


So, today and nearly every day, the news copy desk runs wild, as in the A-1 headline for the Jobs story.


The co-founder of Apple Inc. becomes the "founder" in the four-deck headline. Two headline no-nos are ending a line with "was" or "of" -- both are violated here. 


Another inaccurate, inelegant and unimaginative headline. On Page 1, no less.


On A-2, there are three embarrassing corrections, one blamed "on incorrect information" from Englewood.


Remixing old news


The front of Sykes' Local section today seems to rehash a lot of old news.


Those Westwood and Hillsdale residents are demanding a solution to flooding, as they did a few weeks ago.


I didn't see any publicity in The Record about last weekend's Korean harvest festival in Bergen County, but here is a story about a second Korean festival, this one sponsored by a New York City group.


Another glowing downtown success story appears at the bottom of the page --this one on Glen Rock, where Scandale lives -- in contrast to total neglect of struggling downtowns in Hackensack, Englewood and Teaneck, the county's most diverse communities.


Police news and news about the police -- not municipal news -- again dominate the section put out by Sykes and her supremely lazy assignment minions.


Cutting to the bone


In Better Living, I no longer see anything from free-lance food writer Amy Kuperinsky, who wrote numerous Starters and Martketplaces in recent years.


Today's Starter, "a first look at recently opened restaurants," is by Bob Probert, whose work has also appeared in (201) magazine.


Related articles

• Another puzzler from Liz Houlton's copy desk (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Where quality control is out of control (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Why isn't anyone held accountable? (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

Editors don't know beach from hole in head

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The boardwalk at Point Pleasant Beach.

The Record today again cranks up its public-relations machine for Governor Christie with a flattering photo and story on his drumming up business for the Jersey Shore after Hurricane Irene.

Back to the beach

Christie makes pitch for big Shore holiday

No problem with the upbeat Page 1 headlines, but the editors really screwed up the story's lead paragraph and photo captions on A-1 and A-6. 

All three mistakenly put Christie in Point Pleasant, a separate community from Point Pleasant Beach, the one with the boardwalk.

Wrong-way Frank

It's a common error, but not one Editors Francis Scandale, Deirdre Sykes and Liz Houlton should be making, especially Houlton, who supervises the news copy desk, which is supposed to catch such boners.

Day after day, this trio's abject ignorance of all things Jersey gives readers the impression they wake up, look around and wonder, "How the f--- did I end up here?"

Greedy governor

Also on Page 1 today, Christie pulls more sleight of hand by grabbing as much as $1.25 billion from higher New Jersey Turnpike tolls to support road, bridge and mass-transit projects that are supposed to be paid for by the state Transportation Trust Fund, which is financed by the gasoline tax.

That money -- and another $1.8 billion from the Port Authority -- was supposed to help pay for new Hudson River rail tunnels, but the governor killed that project and grabbed the $3 billion-plus to preserve his conservative pledge not to raise taxes. 

Flood of tears

One story that should have been on the front page today is the L-3 account of the state's worst flood in 1903, though the photo caption doesn't mention the city where a boat rescue took place.

I wonder why Sykes, the head assignment editor, devoted the bottom of the Local front today to a single Jewish family whose relatives died in the Holocaust.

Looking over all the flood news, Hackensack residents are wondering when Sykes will resume covering municipal news. The last stories they saw ran Aug. 25.

Racist editor points finger

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A white Paterson teacher is being disciplined after a 6- or 7-year-old student hit her
and she referred to that boy and other disruptive students as "future criminals."

On Page 1 of The Record today, Editor Francis Scandale makes an example of a white teacher who was accused of being a racist after she said on Facebook: 
"[I]'m not a teacher -- [I]'m a warden for future criminals."


At a hearing, Jennifer O'Brien explained what prompted the comment: Six or seven unruly students disrupted her lessons in the Paterson classroom, one first-grader hit her and another pupil struck another student. Is that really racism?


And why doesn't Staff Writer Leslie Brody's teacher-performance stories ever discuss the role and responsibility of parents when their children misbehave in the classroom?


Racism editor


Scandale should know what racism is. After all, he dumped the paper's only black and Hispanic columnists, leaving the daily with only white columnists.


Even if you argue that's ancient history, why didn't Scandale ever replace Lawrence Aaron and Miguel Perez, especially after John Cichowski and other white columnists went off their rockers?


The top of A-1 today is devoted to a story on the "9/11 family" that has little general interest.


Let's hope this is not the first of an unbroken string of 9/11 stories in the run-up to the 10 anniversary next month. I'm sure the anniversary coverage will make readers sick of reading about the disaster and the families left behind.


Blow up that photo


The front-page photo today is a shot from The Associated Press of a non-fatal turnpike accident that caused a 7-mile backup way outside of the paper's circulation area.


Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes continue the daily dissing of their talented photography staffers, who have been reduced to ambulance chasers, forced to capture minor accidents so Sykes can fill columns in the Local section.


Today, the front of Local carries a big photo of a non-fatal fire from firetruck chaser Tariq Zehawi. 


This is not breaking news. This is breaking down readers. This is breaking the spirit of the photographers. This is breaking wind.


Flag burner


Of course, Scandale will never live down relegating to a back page staffer Tom Franklin's incredible, exclusive, flag-raising photo on 9/11. The coming anniversary will only rub salt in Franklin's wounds.


Editor Liz Houlton continues to confound with photo captions from the news copy desk she supervises, like the one on Page A-4 today that introduces readers to a new species in Manhattan. The caption reads:


"Pedestrians starting their morning as surveillance cameras monitor the scene in Times Square."


At the end of the day, where do the "pedestrians" go? Into the manholes? Now, that's a story.

ADD knocks disaster in Japan off front page

Image by birdphone via Flickr

Rock Road in Glen Rock. This is the size of the rock in Editor Francis Scandale's head. 

It took only about eight days for Editor Francis Scandale and all the other editors at The Record with attention-deficit disorder to find an excuse to knock the disaster in Japan off Page 1 today. It's buried on A-14.

Reporters and photographers presumably had complained about how exhausted they were leaving the Woodland Park newsroom in search of the Japanese who live in North Jersey -- as the clueless assignment desk under Editor Deirdre Sykes tried desperately to localize the story. 

King-size and then some

We know Governor Cristie is in bed with all the police chiefs whose salaries aren't capped, but now we find out the mattress must be the size of Hackensack to accommodate all of those snobby charter school officials (A-1).

Food prices have been rising for several weeks now, so the news copy desk is from hunger with that outdated head on A-1 today: "Higher food prices coming your way."

Office-loving columnist

You know by today's L-1 Road Warrior column that Staff Writer John Cichowski has never spoken to NJ Transit bus drivers who compete with all of those privately owned commuter vans. 

They're grateful for the help, because the bigger buses are standing-room-only during the rush hour and simply can't accommodate more passengers.

Sour-grapes journalism

In the years after Scandale left The Denver Post for The Record (2001), the former Hackensack daily always seemed to carry an inordinate number of stories about the Mile High City.

Image by birdphone via Flickr

Scandale moved to Glen Rock then, because he couldn't afford Ridgewood on his six-figure salary. 

The other day, he discovered Glen Rock has a sister city in Japan, and milked that for three days. Today, Glen Rock's talented youth are all over the Better Living front. So is Ridgewood talent-less?

What's next? Glen Rock as the ideal American town? 

Fractured writing

Reporter Jean Rimbach writes infrequently, but she really breaks news when she does, as in today's L-2 story, which reports that Gore Vidal, Barbie, King George III and the Rolling Stones -- all go to high school in New Jersey.

Here's her lede:

"From Gore Vidal to Barbie, King George III to the Rolling Stones, teenagers from around the Garden State tested their knowledge on an eclectic array of history questions Saturday in an academic competition at Ridgewood High School."

I guess the news copy editors -- who are treated like shit by Scandale, Sykes and the other dayside editors -- deliberately overlook such obvious errors so that Rimbach and other bad writers look like fools.

Either that or they're asleep.

Getting it all wrong on Page 1

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Then-Gov. Christie Whitman frisking a suspect in 2004. The Record's "Political Stile" columnist today actually calls her one of  "Jersey's groundbreaking heroines," right up there with Molly Pitcher, Clara Barton and Althea Gibson.

Parting leader pays up

"Pays up." Doesn't that sound as if Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney owed a debt or faced a fine, and paid it? 

But that's not the case, as you learn in the drop headline and story on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park today -- he gave big raises to non-union employees as one of his parting shots before he leaves office. And what's with the awkward "parting leader"? Do you really need the word "parting"? Just call him what he is: "Dem pol spends big."

Also, if McNerney has the power to give the 3.5 percent raises to about 200 employees, doesn't incoming Republican County Executive Kathleen Donovan have the power to rescind them? Staff Writer Michael Gartland, who has been reporting on all the political cronies being hired by the defeated Democrats, doesn't even ask Donovan that question.

As if the lead head isn't bad enough, the headline on the second A-1 story -- on DWI arrests -- is about as inaccurate as they get. Although the graphic and text show drunken-driving arrests were down 3 percent in 2009, the headline declares:

Penalties aren't reducing DWIs

Well, something is reducing DWI arrests, and the headline should have said that. The story says "drunken-driving arrests last year were the fewest recorded in the past decade."

Breaking ranks?

Columnist Charles Stile appears to be breaking ranks with all the Governor Christie apologists at The Record, but his L-1 "Political Stile" column is so poorly written and so poorly organized today, it's hard to tell just what he is getting at.

His lead paragraph says the woman Christie nominated to replace John E. Wallace on the New Jersey Supreme Court could be a heroine "for the next generation of New Jersey girls if she ever joins" the court, becoming its fourth female member.

What he doesn't do is mention Wallace or criticize Christie for not naming a black man or woman to replace the court's only African-American justice, who was denied lifetime tenure by the governor, in defiance of decades of precedent. Then, Stile lists Christie Whitman, one of the worst governors ever, as among "groundbreaking Jersey heroines."

At this point, Stile veers  off and starts attacking two  female Republican senators -- who back the nomination of Anne Patterson to the court -- for refusing to help overturn Christie's veto of $7.4 million for family planning clinics, which serve poor, uninsured women.

He blasts Christie as "the party's brook-no-dissent leader." C'mon, Charlie, you can do better than that.

Another bad head

On L-3, a story on Hackensack residents finally returning to their Prospect Avenue apartments more than five months after they were evacuated carries a real puzzling headline:

Residents return to scene of garage collapse

It's probably time to acknowledge the news copy desk's sharp decline in quality and accuracy since copy editors from the Herald News replaced veteran Record copy editors, who left when Publisher Stephen A. Borg merged the two news staffs. 
 

Local news reporters in a horse race?

Image by papayatreelimited via Flickr

The first Chilean miner rescued on Tuesday.

I never thought it possible, but since mid-July, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado appears to be filing more stories from her beat than the reporters who cover Teaneck and Englewood for The Record of Woodland Park. The three Bergen communities are among the county's most populous and they are certainly the most diverse.


But under the lackadaisical leadership of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her clueless assistants in the past two and half years, coverage of all three has suffered greatly as the local reporters are sidetracked on investigations or, in the case of the Teaneck reporter, sent to cover the earthquake in Haiti.

Even if Alvarado is leading Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano and Teaneck reporter Joseph Ax, the Hackensack reporter has little to be proud of as she has virtually ignored city affairs while pursuing stories about the Police Department and suspended Chief Ken Zisa. 

Today, she doesn't have a story in the paper. And sometimes she just catches up to coverage in the weeklies. This is the legacy of Sykes' F.U. attitude toward Hackensack since the paper moved out of the city where it was founded.

And Sykes' and Alvarado's hands have been forced, as in the case of the parking garage collapse on Prospect Avenue in Hackensack, a national story they couldn't ignore, but one they never really did justice to.


Between July 15 and Tuesday -- about three months or 90 days -- there have been 41 stories about Hackensack, not counting police and fire news. 

In that time, nine stories were published about Englewood, where Malcolm A. Borg raised the two spoiled brats who have allowed Sykes to run amok in the newsroom. Sixteen Teaneck stories have appeared since July 15.

Who's the patsy?

The federal trial of Ridgefield Mayor Anthony R. Suarez is back on Page 1 today. He took the stand in his own defense, but no one has asked him why he met with a developer and a go-between in Patsy's Restaurant in Fairview -- and not in town hall.

Shafting the reader

Can the news copy desk make the rescue of the Chilean miners any duller? Today's A-1 head: "'An inspiration.'" Wednesday's A-1 head: "Miners being lifted toward freedom." Katie Couric said it all and a lot better on CBS News, paraphrasing now, A miracle unfolds before our eyes.


See earlier post, Telling like it is?

More problems on the news copy desk

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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

Readers are scratching their heads

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If part of Grand Avenue in Englewood is one way and another section carries two-way traffic,  readers need to know that right away, especially if you cover much of the front page with a big photo showing a collision between a bus and a cop car. Instead, with this story and others today, The Record of Woodland Park leaves many scratching their heads.

Well, you can search the A-1 caption and read the story and caption on L-1, and unless you are familiar with Englewood, it's all very confusing, as the former Hackensack daily bobbles yet another routine story, leaving readers to fill in the blanks for themselves. 

Here's what the three reporters who worked on this epic tale don't tell you. The Bergen County police officer's car crossed over the double-yellow line before the collision in front of Sonny's Pizzeria -- on the two-way stretch of Grand Avenue south of Route 4. North of Route 4, Grand Avenue is one way until Palisade Avenue, where it becomes Engle Street. 

The A-1 photo shows the police car straddling the double-yellow line and angled toward the front of the Red & Tan bus, but the story never addresses that. Was the cop on his cell phone or was there a mechanical failure in the Ford Crown Victoria, which many police departments continue to use despite safety problems and fatal crashes involving officers? Did the officer have a seizure or other health problem? Your guess is as good as mine.

Yet the story contains a lot of unnecessary information, such as interviews that reveal "it is not uncommon to see police pursue vehicles on Grand Avenue." Huh? The officer in the collision wasn't involved in a chase, his superior told the paper. And one of the reporters uses a quote on a save-get key: "It sounded like a bomb." Where are the weekend assignment editor and the news copy desk on a story this bad?


If the officer was at fault, it's the second black mark against county police, who reportedly shot at burglary suspects during a chase the other day. The county prosecutor is investigating the gunfire. But with nearly 70 police departments in the county, why do we need this county force?

Back on A-1, Staff Writer Michael Gartland continues his excellent work covering Bergen County government with an expose of the huge debt rolled up by the county Improvement Authority. But below the fold, two Business reporters bore us with a long story about a builder of multimillion dollar homes who foundered during the recession, and who owes creditors $11 million.

Does anyone feel sorry for this man, who was at the center of artificially inflating the values of homes that frustrated many first-time home buyers? And is it really fair to readers to portray greedy investors -- who gave him money to help build these monstrosities in hope of a big profit -- as victims? Why is this story on A-1?

In the A-section, Teaneck reporter Joseph Ax has a story about the township's Muslim mayor visiting the White House, but there is no Hackensack or Englewood municipal news in the paper, or news of many other towns. 

The L-1 story on "green" burials is fascinating, but it makes no mention that Orthodox Jews and other groups have been burying their dead in this fashion for eons.

 If it wasn't for Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais, the paper would have little consumer reporting. Today, on the Business front, he tackles the hidden fees that are so difficult to learn about when you're trying to compare airline fares. 

Of course, the real question is why this issue hasn't been covered extensively in the Travel section, where klutzy Editor Jill Schensul today celebrates hugely wasteful and polluting RVs.


The Borgs can rest easy tonight, knowing Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes and their minions are doing such a great job.

(Photo: The infamous Ford Crown Victoria police interceptor.)

Leaving readers in the dark

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Staff Writer Joseph Ax, on assignment for The Record in Haiti, seems to be fascinated with the pre-dawn darkness or maybe he is just trying to show the lazy, desperate and incompetent editors back home in Woodland Park that he is working hard amid all the cutbacks at the paper.

For the third day in a row, he begins his dispatch with something that happened before the sun rose on the humanitarian crisis there (the first day, it was volunteers gathering for breakfast in the lobby of a Dominican hotel). It's hard to tell if his dispatches are getting any editing on the assignment desk or the news copy desk.

This could be a case of head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes holding the story past deadline, then sending it over with some excuse so the news copy editors don't have time to question or edit it. Unlike the shrieking Sykes, they're expected to make deadline, so they just have time to slap headlines on it, write photo captions and spell-check the file.

Unable to come up with news of Hackensack (map), Teaneck, Englewood or other important Bergen County towns, editors have to run large and small photos on the front of Local about a Haitian relief drive by Dominicans in Paterson, sending readers to L-6 to read  a detailed story. This follows numerous stories about such efforts by Haitians, doctors, pastors and other North Jerseyans after the Jan. 12 quake, in an apparent bid to chronicle the sending of every T-shirt to the stricken nation.

More drivel by Columnist Mike Kelly also appears on the front of the section. This is "one of those small North Jersey stories that could easily go unnoticed," he writes, "amid the hustle and bustle that passes for life" -- just like Kelly's pushing around words passes for journalism. This so-called story should have gone unnoticed because it's been done a million times. Is this the best local story the veteran journalist can come up with? Where is his assignment editor, staring down the shirt of an attractive, young female reporter?

Where was the editor?

When you read a ridiculous Page 1 story like the anti-mass transit piece today, you have to ask, Where was the editor?

Of course, I'm referring to the reporter's assignment editor, who is in on a story from the time it is conceptualized to the final editing before it goes over to the news copy desk for damage control and headlines with "mustard" on them, as Editor Frank "The Fish Stinks from the Head Down" Scandale is fond of saying. (I always wondered why he didn't ask for headlines with salsa [photo] on them? He's such a dull, uninspiring guy.)

Tom Davis' editor is Dan Sforza, a former reporter whose own mediocre job on the transportation beat is responsible for the low quality of reporting and writing we have seen from Davis for years. Just look at the lead paragraph of today's story:

Each community is known for its picturesque downtown and walkable streets that draw people away from the noise, crime and traffic of larger cities.

What planet is Davis and Sforza writing about? Englewood is supposed to provide relief from "noise, crime and traffic?" How much time has the reporter spent there? Has he heard the gunshots from the open-air police firing range? Did he miss the noisy, polluting freight trains that rumble through town frequently, causing traffic mayhem? Doesn't he read all the crime news in the paper day after day that portray North Jersey as a hotbed of criminal activity? What does this lead paragraph have to do with the reality of the suburbs we live in? And what does it have to do with a proposed light-rail system?

Unfortunately, the copy desks at The Record has been handcuffed for years. The news and feature copy editors are encouraged to write snappy headlines, so much so some of them have to resort to writing misleading heads, such as "The dog ate my turkey" and the one in the Business section the other day about New Jersey companies "taking flight." But they are discouraged from challenging poor writing and reporting, and in general, warned against changing copy without approval from the editor who screwed it up in the first place. The copy editors' supervisors long ago dropped quality concerns, and just shovel the shit as fast as they can.

Look at the sub-headline on the light-rail story:

Critics say light rail will bring
host of troubles to their towns

Yet, the story never says the "host of troubles" are the same problems the towns have grappled with for decades from the freight railroad running through the middle of their communities or that the light rail will actually improve the environment with much less noise and zero emissions.

You have to wonder at the motives of Davis and Sforza for such a distorted picture.

"The dividing line" main head over the story could just as well refer to the line between good and bad journalism, and we know which side The Record, Davis and Sforza are on.

See previous post:  
Anti-mass transit tirade, 12/19/09