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| Image via Wikipedia The meals served at public schools in Bergen County are due for an overhaul, but you won't find any quotes from students or food-service workers in The Record today. |
With my son's complaints about the food at Hackensack High ringing in my ears, I stared in disbelief at today's Page 1 wire-service story about a major overhaul of school meals nationwide, searching for any mention of Bergen County or North Jersey.
The changes won't go into effect until September, so readers would have appreciated an assessment of the meals served in any of the hundreds of schools in the region, and what students have to look forward to.
The Associated Press reporter visited an elementary school in Alexandria, Va., where students met first lady Michelle Obama and ate food made from recipes of celebrity Chef Rachel Ray.
This is the kind of story that would appear in The New York Times, where Martin "Marty" Gottlieb worked for many years before taking over this week as editor of The Record.
But he should know better than to settle for a national story on the front of a local newspaper.
Let's do lunch
Why not send Mike Kelly or another reporter to have lunch at Hackensack or another big high school, and report on the fare? I'm sure it would be an eye opener, given the high school taxes North Jersey residents pay.
Instead, Kelly was assigned to write a column on the arrest of Anthony Graziano in a firebombing and arson at two synagogues.
Kelly is a columnist who struggles to form the strong point-of-view readers expect, so his L-1 column today asks lots of rhetorical questions, and in a desperate bid to fill space, actually duplicates the reporting in an A-1 news story on the suspect's not guilty plea.
Kelly wrings his hands over "this unexpected invasion of hate." He says he is searching for "the emotional cleanser to wash" that hate away.
Meanwhile, readers are searching for the phone number to cancel their subscriptions.
Another story on L-1 was long on the experiences of workers or volunteers tallying the homeless in Bergen County and short on interviews with the homeless themselves.
Hackensack readers get a political story and a police story, both on L-3, but no municipal news.
Another great job by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions.
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