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| Image via Wikipedia A story about ex-Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell appeared under the headline, "North Bergen mayor's sentencing delayed." |
Coverage of snowstorms can make or break an editor at The Record -- as the trick-or-treat Halloween firing of Francis "Frank" Scandale clearly showed.
The lesson in the anemic editorial response to the surprise October 2011 snowstorm -- which knocked out power to hundreds of thousands for days -- wasn't lost on the staff, which produced today's timely stories on Page 1 and the Better Living cover.
Scandale arrived at The Record 11 years ago this month, and he didn't have to wait long for a big storm, which demonstrated once again how poorly the local assignment desk handled weather stories.
Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes was in charge of covering the storms -- in January 2001 and October 2011 -- and she or one of her junior assignment editors directed the news-gathering staff.
But she has survived all the complaints about pathetically weak coverage from higher-ups like Publisher Stephen A. Borg
Like the banks and brokerages that brought the nation to the brink of financial ruin, Sykes is simply "Too Big to Fail."
Sykes and Tim Nostrand, who held the top assignment post before her, have survived at least three managing editors. And Sykes emerged triumphant in the Scandale debacle, even though one of her junior weekend editors botched the pre-Halloween snowstorm story.
This weekend's storm, the first of the new year, may also be a milestone, coming in the waning days of the interim editor, Douglas Clancy, who presumably will resume his newsroom budget chores.
The Borgs' new editor, Marty Gottlieb, was hired away from The New York Times in December, and was expected to start early in the new year. Gottlieb was global editions editor of The Times for three years.
Milking the GOP process
Readers who picked up the Woodland Park daily today realized from the lead story that the excruciatingly boring process of picking a Republican presidential nominee will be shoved down their throats until the convention in August (A-1).
On A-2, another embarrassing correction appears. An L-3 headline on Friday said, "North Bergen mayor's sentencing delayed."
The problem is the story was about Dennis Elwell, former mayor of Secaucus. The words "North Bergen" or "North Bergen mayor" never appear in the story, which was handled by Editor Liz Houlton's news copy desk.
Free editorial help
Congress has been virtually paralyzed since a posse of rabid Tea Party members took their seats a year ago, but the editors have refused to do the story, leaving it to readers to explore how much damage they've caused.
In a letter on A-11 today, former Closter resident Chuck Bailey
discusses "the unprecedented lack of cooperation by [Republican Party] members of Congress " in aiding the economic recovery.
Instead of municipal news from Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and other towns, Sykes' Local section is filled with court and police news today.
Where are you, Marty Gottlieb?
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