Image via WikipediaI enjoyed reading the census story on the front page page of The Record of Woodland Park today, especially because it was the only scrap of local news about Hackensack (A-8), where I live. But I didn't feel the reporter fully captured the experience of being an enumerator or a respondent.
For one thing, she forgot to tell readers that enumerators hand out an information sheet in English or Spanish to concerned residents, pledging that answers are confidential and protected by law. "Your answers will only be used for statistical purposes, and no other purpose."
Staff Writer Matthew Van Dusen has four stories from the towns he covers in the Local section today, and Staff Writer Nick Clunn has two. Clunn also wrote a Hackensack story last week (apparently, Monsy Alvarado, the Hackensack reporter, was overwhelmed). Reporter Giovanna Fabiano has a story about Leonia today, but nothing about Englewood, which also is her assignment. There are no Hackensack or Teaneck stories today.
Wide variations in productivity in the newsroom appear to be of no concern to Editor Frank Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes or the Borgs, who control North Jersey Media Group. So-called investigative reporter Jean Rimbach has averaged only one byline a year in recent years, and Alvarado has gone a month or more in not filing a story.
When I was still at The Record, the only reporters scolded about their productivity by Managing Editor Frank Burgos were older. The salary of one veteran reporter was cut $10,000 unilaterally, and she was assigned to cover towns -- considered to be a demotion. Were any young reporters called on the carpet?
You might be able to attribute all of this to the mobile-journalist system that Scandale championed. Many reporters were given laptops and cellphones and scattered -- hanging out in diners or even working out of their apartments. This served to empty the Hackensack newsroom to the point where the entire operation was picked up and shifted to office space in Woodland Park and the offices of NJMG weekly papers -- following the move of all printing to Rockaway Township.
The decline of productivity and local news coverage seemed inevitable.
