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| Hackensack residents continue to see the property tax burden shifting to them as Bergen County embarks on a mini building boom. Construction has begun on a new Justice Center and a few blocks away, on a maintenance and fuel-storage depot, above, opposite the county homeless shelter. Both will be tax exempt. |
By Victor E. Sasson
Editor
Laboring under Production Editor Liz Houlton, The Record's copy editors still haven't mastered the art of headline writing, as today's Page 1 story on household income demonstrates.
"N.J. may have turned a corner"
Why use the weak phrase "may have"? Did it or didn't it?
And "N.J." only shows the editors' bias for the wealthy, because, as the second paragraph reports, "the number of people in poverty rose" to 934,900 from 897,400.
Another error
There is a second copy editing problem on Page 1 today -- a misplaced time element in the first paragraph about the World Trade Center brand name.
The $10 sale of the brand name was shameful "nearly three decades ago," not "on Wednesday."
The paragraph should have begun, "The Port Authority's top executive on Wednesday called ...."
Of course, the story doesn't say whether the Port Authority will use any of the money recovered through an investigation to expand mass transit or slow the pace of toll increases.
Ridgewood, Queens?
What is a Ridgewood story doing in the A-section, which is usually reserved for state, national and international news (A-8)?
On that same page, the photo caption writer failed to say the skyline is in Manhattan.
A pack of lawyers
More news of the wealthy appears on the front of Local, with another long story about the legal battle over the estate of Hudson News founder Robert Cohen (L-1).
And all of these words were triggered by "pretrial motions."
Two big photos shows the battling millionaires staring at the camera -- James Cohen of Alpine and his niece, Samantha Perelman, two spoiled silver spoons who have hired a total of 15 lawyers to duke it out in Hackensack.
How bored Cohen and Perelman look.
The breathless coverage is being provided by Staff Writer Kibret Markos, the full-time Bergen County Courthouse reporter who ignores 99.67% of the civil suits filed there and spends most of his time on smoking breaks outside the 10 Main St. entrance.
Slice of life
Want a good laugh?
Another L-1 story claims Mazur's Bakery was "the only place many residents of Lyndhurst and nearby communities have ever bought bread and cake."
That's ridiculous. Maybe it was the taste of "rodents, cats and insect, as well as encrusted flour and food debris on equipment" that made them so loyal.
More 'rich' news
The only expanded local obituary today is about a wealthy real estate executive, Stanley H. Marcus (L-6).
And no edition would be complete without a report on the millions of dollars in tax breaks Governor Christie is giving wealthy business owners -- with no job creation expected in return (L-8).
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