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General Category => Hackensack Discussion => Topic started by: BLeafe on August 07, 2017, 11:17:20 AM

Title: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 07, 2017, 11:17:20 AM
...........(according to today's Record):


Title: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 07, 2017, 11:52:17 AM
Things appear to be a bit jumbled in Woodland Park today.

Speaking of jumbled.............today's Jumble puzzle and today's Jumble answer are unrelated (the dates in the cartoon and the answer match).

Maybe I should start a thread called "Eyes on The Record".   ;)


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: itsamike on August 07, 2017, 06:36:08 PM
Isn't that why The Sasson Report was invented?

 http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/ (http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 07, 2017, 10:10:40 PM
No - that's why his previous "EYE on The Record" was "invented".

Mine would have EYES.............one of them winked in my previous post.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: itsamike on August 07, 2017, 11:05:56 PM
Gotcha!  ;D
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on August 16, 2017, 11:10:09 AM
I like it -- Victor Sasson, editor of Eye on The Record.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 16, 2017, 01:00:00 PM
You won't like this:

Mini-headline on today's front page (this is acceptable English?):


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: johnny g on August 17, 2017, 08:04:42 AM
A familiar activity? You mean that annoying thing that happens in the winter time? Isn't it supposed to be sunny and 70 all winter? How dare it snow?
Amazing how times have changed, not to mention sloppy grammar  :o
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 17, 2017, 11:03:07 AM
Things have gotten particularly sloppy in the sports section, where you can usually find a couple of errors nearly every day. This didn't happen before and I don't think it's the writers' fault because they were with the paper way before the changeover, when this was not a problem.

From today's paper (Pages 1S and 2S):


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 18, 2017, 12:50:53 PM
Today's score: Sports -3.5
                      Local: -1


SPORTS

1. In the photo, the running back catches the pass. Although that completes the play, pass completion is a quarterback statistic. A receiver is never said to "complete a pass". He can have catches and receptions (or drops), but a complete or incomplete pass is credited or charged to a quarterback.

2. "Strata" is the plural of "stratum". "...a different strata" is like saying "...a bad mistakes".

3. It's kind of obvious what the problem is here (I hope).

4. (not shown) The -0.5 comes from an article where a player is referring to a coach's criticism. What's written has the player supposedly saying, "Of course, he'll be extra crucial of me because he expects a lot". "Critical" would be the better word (maybe he actually did say it), but there are instances where - mistakenly or not - the words have been used interchangeably.


LOCAL

5. An article about the upcoming solar eclipse appears to be unsure about when the event will take place. Why couldn't it simply say "...just three days away"?


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 21, 2017, 11:57:30 AM
Heed me, need me!

From today's Record, Pg 9S:

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 22, 2017, 11:59:59 AM
From today's Record, pages 7S and 8S:

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 23, 2017, 10:29:59 AM
Today's Record, pg. 5S: "one" is MIA.

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Homer Jones on August 23, 2017, 01:34:03 PM
The proofreading is worse than the team and that ain't easy.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 29, 2017, 11:27:17 AM
I wonder if a proofreading position still exists after the new owners took over.


New words to learn today!

Any idea what they mean? (no peeking ahead!)

"WEEJS"

"SPRINED"

They can be found in today's sports section of The Record. For some reason, it seems that the sports section gets to provide most - but not all - of these fun learning experiences.

Thankfully, context will translate.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 30, 2017, 12:40:00 PM
Today's error: a little sloppy, but not difficult to figure out..............except that you shouldn't have to be figuring out what a newspaper is saying.


And why, in TODAY'S (Wednesday) paper, about TODAY'S (Wednesday) Stadium gate opening, doesn't it say "Today, Yankee Stadium's gates..." instead of "On Wednesday..."? (What - next Wednesday?")
It used to be that when you opened up a newspaper and it was referring to something that was happening on the same day as the paper's date, it always said "today".

I understand that the information may have been written and immediately placed online when it was received - probably last night - and was technically correct LAST NIGHT, but not correcting these things for print AND online editions after midnight makes both editions look very stale on Wednesday.

A little sloppy AND a little lazy?


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 31, 2017, 11:50:30 AM
1. Continuing the "Future is Today" theme: Read the first sentence in the first image. Sounds like that game will take place sometime in the future, right? Then check the date of the paper. The game is TODAY (actually, tonight). Wouldn't it eliminate all possible confusion by writing, "The Jets host the Eagles in their preseason finale tonight at MetLife Stadium."?

2. Here's a new one: this is how part of the "Transactions" space appeared in print today (it was OK online). Did you know that the Oakland Raiders have a wide receiver named "erts"?


Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 01, 2017, 02:00:00 PM
Two for one today in an article about the Mets' Jacob DeGrom.........

The first one is pretty obvious and the second one alters the name of a Florida team.

Lastly, it's another really stale-sounding article. Read what's within the red quotation marks - definitely upcoming-sounding, right? - and then look at the publication day/date.

The game was last night.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 03, 2017, 11:44:00 AM
That poor women!


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 05, 2017, 03:30:01 PM
So after taking Labor Day off, the Sports section gremlin was back in full force today. All errors are between the red quotation marks:

1. This would make sense if it said, "Rebounding from a three-game sweep by the Indians...".

2. This has two errors, but the first one is correct in the newspaper, where the two words are hyphenated, with the second word being on the next line. But omitting the hyphen online IS a screw-up. I don't know what happened to the word "Trenton"..........it's OK online and in the paper. "Aaron Hicks' absence..." somehow added an "r" to the next word.

3. "20 homer" sounds like an attainable level in a Simpsons beer-drinking video game.

4. This also has two errors............well, OK - one and-a-half errors -  in it. "(Green)" means that Girardi actually used another word - probably the pronoun "him" - when he was speaking and the writer made sure you knew to whom Girardi was referring, but the next word ("was") kinda kills whatever sense this sentence could have made. "swing-andmisses" suffers online (but not in the paper) from the same "missing-hyphen/partially on the next line" problem I described in #2.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 06, 2017, 01:33:32 PM
Today's problems involve omission and pluralization, in that order.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 07, 2017, 01:47:01 PM
In today's Record: Baseball and a bikes on a bridge:

1. (Ignoring the 6 missing hyphens and the one missing comma) When Orioles' manager Buck Showalter calls for pitcher Zach Britton, he is SUMMONING his closer - not SUMMING him.

2. Of the two states that the George Washington Bridge connects, the caption for this picture mentions the wrong one. Did anyone even bother to look at the picture? (and it's a WALKWAY - not a bike path, though bikes are allowed to use it)


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 08, 2017, 12:37:36 PM
".........and when his car broke down, he called a two truck."


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Homer Jones on September 08, 2017, 01:20:09 PM
They have the letters correct; but, only two are in the wrong order. Seems like an improvement.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 08, 2017, 02:22:30 PM
WOT?

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 09, 2017, 01:21:30 PM
"...we're play each day..."?


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 10, 2017, 11:30:00 AM
1. Fairly obvious

2. First of all, neither "passer bye" nor "passer byes" makes any sense. The word is "passerby" (singular) and "passersby" (plural) - NEVER "passerbys". It's like the plural of "mother-in-law" or "attorney-general" - "mothers-in-law", "attorneys-general".


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 11, 2017, 01:08:41 PM
Jets' coach Todd Bowles had already been identified in the article and had been referred to as "Bowles" two paragraphs earlier.

For some reason, someone added a "The" before "Bowles" name here.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 14, 2017, 01:45:00 PM
1. The county's biggest paper can't spell "Bergen"?

2. The fourth word ("want") is incorrect, although it certainly sounds like the right word, which is actually an old-fashioned word: "wont" (not "won't"). Google "as is his wont" to verify.

It's also a word that probably gets auto-corrected a lot. In any event, "want" is incorrect.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 15, 2017, 01:23:36 PM
Two problems on the same page:

1. That last semi-sentence is missing "to return" and "Braves".

2. Obvious


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 16, 2017, 11:08:21 AM
Today's crop of problem children includes a small one on the Business page and a boatload of doozies on one Sports page:

1. What kind of tax rate?

2. "Mets Notes" squared and a sandwich of two images

3. A red heading in an unusual place

4, 5. Two more double-image sandwiches, with one of the pictures sitting in two separate articles


Nice to see they're making an effort to fix things.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 18, 2017, 01:16:38 PM
1, 2. Two "is" problems: the first isn't needed and the second one is missing an "h".

3. This is in today's (Monday's) paper, but it was clearly written for yesterday's paper: "today's game" was played yesterday and "Monday's festivities" are tonight. Stale news.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 19, 2017, 02:00:03 PM
This is REALLY screwy!

Two different problems popped up in print and online today: connecting stories from a main page to their conclusion on another page and maintaining the same content between print and online editions. And - surprise, surprise - they happened in today's Sports section.

Let's start with the Yankees article: the print and online editions both start the same on page 1S. The second image shows the correct continuation of the split sentence/word online on page 6S, while the third image shows that the rest of the 1S sentence has vanished in the print edition on 6S. In addition, the first four words in the 6S print edition are the last four words of the second 6S paragraph in the online version. If that's not bad enough, the third online 6S paragraph has been omitted in the print edition on 6S. After that point, they're the same.

As for the Giants story, the same beginning pattern emerges: both editions are identical on page 1S and the second image shows the correct continuation of the split sentence/word online on page 3S, but the third image shows that the print edition not only is missing the rest of the split sentence from 1S, but the entire rest of the story is completely different from the online version, which discusses what happened at certain points in the game, while the print edition discusses individual team members.

So much for the supposedly-identical online edition that print subscribers get access to...


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 20, 2017, 01:12:35 PM
My 3,000th post!

1. Should read, "arrived in Miami"

2. Probably should read, "...I could tell during the season that my muscles probably weren't going to be able to keep up". This might also work: "...probably weren't able to keep up". Either one makes a lot more sense that what was printed.

3. It's as plan as the nose on your face that this is just plain wrong.

4. On September 7, I posted The Record's (mis)use of this same picture and caption in a different article. Still, no one there has even bothered to actually look at the picture and notice the obvious error in direction. I'll bet it happens again.

5. Read the quote from Paterson's historical preservation director. Hamilton faces the falls and if people want to take selfies with the statue and have the falls in the background, they'd be taking pictures of Hamilton's back. That might also be a pretty good reason to kill the plan.

6. Lastly, I give you something that's not really an error, but maybe could be worded differently. Until then, let's all say a prayer for this unfortunate individual who gets hit with this every 40 seconds.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 21, 2017, 01:30:00 PM
And the sports section keeps bumbling along...........


1. Happy last day of summer!

To commemorate the occasion, The Record used a very stale suggestion today in the below caption. Hurry! There are only a few hours left!


2. This story is about a very unfortunate incident that occurred at Yankee Stadium yesterday, where a 2 year-old girl was hit in the face by a 100+mph line-drive foul ball. The latest I heard is that she's OK, but no real details were provided. Subject matter aside, read the two paragraphs marked with a red X and then the two marked with a red O. Filler? The small red underline shows a new word that causes confusion by adding an "H" for some odd reason.


3. Talk about stale! Since today is Thursday, this sounds like it's about a game next Wednesday, but it's actually about the game that the Yankees won yesterday afternoon...............not late last night - yesterday afternoon.


4. Why is there a comma in this sentence when "and" is already there?



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 22, 2017, 12:17:38 PM
1. Obvious (but I circled it anyway)

2. What's with those 3 words with no punctuation between the two paragraphs? It's supposed to be one of those mini-headlines in boldface that has spaces above and below to introduce a new subject within an article...............but somebody forgot to do all that. It just looks like sloppiness.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 23, 2017, 12:00:00 PM
1. Space limitations require that newspapers sometimes have to split words and continue them on the next line and the proper way to do that is to make the split between syllables.

It's quite sloppy-looking (and somewhat ignorant) when papers just split words anywhere they feel like it, but this goes beyond that. What would be the reason for splitting the unsplittable word, "ALL"?

As the second sentence shows, there's enough room in the top line to include the ridiculously-split word AND the next word.


2. Obvious


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 24, 2017, 03:07:01 PM
1. If that second "single" was in parentheses, it might work if the story was about marital statuses. Unfortunately............

2.  "view son"? Misplaced space.

3. The problem with this is that it's a quote...........did the guy actually say "collect" instead of "collected"? I'm betting he didn't.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day - MAJOR ERROR
Post by: BLeafe on September 25, 2017, 03:59:59 PM
There are other errors in the sports section today, but there's one unforgivable MAJOR flub that overshadows everything else.

ADDING INSULT TO INJURY:

Attention City Council, HHS football coach Wimberly, players, parents, and all residents:

How does this stupidity happen?



Click to enrage enlarge:



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 26, 2017, 01:42:06 PM
1. On the front page of today's Local section of the newspaper's print edition, there's an article about a proposed new road through FDU-Teaneck. You can see that it is to be continued on page 3L.

When you get to 3L, there's no story anywhere about an FDU road on that page or anywhere else. There is a continuation from 1L of a story about flags, but there's no story about flags on 1L, so we have the beginning of one story and the end of another with the missing pieces nowhere to be found..................except if you read the online edition instead of print.

There on 3L is the continuation of the FDU road story, right where the end of the flags story is in the print edition. The online edition has NO story anywhere in that section about flags.


2,3. On to the daily problem child - the Sports section, where we find a supposed quote from Jets head coach Todd Bowles and one from the Yankees Gary Sanchez.

The first problem should be obvious. In the second one, did someone actually see "your" coming out of Gary's mouth instead of the correct "you're"? I don't think so.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 27, 2017, 01:51:32 PM
1. The Record acknowledged the incomplete FDU/new road story that ran in yesterday's paper and printed the full story today. Still no sign, however, of the flags story.

2. When a sports photo's caption mentions a player in the photo that also shows other players, it usually uses a photo where that player's number is visible and mentions the number in the caption to distinguish that player from the others. The problem here is that there are no other players in this photo of Aaron Judge, so what's the point of including the number in the caption? To ID his batting helmet?

3. Lately, most of the captions are as dull as dishwater and not always accurate. This photo shows two players just standing around - one with a basketball tucked under her arm, but according to the caption, they're warming up. Unless the gym's thermostat suddenly went haywire, I don't see how that could be occurring at the moment shown.

The dullest generic caption occurs when more than one person is shown. The first person is mentioned and it always says that the second person "looks on" - a meaningless/useless phrase that shows not a drop of thought or imagination. They've used it quite a bit lately.............let's see how long it takes before that little gem pops up again (remember a Beatles' song called, "It Won't Be Long"?).


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 28, 2017, 04:30:02 PM
Two in one article today in consecutive paragraphs:

1. "Marrone quit as Bills COACH after..."

2. Another unnecessary comma because "and" is already there (IN BOTH!).


Fortunately, I don't even read the whole sports section.............baseball and football, some basketball and maybe a little local, but that's usually it.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 29, 2017, 01:05:00 PM
1. There are a pair of twins in the NFL who play for different teams: Devin and Jason McCourty. During the course of a single sentence, the paper spelled Devin's last name correctly, but not Jason's. The worst part is that - in print and online - one surname is right on top of the other, making it super-easy to spot the mistake..............if anyone there was paying attention.

2. "exercises"?



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 02, 2017, 02:00:29 PM
1a. The word should be "found". Everything else in the sentence is past tense, so this has to be too.

1b. This is something that I found in the online version, but not in the print edition (my computer did the squiggly underline). It's only missing 8 spaces.

2. There's a "he" missing after the comma.

3. "...he announced shortly."? It probably should read "...he announced shortly after the game."

4. This is a two-parter. Robin Ventura's name was misspelled in the first part, but is OK in the second, which is odd because the same writer wrote both articles. As you read the paper, the correct one came first and I know that the writer knows how to spell Robin's name. Auto-correct and nobody checked?

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 03, 2017, 02:17:57 PM
1. In a larger context, maybe managing at the major league level IS all about beer.

2. What exactly is Aaron Judge practicing in this picture? Walking away from the batting cage? Another empty caption.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 04, 2017, 03:00:01 PM
Handicapping today's repeating offerings:

1. We begin with a writer who I know is not synonym-handicapped. So how did this unfortunate pile-on happen?

2. The actual quote from you-know-who: "Now, I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you've thrown our budget a little out of whack because we've spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico — and that's fine; we've saved a lot of lives."

The double-"whack" job quote from USA Today and published by The Record is below.




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 05, 2017, 01:35:38 PM
1.
The dullest generic caption occurs when more than one person is shown. The first person is mentioned and it always says that the second person "looks on" - a meaningless/useless phrase that shows not a drop of thought or imagination. They've used it quite a bit lately.............let's see how long it takes before that little gem pops up again (remember a Beatles' song called, "It Won't Be Long"?).

It took 8 days.............longer than I thought. (Click this one to enlarge)


2. Anyone who's aware of Yankee starter Luis Severino's first-inning meltdown two nights ago against the Twins knows that the "as" before his name should be "ask".


3. I'm not sure that the last five words are totally incorrect because I don't recall the play, but at first reading, a "dash home from first base" brings to mind Wrong-Way Corrigan. The word "dash" implies a quick burst over a short distance, like from first base 90' directly to home - something you'd get benched for. It's possible the play actually involved Harper running around all the bases from first to home, but the writing should be clearer, if that's the case.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 07, 2017, 12:00:00 PM
1. Aside from the fact that "well-said" and "well-put" require hyphens, does the "...well said and well put..." comment mean that it should be printed twice? And just look at the "sentence" that follows:

"I JUST IT SOMETHING WE CAN MOVE FORWARD  ..  AND START AGAIN."

I'm not even sure how many words are missing from it or what "double-space, double periods, double space" means.


These two are just really dopey:

2. "3-for-27" is not a batting average. ".111" would be a batting average (and the correct one).

3. This series is a best-of five, meaning that it takes a minimum of 3 games to win the series. Sunday's game will be Game 3, so OF COURSE it's necessary.

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 08, 2017, 11:17:11 AM
This was an article on the front page of the local section of today's Record about yesterday's Meadowlands Birding Festival. The writer mentions that "about 1,000 people" attended and he interviewed Bergen County Audubon Society President Don Torino. His opening paragraph identifies "Egrets, greater yellowlegs, pintail ducks and a pelican were among the winged species spotted in DeKorte Park...".

So why do the captions on the accompanying photos offer nothing more in the way of identification than "a bird"?

Not very informative...

And where the flock are all these "people" who are mentioned in the captions? A caption is meant to identify what is shown in the picture.

Do you see "many people" ID-ing birds or flocking around?

More sloppy captioning...


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 09, 2017, 12:52:58 PM
One odd word, one missing word and two extra words:

1. What is a "huge" fly ball? As far as I know, they're all the same size. "Calculated how room he had..."? Can I buy a "much"?

2. Can I sell an "and" and an "a"? Maybe I could trade them for that missing "much".

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on October 10, 2017, 01:30:51 PM
Local news takes a holiday:

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2017/10/decline-of-once-great-local-newspaper.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2017/10/decline-of-once-great-local-newspaper.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 10, 2017, 03:47:57 PM
MAJOR mess today, plus one small one left over from yesterday.

Yesterday:

1. The front page of the sports section had two articles trumpeting the fact that the Yankees won Game 3 and avoided being swept. On to Game 4...............

2. ...........well, hold up on that. Page 2S didn't get the news and still says "if necessary" regarding last night's Game 4. I wonder if they'll do the same stupid thing regarding Game 5.


Today:

3. Same as #1, except change 3 to 4 and 4 to 5.

4. Same as #2 (You had to ask?). Page 1S lets you know that there's a  DEFINITE Game 5, while 2S doubts its necessity.

(5,6,7 - more contradicting uncertainty):

5. Page 3S claims that there's no indication about the severity of Brandon Marshall's injury or his possible return.

6. Maybe Page 3S should read Page 4S' headline..........

7. ........but wait - in the article with that headline, uncertainly rears its ugly (and not too bright) head yet again! And Sterling Shepard has the least severe what? Yeah - I know the answer, but you're supposed to actually write it in the paper. Sheesh!

8. Compared to everything else, this is relatively minor, but there are two unnecessary commas preceding an "and" in one paragraph (Pssst! "And" negates the need for a comma in these situations............it's redundant).

9. Problem with plurals.............plus, it's followed by another unnecessary comma ("or" negates the need for the comma).

10. When writers want to make quotes clearer, they insert the correct (or missing) word where it belongs in parentheses. It's hard to decipher what Luis Severino actually said, but it's made worse when a writer puts in the wrong word. You don't "give the extra mile" (no effort implied there).............you "go the extra mile" (THAT'S extra effort). And "mile" is in parentheses - what could it possibly be replacing?

Maybe the Sports Section should be renamed the Puzzle Section. What a mess!

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 11, 2017, 12:42:37 PM
1. "...AS it was."

2. Double error in the same place: in the print edition, "the" is missing before the word "notion". In the online edition, both "the" AND "notion" are missing.

3. "...is moving"? Moved. "Starting this week..."? It started last week. Should we take bets on whether or not they'll print the same thing next week?

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 12, 2017, 01:14:57 PM
1. Egad! Even the editorial page isn't immune.

2. New word: "hoered"

3. Missing word" "one"

4,5. It's bad enough when an entire quote is essentially repeated immediately following the same quote, but the repeat quotes are slightly re-written. Is this to fill space and maybe no one will notice?
By the way -  these same, nearly-identical double errors came from two different articles on the same page...........and both were written by the same, highly-respected writer (who I doubt made the errors).



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 14, 2017, 01:45:26 PM
1. We all know what photo captions are, right? And most of us are aware that they belong as close as possible to the photo they're describing. For many photo captions lately, someone at The Record disagrees.

On the front page of today's sports section, the lead photo is a large shot taken at last night's Yankees/Astros ALCS Game 1. Its caption is placed below a lot of writing from two stories, the ACLS schedule and some large, bold-faced statistics. It's over 3 inches from the photo that it's desperately trying to describe, but less than 1.5 inches from a hockey game photo.


2. Speaking of captions,

1.
The dullest generic caption occurs when more than one person is shown. The first person is mentioned and it always says that the second person "looks on" - a meaningless/useless phrase that shows not a drop of thought or imagination. They've used it quite a bit lately.............let's see how long it takes before that little gem pops up again (remember a Beatles' song called, "It Won't Be Long"?).

It took 8 days.............longer than I thought.

Nine days later, they doubled up on the vapid vacuity (redundancy intentional) in two articles ON THE SAME PAGE, with one story on top of the other:

a. Without mentioning any other people in the picture (it could have simply stated that the two managers were meeting with the umpiring crew, it just says that the managers "looked on". That's it? Looked on what? Usually, that idiotic phrase is used after some other person or action is mentioned.

b. This time, it's only one manager who.......... all together now............"looks on".  The caption claims that this occurred during batting practice - and maybe it did - but it's just a shot of the manager. There's not a speck of batting practice imagery to be seen in it.

These are both empty-headed, say-nothing captions.

So, until next time............


3. Can we all agree that relief pitchers follow starters in a baseball game? That's super-basic stuff, but this caption says that manager Joe Girardi is doing the relieving.

Strange thing for a former catcher to do.

For the record (and for The Record)..........Chad Green relieved Severino.


4. Somebody needs a reminder to not leave out any words.


 
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 15, 2017, 12:59:59 PM
Wow - contributions from 3 different sections!

1. "its"

2. "it's"

3. Geez - they spelled it correctly in the same sentence just 6 words prior............

4. Corrected below

5. "Severino" + a different correction below

6. "ala" is not a word. "a la" is the common use, but "à la" is the technically correct use.

7. One addition and one subtraction (below)

8. Where are Ahmad and Reham? Why was it important to give the ages of people who aren't shown?





Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 16, 2017, 02:00:00 PM
Things started out interestingly in the sports section and then quickly went downhill.

They used an eye-catching, one-word headline in the print edition that anyone who watched the Jets game yesterday would understand immediately. In very bold letters, it says "ROBBED.", with the top half of the letters in black (and outside the picture) and the bottom half of the letters in white and inside the picture.

Online, there are actually two versions: one copies all the pages of the print edition, looking just like the newspaper (online print) and another that's basically one long column of nice, solid-looking print (online straight). Sometimes, I show one version and sometimes another.

When it comes to this particular picture, I'm showing all 3, since they're all quite different.

1. The two-tone print edition, as described above

2. The online version of the supposed exact copy of the print edition made the letters 100% black.

3. The online straight version showed only what was within the borders of the picture: the bottom halves of the white letters, including slivers of the black top halves - rather bizarre-looking.

One other problem: why is there a period after the word? Periods end sentences and this isn't a sentence. It would be a different story if the headline said "WE WUZ ROBBED."............but it doesn't.



4. The 0-5 Giants were absolute underdogs going into Mile-High Stadium - or whatever they call it these days - as reflected in head coach Ben McAdoo's statement in this paragraph, yet the beginning of the paragraph states that they were favored to win by 13.5 points. How did that go unnoticed?



5. There's an "a" where an "and" should be and a space where a hyphen should be between "especially" and "powerful".



6. When filling space at the end of an article with a scoring rundown, chronology is always in order (do we watch games by starting at the end and working our way backward?). Here, apparently, someone thought it would be a good idea to do it blog-like: latest post first. It's like reading an email thread - start at the bottom and work your way up.



7. Over in "Better Living", someone forgot "Better Grammar" and neglected to use a "Neither" before using "Nor". It just doesn't make any sense when read.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 17, 2017, 03:00:06 PM
It just never ends.........


1. Does the word "laugher" refer to the game or the "score" that precedes it?


2. I see we're back to this stupidity again. The Astros are ahead two games to one going into tonight's game. FOUR games are needed to win the series. How is there a question as to whether tomorrow's game is necessary?


3. The "t" needs an "o".


4. The "It' " needs an "s".


5. False: Toms River to the Bronx is 90 miles and takes an hour and 42 minutes to get there. Toms River to the Philadelphia Phillies ballpark is 62 miles away and the drive takes an hour and a half. DO SOME RESEARCH!


6. This sentence is screaming for a comma after "Montgomery".


7. This is not Aaron Hicks.


8. THIS is Aaron Hicks.


9. This is REALLY an empty-headed caption. Exactly how does one "get ready to round third base"? And if there IS an answer to that, how does this photo illustrate that preparation?

At the bare minimum, why not just write that he's rounding third base? Boring, but it's least it's factual.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 18, 2017, 01:00:53 PM
1. The title of a book should be set apart by either italics or quotation marks.

2. "the ugliest of swings" would be a single item, so the verb should be "hits". The fact that the plural "swings" is in the phrase is irrelevant.

3. I think he asked "to meet her" - not "to met her".

4. Again? Why is there a question about Friday's Game 6 when the teams are tied at 2 games apiece and the series is a best of seven? It can't possibly end before Friday, so the game is kinda necessary.

Duh!


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 19, 2017, 01:30:02 PM
A quintet of corrections awaits below:


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 21, 2017, 01:15:00 PM
Let's start with an interesting video from The Record that was sent to me by fellow member Homer Jones. Actually, it's the title over the video that draws your attention because it declares that there's a new county in New Jersey:

"Pedestrian crashes spur crackdown in Paterson county"

See for yourself: https://njersy.co/2gxuwDN


Today's gremlins:

1. I guess redundant credit is better than no credit at all...........BUT IT'S STILL REDUNDANT!


2. Some space cadet left one out.


3. Speaking of space cadets, another one thinks that Game 7 in a series that's tied at 3 games apiece might not be necessary. Can somebody please explain how the postseason works to whoever creates these "helpful" schedules?


4. There's a very "TELLing" omission in this sentence.


5. It seems that every Record writer is confused about the use of "and" followed by a comma. Here's when it should be used:

...when "and" is being used to coordinate two independent clauses. An independent clause is a group of words that has a subject and a verb and can stand alone as a sentence. In the following example, the independent clauses are in brackets:

    [Miguel took piano lessons for sixteen years], and [today he is an accomplished performer].

The use of the comma would also apply when any of the seven coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet) join two independent clauses.

Notice in the next example that we do not use a comma before "and" because it does not join two independent clauses but merely joins two verbs:

    Miguel took piano lessons for sixteen years and today is an accomplished performer.

Here we have only one independent clause—two verbs ("took" and "is") but one subject ("Miguel").

In two different articles on the same page (5S), the same writer was really confused, using both versions multiple times - some right and some wrong - but never with any consistency. I'm not posting the articles because it's too time-consuming to list all the similar problems, it would take up too much space and you don't really care.


6. I'd rather take up too much space with something else because The Record took up too much space in printing a story yesterday about a former Bergen Catholic quarterback from Hillsdale named Tanner McEvoy who is returning to the area as a wide receiver for the Seattle Seahawks when they play the Giants this Sunday at MetLife Stadium. They reprinted it again today - albeit somewhat shorter - with the same picture (to fill up space?).

Basically, they took a writer's story and sliced out a couple of paragraphs (to fit the space?). What remains is not rewritten and the byline is the same...............essentially, it's verbatim filler.

Of the last three images, the first two are from yesterday and the third one is from today.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 22, 2017, 01:15:01 PM
1. Well, lookee here - they finally got it right...............no "unnecessary" games questions.


Back to getting it wrong:

2. "COULD"


3. Splitting an unsplittable word


4. "GAMES"


5. "MEANT"


6. "EXISTS"


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 23, 2017, 12:39:58 PM
One or two (or thirteen) little items today:

1. "...the he New York Post..."?

2. "The was the recurring  theme..."?

3. "And ti was a total team effort." (There's no "ti" in "team".)

4. "...Girardi..." what? "said"? A paper isn't doing much informing when it makes its readers guess.

5. Initially, the only thing to fix was a missing "of" before the last two words, but when I jumped from the print edition to the straight online edition, "sea-son" popped it (it had been split properly between sentences in the print edition).

6. "...will now assembling..."?

7. Shouldn't there be an "I" before "love"?

8. If you make mistakes, you make (or create) blunders - you don't take them (read the line before it). Would you say, "I took a mistake" if you made one?

9. Taking out the "along with linebacker Darron Lee" part, you have a sentence that reads, "Then he gave let Stills get loose for the game-tying touchdown."  Oy.

10. & 11. These are from two different stories by the same writer on the same page. I've included the next line of each story to show that they are, indeed, from two different stories. I'm seeing more and more of this type of repetition from the same respected writer lately, but he never did this in the Borg days, so I'm guessing that someone is fooling around with his stories.

And to think.........before I saw the larger picture, I was only going to post these because of one word: "entangle". The officials weren't waiting for the players to entangle - they were already entangled. The word that both stories needed was "untangle".

12. The second of those two stories finished with backwards game-scoring (darker print). Why would anyone consider this to be a good idea?

13. After those dozen doozies, we head over to the Better Living section and a story about diners.

"Why they are an icon"? Why is plural singular? "Why they are iconic" might be better. And why doesn't the last sentence end with a question mark? Is it not a question?




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 24, 2017, 12:00:00 PM
1. In fewer words, pluses = minuses.


2. Read the first paragraph. Shouldn't the second paragraph begin with something like, "It's quite another thing to..."?

ALSO: "...patience over impulsive..."? Noun over adjective? Wouldn't "impulse" or "impulsiveness" fit better?


3. How did "returning" become "retraining"?

Unlike in the print edition, there's no space here between "21" and "snaps".


4. Who can forget when Ron Artest changed his name to Metta World Peace? Here's your answer.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 25, 2017, 01:40:01 PM
Not too bad today: one misspelling and one slightly-odd caption.

1. The Jets' GM is Mike Maccagnan - not Maccaganan.

2. "...second from bottom right..." in this caption implies that there are identifiable people in the upper part of the picture. There aren't. "...second from right..." is all that's needed.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 26, 2017, 11:38:34 AM
1. The comma isn't needed and change "are" to "is" (unless "Atlanta are off to a shaky start" sounds right to you).


2.  Unnecessary hyphen should not be there.


3. What a great photo this would be: 3 large men sitting in a sideline seat! With their salaries, you'd think each could afford his own seat.  ;)


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 27, 2017, 11:55:04 AM
Besides 3 different sections of today's Record, we also have contributions from its local weekly - The Hackensack Chronicle.

1&2. Let's start right off with two versions of something on the front (1A) page. In the straight online version, the caption is exactly where it should be - right under the photo. In the print version, it's about a half a mile away.


3. On the very next page, we find this "sentence". It shows 8 words.......it needs 11, like maybe add "failed to respond" or "did not respond" after "rapper"?


4. On the third page of the Local section, I have a proposition about a preposition: change "to" to "from". "third to the right" means you're starting from the left, while "third from the right" means you're starting from the right. In this particular case, you wind up with the same guy from either direction (in a lineup of 5 people, "3" is always in the middle), but if there were 4 or 6 in the lineup, the result would be different.

Why not just write "(middle)"?


5. On the 6th page of the Local section, a hyphen is missing. It should read "months-old".


6. Only one minor problem in Sports today: change "sat" to "sit".


On to The Chronicle:

7. In a weekly, you obviously can't expect to read only yesterday's news and you might skip the week-old news because it's........well, old news. - you've read it before.

If you go back to my October 5 post, you'll find a mention of my annoyance at the banal phrase, "looks on". THREE WEEKS after the publication of that story, it's the Chronicle's front page story, with the same caption (except they changed "Wednesday" to "Oct 5"). Mom, Mom - still looks on.

Talk about stale news!


8. Slight issue with the word "don". It's a present-tense verb meaning "putting on clothes". These people are not putting on clothes. They presumably donned them at home.

I'm trying to come up with a more appropriate verb to replace "don" in this caption. "Wear" is as boring as "looks on"............how about "sport"? (How about getting a new caption writer for both publications?)



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 28, 2017, 02:00:00 PM
1. Future writing about last night's game = stale news

2. "I was just try   " =  cliffhanger (tune in tomorrow when this doesn't get resolved)





Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 29, 2017, 01:25:30 PM
Why, why, why, why................


1&2. This symbol is used in connection with unidentified currency. Why was it used 3 times in this story? (click to enlarge if the symbol is too small in the story) And why is there no comma after "Of course"?

3. Why is "joined" capitalized?

4. Why isn't "storm-proofing" hyphenated in this front-page secondary headline?


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 01, 2017, 11:20:02 AM
The Record appears to have undergone a bit of design change and the last couple of days have shown fewer errors/omissions. I don't know if those two things are related, but let's hope they are.

A couple of errors a day DO add up, so here's what's accumulated since Monday:

October 30

1. Isn't "isn't" missing?

2. You can't put an apostrophe at the end of "can't". It sticks out like an even sorer thumb when the next two sentences do it correctly.


October 31

3. "jimmies"? Short, easy-to-make kicks are referred to as "gimmies"................unless, of course, ice cream cones were involved somehow.


November 1

4. You NEVER use an apostrophe when pluralizing words! (and that goes for every lawn sign that shows the family surname, like "The Smith's", which denotes singular possession) The Smith's.......what? The Smith's House? Even that's wrong. It should be "The Smiths' House".

5. Read the sentences next to each "X". It's pretty clear that the Jets will be playing the Buffalo Bills tomorrow night. So why is the last sentence necessary?


The TV Time Sunday supplement

Lastly, remember the problems I posted about concerning the paper implying that certain baseball playoff games might be unnecessary, when that were absolutely necessary? The TV Time section made if even worse for the two most important World Series games - Game 6 and Game 7 - which were scheduled for last night and tonight. Because these listings are prepared well in advance, they SHOULD have blocked off the space and added "if necessary" to the Channel 5 (FOX) listings beginning at 8pm each night.

Instead, there's no mention whatsoever of the possibility of FOX's biggest moneymaker of the year being played on those nights. Instead, they simply listed all the regular shows that run during those time periods.

This may not be The Record's fault because I think the listings are supplied by an outside source, but it sure doesn't help the paper's image.

NOTE: The October 29, 2017 date on each is the date that the TV Time was published - not the Tuesday or Wednesday listings dates.

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 02, 2017, 10:40:00 AM
1. Do you think they might have left out "think" as the third word?

2. While "games" is a plural word, "playing games" is a singular thing, so "don't" should be "doesn't". Just take out "on Thursday night" and see which sounds better.

3, 4. Over-punctuation strikes twice. Lose the apostrophe from "Thursday's" (never pluralize with an apostrophe) and the comma after "well" (there's no second subject after it).

5. This is NOT Record-related, but it's IN today's paper, so it's fair game. Isaac Newton is not Gorgh's ancestor - he's a descendant. An ancestor is one from whom a person is descended. Gorgh would be Newton's ancestor.

Important stuff, huh?


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 03, 2017, 11:34:59 AM
1. Two stupid for words


2. How can anyone still not know when to use "less" and "fewer"? If the noun is a singular word that can be pluralized by adding an "S" (like "yard/yards"), you always use "fewer" - this case, fewer yards. If the noun can't be pluralized that way, i.e., a collective noun (like "yardage"), you use "less". Think of it this way: if you don't drive as much as you used to, you're using LESS gas (or FEWER gallons) than you used to. Does "fewer gas" sound right to anyone?

After a couple of decades, the people who write TV commercials STILL can't figure out that "less calories" sounds incredibly ignorant to anyone with a decent grasp of the language.


3. Can anyone figure out what this part of a headline is talking about? Did the Mets lose a long, 22-inning game to the Nats yesterday? How could that be? The season ended 2 days ago.


4. Well, here's your answer. When was the last time you saw someone's name not begin with a capital letter - especially in a headline?



Say what you want about the previous ownership of The Record, but these types of errors almost never occurred in the paper back then. Now that it's a near-daily, multiple occurrence, it seems that attaining a mastery of 3rd-grade-level spelling and grammar is nearly impossible.




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 05, 2017, 11:30:02 AM
A half-dozen little annoying things, starting with one from yesterday:

1. So I'm reading the SATURDAY paper on SATURDAY morning, looking at the TV listings to see what's on that evening, when I see the picture and blurb for The Breeders' Cup at 8pm. But instead of saying "Tonight at 8pm", it says "Saturday at 8pm", as if the paper I was reading was from an earlier day in the week, meaning SATURDAY was in the future.


2. Did you know that Jimi Hendrix pre-formed something at Woodstock? Neither did I.


3. From today's TV Time weekly TV listings section: As everyone knows, the name of the magazine is "Rolling Stone".

On another note, TV Time recently underwent a makeover in which they decided that the day should no longer have 24 hours. Instead, they cut it to 16. According to TV Time, TV no longer exists from midnight to 8am ("but here's a bunch of useless junk to fill in the spaces to make it OK").

They fixed what wasn't broken................how thoughtful.


On to the sports section - the treasure error trove of the paper:

4. How do we know that this dull-as-dishwater, generic caption is accurate? Maybe he's on the sidelines. What indicates that he's "getting ready for a play"? What action on his part shows this in the photo?


5. You'd think they could have moved the schedule a tiny bit to the left to accommodate the date. There was plenty of room. Sloppy.


6. Look how many lines you have to read before you realize that it's a quote without the starting quotation marks.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 06, 2017, 03:00:06 PM
1&2. Today starts off with an odd visual in the comics (print edition only). The colors start to get weird mainly in the right half of the three strips (a tan sweater becomes half-tan and half-pink and then all pink). In the second image (online edition), there are no such problems (except for the online controls that overlayed on part of the images).

3. Where did "at" come from?

4. Anyone have a clue how "Wej've" is pronounced?

5. It started off OK with the first comma, but forgot the second one after "Eagles".

6. Unless the game is still going on, the word should be "appeared".

7. "at" should be "and" (unless - of course - fans were agreeing with the jeering fans and cheered them on).


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 07, 2017, 11:00:00 AM
1. Why did the first question get a question mark and the second one didn't?


2. So where's the statement?


3. Ever hang a picture? Basically, you put it in a frame and hang it from a nail in the wall. I doubt that this "skyscraper-size image" - as the article refers to it - is hanging from a wall, as the caption infers.

The writer of the article is Steve Popper, who's written for The Record for quite a while. He is not a staff photographer, as what's under the caption states. He's a writer who covers the Knicks and took a photo while he was near the Garden. It's cheaper than sending a real staff photographer along with him just to take that picture (pictures of the game in The Record were taken by a USA Today photographer).


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 09, 2017, 11:30:01 AM
1. Once or twice a week, The Record print edition puts the Main and Sports sections inside a 1.5-page overlay ad, where the top of the half front pages are copies of the real pages and line up perfectly with the actual front pages. Didn't quite line up today.


2. "phrase" - not "phase"


3. "too" - not "to" (how did they manage to get it right just 3 words later?)


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 10, 2017, 07:22:44 PM
1. Major screw-up here when the paper has no idea what country the president was in last Tuesday.


2. Lesser screw-ups here. The first one should be "Derek" and the second one is extremely obbbvious.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 11, 2017, 01:00:00 PM
1&2. The error is in the second one, but because that enlargement cuts out most of the headline, I've included the full headline first.

It's another article about how Puerto Rico is still struggling because of Hurricane Maria. The problem is that the sub-headline says that the storm happened 7 months ago, while the first line of the second paragraph states - correctly - that it occurred 7 weeks ago. While I'm sure it must feel like 7 months ago to those affected, this mistake is just thoughtless.


3. If it's inspired by Gulen, then you have to use a hyphen: Gulen-inspired.


4. Speaking of hyphens, the underlined "word" is in dire need of one: male-centric.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 14, 2017, 06:05:15 PM
From yesterday:

1. The QB's first name is Jameis - not James.


Today:

2. The caption on an almost-identical photo of McAdoo (see my November 8 post) said he was "reacting". Today, it's the dreaded "looks on". Both captions are uninformative, empty-headed and created without the benefit of a single brain cell.


3. They're "discussing a play"? Seriously?


4. The last letter of the last word in the last sentence of the last paragraph? SOOOOOOO close!


4a. If The Record wrote song titles...............


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 15, 2017, 04:04:33 PM
1. Wow! They actually remember that he was TALKING in this 18 year-old photo! And because he has a HEADSET on, he couldn't possibly be whistling, sucking on a lemon ball or grimacing as a Jets QB gets clotheslined. Remarkable!


2. Shouldn't there be a "to" after "close"?


3. "Everyday" is an adjective. It should read, "every day". An everyday activity is something you do every day.


4. This is the Jets' bye week............at least I thought it was. But according to the writer, it's their bye year because he says that the next game is on September 26 (OK - bye 10 months).
Absolutely sloppy!


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 15, 2017, 05:15:03 PM
Because I'll be out of commission for a while, this might be a good time to wrap this up. If "my favorite paper" doesn't get the point by now - and they clearly don't - they never will. Of course, if I see something in the future that's SO remarkably stupid, I reserve the right to share it with people who have at least a minor command of the language and its rules. Feel free to post any glaring miscues yourself.

Since I've already posted today's stumbles, I'll leave you with something that - while technically not incorrect - is something that the paper has been doing since the takeover that's SO lazy, limiting, annoying (and frequent), that I've been collecting them for for the last 3 weeks or so, just to see how many there would be and how often they resort to this cheap excuse for a story.

The answer is 22 (plus one bit of sarcomicastic relief). Unfortunately, I can only include 20 images in a post, so 3 were omitted.

If you want to write for The Record and your favorite number isn't 5, you're out, because everything can be explained, solved and used as filler through the magic of FIVE.

How else would you explain the over-dependence on this lazy tool?

Ready? (and why is there a period in the first one?............plus, they doubled-down on 5 in the last image on a topic that grips the heart and soul of every reader)




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on February 01, 2018, 03:47:17 PM
Over the past 2 months, The Record - especially the sports section - has gotten much better at spelling words correctly and cleaning up the myriad mistakes they CONSTANTLY made, though they are far from perfect (and they're still overdoing that annoying "5" thing I wrote about in the previous post).

After a few hiccups over the last couple of months, they're starting to slip again. Along with those hiccups, here are some of the other head-scratchers, ending with two stunning screwups this week:

(click where available to enlarge)



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on February 02, 2018, 02:05:05 PM
Art Stapleton has been a good football writer for The Record for a long time. After the ownership changed, he appears to have been required to use this idiotic "5 things" in almost every one of his stories and it's REALLY annoying. I know this probably isn't his idea because it's all over the paper..........it must be a USA Today thing.

Speaking of "things", here are 16 sequential ones from Mr. Stapleton in the last 6 weeks (12 in just the last 4 weeks). The last one is from today and it's somewhat misleading.

Click to enlarge most of them so you don't miss a "thing".





Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on February 04, 2018, 02:30:06 PM
It's Super Spelling/Grammar Errors Sunday at The Record today.

Click to enlarge:



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on February 10, 2018, 01:23:15 PM
Still don't think that The Record is obsessed with the number 5?

13 of the 18 examples below are from this year, which is a mere 6 weeks old.

Click most of these to enlarge:




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on March 14, 2018, 03:43:04 PM
Another month of Five Jive from The Record (11 of 19 are just from the Sports writers):

(click to enlarge)


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day - TIMELY & USELESS
Post by: BLeafe on March 17, 2018, 11:00:09 AM
Binge-watching - the practice of watching multiple episodes of a television program in rapid succession, typically by means of DVDs or digital streaming.

This article doesn't recommend watching multiple episodes of a television program.......... it says to watch one episode of 5 different shows - hardly binge-watching and hardly worth taking up 80% of the front page of the entertainment (Better Living) section.

Click to enlarge so it can take up 80% of this post.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: ericmartindale on March 17, 2018, 08:35:48 PM
I have some pity for The Record, believe it or not. In order to have the level of copy-proofing that we saw as children and young adults, they would have to hire many more people, and that would not be economical.  And these days, it's barely economical to run a newspaper at all, and they are folding one by one as readers gravitate towards other news sources, especially online sources.  At least we have them as a news source, and at least they are no longer in Hackensack meddling with local matters.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on March 18, 2018, 01:30:47 PM
Compared to what it once was, I pity The Record too, but I pity their readers much more. Have you read all the online vitriol against what they've done to this paper?

"Absolute garbage at this point. As bad as a handout. It appears Gannett, and the shameful people they’ve installed to run the operation, couldn’t care less about the embarrassing product."

"It’s a slap in the face to those of us who counted on The Record for so many years to bring us localized journalism."

"...riddled with typos. I mean, come on, an occasional error is one thing, but every day I see several and it is annoying. Isn’t the business of editors to, well, to EDIT?!?"

"An example of the Record’s crappy editing: I was reading about a football game last weekend. There was no final score in the headline or body of the article, just intermediate scores during a comeback scenario. Bush league."



Other complaints: local coverage is skimpy, more than half of the GOOD staff were let go and their content was replaced by articles from the Asbury Park Press, USA Today and other non-local sources, the print is much smaller, customer service has gone WAY downhill, they will not re-deliver if they missed you, the paper it's printed on has recently become very low-grade, and they're asking for large increases in the subscription rate for all these negatives.

There's actually not ONE thing I can think of that I could call an improvement since the takeover.

Can you?

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on March 19, 2018, 11:18:52 AM
More sloppiness: in today's Record, whoever writes the photo captions doesn't know the difference between "photographs" and "photographers"...............TWICE in the same article.

Click to enlarge.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Homer Jones on March 20, 2018, 01:56:34 PM
Sad thing is that “It ain’t gonna get any better.”
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on April 08, 2018, 02:55:02 PM
Sad thing is that “It ain’t gonna get any better.”

Amen, brother! Here's more proof ((click to enlarge):

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on April 08, 2018, 04:25:31 PM
More buffoonery (click to enlarge):


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on April 08, 2018, 05:34:24 PM
You have to realize The Record's pages are being made up who knows where, in one of Gannet's design studios. The design studio that was preparing the pages, in Neptune, N.J., was closed last year, and the people were laid off. Now, Gannett employees far away, with limited knowledge of New Jersey, are writing headlines, photo captions and so forth. But if you look at the website, NorthJersey.com, that is also filled with numerous errors and typos, too.

This is from a North Jersey.com story on opening day of the trout season:

Opening day of trout season
 
Tadashi Hara or Paramus caught the daily limit of 6 trout in the first our and a half of the on a season opening day.  Marko Georgiev/NorthJersey.com


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on April 09, 2018, 03:15:38 PM
...content was replaced by articles from the Asbury Park Press, USA Today and other non-local sources...


As I mentioned above last month, I'm aware of the non-local nature of our supposedly local paper, but no matter where the contributors are from, grammar, spelling and sentence structure are constants (well, they were until this bunch came along). The READABILITY of the paper is affected every time your eyes hit one of these visual road bumps and the flow is interrupted. It's really annoying.

I don't know how an inanimate object can acquire human qualities, but this paper has managed to appear to be quite amateurly ignorant.

Just today, I plucked these two little gems from the same page in the sports section:



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on May 01, 2018, 04:31:35 PM
Many just call The Record a rag:

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-selective-look-at-once-great-daily.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-selective-look-at-once-great-daily.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on May 02, 2018, 08:05:10 AM
Previous editions of readers complaining about The Record under Gannett:

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2017/07/dated-columns-chest-thumping-errors.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2017/07/dated-columns-chest-thumping-errors.html)

http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-record-readers-slam-daily-as-rabid.html (http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-record-readers-slam-daily-as-rabid.html)

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-records-readers-hit-corporate-greed.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-records-readers-hit-corporate-greed.html)

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on May 04, 2018, 04:43:02 PM
The Record's "5" fetish continues unabated.

In an effort to keep the comment with the image (in some cases), I've taken out the unnecessary newsprint and replaced it with the comment. Be sure to click images to enlarge them - especially where I've commented within the image. Otherwise, the print may be too small to read.

Let's start with something from today's paper. This is the actual page - minus most of the newsprint - with one "5" story on top of another.

There's another "5-stack" at the end.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on May 04, 2018, 04:48:15 PM
While the "5" infatuations aren't really errors, these are.

Once again, let's start with today's stellar edition of the paper - another actual page minus the newsprint. I hope my non-concise replacement print is readable after clicking on the pic.

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on June 03, 2018, 02:00:46 PM
12 Fives and 8 Duhs (click to enlarge):


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on June 04, 2018, 10:46:55 AM
The Record's style has always been to use the day of the week, not "tomorrow" and "yesterday." So, you can say something will take place "today," but otherwise, you say "Sunday" or "Tuesday" and so forth. Still, under Gannett, numerous stories have been published with the wrong time element. Stories seem to be taken from the website and put in the print edition without changes, including any copy editing to fix the time element. A real shit show.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on June 04, 2018, 02:43:13 PM
A photo caption is supposed to give helpful information about the picture. This is an incredibly dopey-assed caption that's off in so many ways that the only thing that's accurate is that it shows Todd Frazier. There's nothing else that connects this picture to anything in the caption after his name. For all we know, Todd could be saying, "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane...".

You can see that the date of publication is today - Monday, June 4, 2018, so the "Monday" mentioned in the caption can't be today, right? That means it would have to be last Monday - if it was any further back, it would need a date. But the Mets weren't in Cincinnati last Monday............they were in Atlanta.

Why go to such lengths to make up irrelevant nonsense that any sports fan can see right through?

Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on June 05, 2018, 04:20:48 PM
The Record's circulation is tanking, Gannett admits:

http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2018/06/gannett-admits-circulation-of-record.html (http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2018/06/gannett-admits-circulation-of-record.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: ericmartindale on June 06, 2018, 02:28:12 AM
Yes, readers want local news in the newspaper, and that's the reason why The Record's circulation dropped. It would be difficult to recover the readers at this point, but not impossible.

Most readers are now relying on TV, radio, and social media for national and international news. They are not buying the newspaper for national and international news. And the one aspect of that which used to be DAILY was the guy who wrote the political cartoons, and they cut him from daily to weekly.  And that really hurt The Record.

Readers want local news in the newspaper, and sports, and if it doesn't deliver that, they'll drop it.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day (MAJOR screwup)
Post by: BLeafe on June 19, 2018, 05:40:02 PM
Today, the two baseball beat writers have combined to create the biggest writing boondoggle I have ever seen in any newspaper. To be fair, though, it's probably more accurate to say that an unnamed someone else without a speck of local Major League baseball knowledge in his/her head has done this to the writers, who will get the blame because only THEIR names and faces are shown.

Let's start with the much-worse-off left half of the below page - the one that says "Yankees Notes", but shows a head shot of the Mets' beat writer, Matt Ehalt ("On the Mets"). The story IS the Yankee one and the title - "Frazier takes place on roster" - refers to the Yankees' Clint Frazier, who rejoined the team yesterday.

Now it gets a bit messy. The featured photo shows TODD Frazier, who was with the Yankees last year, but is now a Met. He's even shown wearing a Mets uniform. The caption says that "Todd Frazier's big-league career has been in a suspended state due to a spring training concussion and the Yankees' crowded outfield". Those reasons are why CLINT Frazier finally got to join the Yankees yesterday. Wrong picture, wrong first name, right reasons, wrong writer.

On the right side of the page, "Mets Notes" shows Yankees' beat writer Pete Caldera ("On the Yankees") and a story w/photo of Mets' outfielder Jay Bruce. Everything's passable, except that the Met's beat writer - the guy who wrote it - is nowhere to be found.

No one noticed ANY of these things when all this started out online and could have been fixed before going to the print edition?

Whaddaya wanna bet that there'll be no mention of ANY of this in tomorrow's "Corrections" on Pg 2A?

I hope I'm wrong.


Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on June 20, 2018, 11:10:10 AM
Whaddaya wanna bet that there'll be no mention of ANY of this in tomorrow's "Corrections" on Pg 2A?

Not a peep - business as usual.


Of the below 8 errors (from June 11), 7 of them were all on ONE page. That's why the files had to be named A through G.

Click to enlarge.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on June 21, 2018, 10:55:00 AM
Whaddaya wanna bet that there'll be no mention of ANY of this in tomorrow's "Corrections" on Pg 2A?

Not a peep - business as usual.


........but only for a day:

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on June 21, 2018, 11:10:00 AM
And lest anyone thinks that only the Sports section makes errors, here's part of an article in the Better Living section about the unusual food offerings at State Fair Meadowlands, which starts today. Each of the 7 named items is followed by a description of that food. However, the description of the first one probably won't make anyone's mouth water:

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on June 21, 2018, 03:11:18 PM
A bill in the New Jersey Legislature would set up a consortium that would use donations to improve local news coverage:

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2018/06/nj-bill-hopes-to-revive-local.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2018/06/nj-bill-hopes-to-revive-local.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 12, 2018, 04:45:01 PM
During basketball season, "raining threes" is a good thing when your team is doing it. At The Record, it rains fives EVERY season - more like a 12-month downpour - which is NOT a good thing. And lest you think that this lazy and unimaginative shortcut to article-writing is solely the domain of the sports section, I'm here to tell you that only 16 of the following 19 recent examples originated there, so take that, naysayers!

The first two non-sports offerings should have been only one, but someone thought no one would notice if they rearranged a word or two and ran the same story on two consecutive days. Talk about lazy!


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 12, 2018, 05:05:43 PM
Once again - lay off the sports department. Only 8 of these 11 gems belong to them:


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 17, 2018, 01:00:02 PM
There's a real doozy in today's sports section.

Below is most of the front page. The problem resides with the "Culture Shift" article. In it, as the subhed mentions, new-ish defensive alignments - specifically The Shift, where entire infields are shifted to one side, based on a batter's tendencies - are discussed. As is common with front-page stories, the article is continued on another page.

A minor point to bring up is that you're usually told to find that continuation under a title that's related to the subject. Something with the word "shift" in it would be appropriate in this case. However, this one tells you to look for "ALL STAR GAME".................but that's not the problem.

It also tells you that the continuation is on Page 1S, which happens to be....................THE FRONT PAGE!

OK - so maybe it's on another page in the section. Guess again. The rest of the article doesn't exist.

By the way, that's not all the errors. If you look where it says "Tuesday's Game", it states that the game is on at 7pm on Fox. Every other listing in the entire paper correctly says that it's 8pm.

But DO tune in at 7pm for Page Six TV.


Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on July 17, 2018, 02:22:56 PM
Sports is probably the least important stuff in The Record. I agree there is no excuse for the sloppiness there, but don't you miss coverage of Hackensack news, and the lack of local news in general?
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on July 17, 2018, 02:23:58 PM
Also, when I open this topic, why do I see your first post from 2017, I think, instead of your last?
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 17, 2018, 06:04:08 PM
Sports is probably the least important stuff in The Record.

I feel the same way about their never-ending food obsession. This is "news"? (and that's a rhetorical question)


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 17, 2018, 06:25:40 PM
Also, when I open this topic, why do I see your first post from 2017, I think, instead of your last?

You just answered your own question: you've opened the topic  - that means the whole topic - by clicking on it when you're on the Hackensack Discussion forum page instead of clicking on the title of the Recent Post you want on the main page.

If you want to open a post, don't open the topic instead.





Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on July 18, 2018, 09:54:41 AM
Thanks
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 19, 2018, 04:14:13 PM
From today's paper:

Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 21, 2018, 09:55:35 AM
Bob + Victor = Eric  (philosophically speaking, of course)

Agreed?

Click to enlarge.


Title: My favorite paper IS having a good day!
Post by: BLeafe on July 26, 2018, 03:32:00 PM
Guest photographer: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=6417


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 07, 2018, 01:32:25 PM
Time to resume the doom.


Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 22, 2018, 01:48:37 PM
Welcome to the latest installment of "Fives & Flubs", starring The Record. The majority of the flubs are caption-related.


Click to enlarge.




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 10, 2018, 04:00:00 PM
More FIVES & FLUBS (with no end in sight)

Click to enlarge.




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 19, 2018, 10:10:12 AM
I was surprised when The Record decided to devote 3/4 of the front page of Monday's Better Living section (plus 1/2 of page 3) to - of all things - BAGELS.

I was shocked when they devoted  3/4 of the front page of Tuesday's Better Living section (plus 3/4 of Page 2) to...............BAGELS!

I was ASTOUNDED when they devoted  3/4 of the front page of Wednesday's Better Living section (plus ALL of Page 3) to...............................MORE FRICKIN' BAGELS!!

The Monday and Wednesday articles contained lists of North Jersey's best bagel shops (one listed 10 and the other, 11). Only 5 shops made both lists. That means that each list is at least 50% inaccurate, according to the other list.

This is worse than when they ran multiple articles about hot dogs in the beginning of the summer.

Are they finished? Will I find more of this tomorrow after they've already wasted 4.5 pages of ink in 3 days on boring bagels?

This is "Better Living"?

Oy!


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on September 25, 2018, 01:52:54 PM
A Page 1 column in The Record on the Tesla Model 3 is filled with errors:

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2018/09/clueless-error-filled-column-on-all.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2018/09/clueless-error-filled-column-on-all.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 02, 2018, 02:02:07 PM
FIVES & FLUBS (continued):

Click to enlarge:



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 18, 2018, 05:46:26 PM
more Fives & Flubs

Only five 5s? I won't say they're finally cutting down because if I do, there'll be 20 next time.





Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 31, 2018, 02:10:00 PM
Happy Halloween! How come these things scare everyone but editors, publishers and investors?

1,2. These two headlines are bad enough by themselves, but...........

3. ............things sink to a new level when they're both on the same page.

4, 5. Change of seasonal ineptness as baseball fades and basketball rises

6,7,8. Blah, blah and blah

9. This shows that ALL the problems aren't restricted to the sports section.


As usual, moron-mania follows.


Click to enlarge.








Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 21, 2018, 10:45:12 AM
Fives & Flubs

Sorry - there is just SO much stupidity this time around that there is no room for the frequent Fives.

Let's start with a horrible Hackensack Chronicle flub.


Click to enlarge.





Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on December 03, 2018, 01:01:03 PM
FIVES & FLUBS (Chapter 346)

Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on December 04, 2018, 05:10:38 PM
I didn't expect to be posting in this thread again so soon, but today's edition was a MESS. I found about a dozen problems and - surprise, surprise - all but one were in the sports section............and THAT one was sports-related.

Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on December 10, 2018, 02:17:55 PM
It used to take a couple of weeks to fill up a post of Record errors, but not lately. They're really screwing up and getting worse.

That said, the Fives & Flubs sad deluge continues:

Click to enlarge:






Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on December 18, 2018, 12:36:34 PM
Have you noticed The Record is running what sound like restaurant reviews on the Better Living front on Wednesdays? Star ratings aren't given, as they were in the Friday restaurant reviews that ended in November 2016 with the departure of critic Elisa Ung, several months after the newspaper was sold to Gannett Co. And prices don't always appear. Nor are readers assured The Record paid for the reviewer's meals.

On Dec. 12 (last Wednesday), Food Editor Esther Davidowitz panned The Hill, a highly anticipated seafood restaurant that opened in Closter after many months of delay. The headline said the restaurant "doesn't quite wow." Davidowitz said she visited four times, and "each time left disappointed and perplexed." Four times? She mentions only 7 appetizers and entrees in her appraisal. Did she go alone? She says, "I have eaten chef Ben Pollinger's food at Oceana, that seafood mecca in Manhattan where the Oradell resident worked for many years, and can vouch for his terrific cooking skills. Perhaps my expectations were too high."

On Dec. 5, Davidowitz appraised Vanillamore, a dessert lounge and restaurant in Montclair that would be avoided like the plague by anyone watching their cholesterol and sugar intake, as are many older readers of The Record. She praises "delightfully innovative, extraordinarily stylized desserts" and "beautifully plated savory dishes."

On Nov. 21, Davidowtitz reviewed yet another Montclair restaurant, even though the town isn't in Bergen County, once the heart of The Record's readership. She says the kitchen of the Montclair Social Club "sends out some of the best food my dining companions and I had eaten in North Jersey in some time." Again, there is no star rating or assurance The Record paid for the meals.

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on December 20, 2018, 11:00:04 AM
Welcome to the Christmas edition of Fives & Flubs (unless there is a flood of errors in the next 4 days). There's only 1 Five.............and - as usual - lots of Flubs.


Click to enlarge:


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on December 26, 2018, 10:15:20 PM
Welcome to the Christmas edition of Fives & Flubs (unless there is a flood of errors in the next 4 days).

I was sort of joking when I wrote that, but it turns out I almost wasn't. I'm one day late, thanks (?) to EIGHT Flubs and a token Five - all in today's sports section. It's an overwhelmingly-shameful display of incompetency.

Click to enlarge:


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day - YEAR END EDITION
Post by: BLeafe on December 31, 2018, 01:45:02 PM
Welcome to the year-end edition of Fives & Flubs. Because of all the useless "Five storylines for 2019" rehashes this week, the Flubs are outnumbered, reversing a recent trend.

Let's hope that 2019 brings some intelligence to the paper...............ESPECIALLY to the moronic captions!
     (fat frickin' chance!)


Click to enlarge and then go get drunk. You've earned it if you've managed to wade through The Record Number of Errors this year.

Happy New Year!






Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on January 11, 2019, 11:25:12 AM
Brand new year, same old problems...............maybe THIS will be the year they wake up (and maybe a green sun will rise tomorrow morning).

Click to enlarge.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on January 22, 2019, 10:30:04 AM
And the numbers/news numbskullery continues................

Click to enlarge.




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on January 27, 2019, 03:33:29 PM
When I got The Record home delivered, I used to put the Sports section into the recycling without ever reading it. So, all of this exhaustive review of typos and so forth seems like another waste of space.

The real horror about The Record and Hackensack Chronicle, both gutted by Gannett, is that they are a parody of a local daily and weekly newspaper. The Chronicle no longer has its own staff and merely reprints stories from The Record or The Wretched, as many say.

The Friday, Jan. 25, Hackensack Chronicle carries not a single word about the special school election 3 days earlier, when voters overwhelmingly rejected a $170 million school construction and renovation proposal that would have triggered a 30-year tax hike of $308 to $650 and more a year. Instead, the weekly carried a front page tribute to Harold Bloom, a former Hackensack High School principal who died at 89.

Even though the election was held and decided 3 days earlier, the second page carries a story reporting a judge ordered a change in the wording of the ballot proposal, which didn't state the tax hike would be yearly for 30 years. And on Page 8, a long letter reacts to Mayor John Labrosse opposing the proposal, which was reported on Page 1 of the Jan. 11 Chronicle. The long, long letter was signed by Ellen O'Reilly of Hackensack (whoever she is), and it's the only letter in the paper.

The Record and Hackensack Chronicle have never as far as I know explored an issue that incenses property tax payers in Hackensack, namely the impact of so-called non-profits such as Hackensack University Medical Center on the taxes you and I pay. They include Bergen County, Fairleigh Dickinson University, the Bergen County Academy, Eastwick College and so forth.

The front page of the Dec. 28 Chronicle reported HUMC will be building a 43,500-square-foot utility plant, and I also saw a story -- I'm not sure where -- reporting the hospital is building a 300,000 square foot medical tower. If both of those are tax-exempt, as is most of the rest of the complex that ate Hackensack and spit it out long ago, that will only shift the tax burden further onto homeowners and small business owners. The hospital pays its CEO about $3 million a year and takes in money hand over fist, so how can it legitimately claim to be non-profit?

Sadly, the City Council will not sue HUMC and take the case all the way up to the state Supreme Court, thus establishing a precedent that will bind all non-profit hospitals to start paying their fair share of property taxes. In Hackensack, that would be about $19 million a year, not including the new utility and patient projects on the way.

Instead, the council announced last year how proud officials are of a new 6-year agreement that will see the hospital pay $4 million a year in "host community fees." Months after that agreement was announced, council members could not say whether some of the money will be used to pave some of the crummy potholed streets drivers find all over the city.

City officials also are getting the shaft from Bergen County, which has dragged its feet on paving parts of Prospect and Summit avenues that are in terrible shape or installing turn lanes on Passaic Street, in both directions at Summit Avenue, a choke point for traffic. One city council member said the city couldn't "force" the county to take part of the properties on each side of Passaic to create the turn lanes on the narrow, two-lane street, which dates to the Revolutionary War.

The Chronicle is such a piece of Gannett crap that the front page story on Dec. 7, 2018, was about a dog that was allegedly missing for 9 months before it was found. And it wasn't even a Hackensack dog; "Zina" escaped from her River Vale home; she was found in Hackensack. Page 2 reported that renovations at the Lido Restaurant in Hackensack were being delayed.

On Nov. 16, a story about a new commuter shuttle in Hackensack was buried inside while Page 1 of the Chronicle (or maybe "Hackensack Chronic Pain") reported the body of a man, 39, who tried to swim across the Hackensack River on Nov. 4, was recovered on Nov. 6. By the way, a free shuttle runs from the city's bus terminal to its two train stations, the county complex and the "local hospital," presumably a reference to the mammoth HUMC complex. The "Hackensack Transit Connector" is being paid for by the Federal Transit Administration, North Jersey Transportation Authority and Bergen County; I'd like to see more such giving back to the city by non-profits.

Meanwhile, an editorial in the same Nov. 16 Chronicle notes the Trump administration is denying funding for a 10-mile extension of the misnamed Hudson-Bergen Light Rail into Bergen County, terminating at Englewood Hospital.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on January 27, 2019, 09:55:00 PM
We get it - you don't like sports. No one cares. This thread is about the newspaper - not just sports. If you actually read it, you'll see that problems exist in other sections too. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the problems exist in the sports section. Would you like me to fabricate some non-sports problems to balance things out for you?

You're not compelled to read it, you know, so it seems rather silly to complain about it  - especially since you have your own platform in which to rail against The Record.

I find food obsession to be incredibly boring. Talk about a waste of space! Would you like me to mindlessly complain about that and balance things out even more?

If you don't like it, don't read it............end of problem.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on January 29, 2019, 04:00:47 PM
What food obsession? And the last list you posted had 1 non-sports item out of 17 or 18 items.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on January 29, 2019, 07:24:59 PM
the last list you posted had 1 non-sports item out of 17 or 18 items.

And that's MY fault?

As usual, you're still not paying attention. FOUR out of 18 were unrelated to sports. I also addressed the imbalance of sports section errors relative to the number of errors found in the rest of the paper. Not much I can do about that, short of throwing out the sports section unread.

Oh wait, that's YOUR "solution".



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on February 02, 2019, 12:15:49 PM
1 or 4 items not related to sports is immaterial. My eyes glaze over just trying to take in all the stuff you post, and it's extremely repetitive. Seems like you have nothing better to do. I can relate to that. And, again, the paper is doing a lot more disservice to readers by reducing local coverage and filling local news pages with police news. One Local section was an economy instituted by Stephen Borg, but it means Bergen readers have had an overwhelming amount of Paterson news shoved down their throats for years.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on February 02, 2019, 12:28:09 PM
OLD NEWS WRIT LARGE:

Friday's Hackensack Chronicle finally carried a front-page story on the results of the special school election on Jan. 22, when voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposed $170 million school construction and renovation bond. The caption under a photo of poll workers said: "Hackensack held a referendum Tuesday...."  The story cited results "Tuesday night." In both cases, the reference was not to the previous Tuesday, Jan. 29, but to Jan. 22 -- 11 days before the paper hit driveways.

Sharing Page 1 with that story was the monumental news that a second brewery will open in Hackensack. Now, residents can drown their troubles in beer, including high property taxes aggravated by non-profits like Hackensack University Medical Center, Bergen County and Fairleigh Dickinson University.

The brewery story says the new one will open its doors "next month," then noted the grand opening will be Saturday, Feb. 2. The paper is dated Friday, Feb. 1.

So, there's no telling when the Chronicle, which reprints stories from The Record, will tell residents that another important school election is coming up in April, when the City Council hopes to seize control of the school board and finally get to review and cut its bloated budget, which accounts for 45% of each resident's property tax bill:

READ: http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/01/hackensack-officials-hoping-april-vote.html (http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/01/hackensack-officials-hoping-april-vote.html)

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on February 03, 2019, 12:45:01 PM
My eyes glaze over just trying to take in all the stuff you post, and it's extremely repetitive. Seems like you have nothing better to do.

Well, DUH! OF COURSE it's repetitive when they keep making the same mistakes. And it will remain repetitive as long as they continue to do so.

I have nothing better to do? Boy, you really DON'T pay attention, do you.  I recently wrote that I spent an entire week shooting over a thousand pictures and 3 dozen videos of the Holman demolition and a second week editing every picture and condensing all the videos down to one. That's not a complaint - I'm happy to capture every bit of future history that appeals to me - but it's quite time-consuming.

And then there's the time spent responding to your inattentive, glazed-over eyeballs while mine roll skyward...............




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on February 04, 2019, 02:20:00 PM
Back to the sad, sorry show - and thank you to anyone reading this who manages to trudge through it all and understands why this all needs to be out there. Hopefully, at least one of the people reading this works at The Record, is in a position of authority and does not appreciate how the paper currently looks to anyone with a decent command of the language.

The Fives & Flubs carnage continues:




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on February 11, 2019, 01:22:04 PM
You've been cataloging these errors for how long, and you claim one of your readers works at The Record and cares how the paper looks? No he or she doesn't or you wouldn't have anything to write about. It's getting worse, not better. As for the union truck parked in front of a no parking sign, were you suggesting it should be ticketed?

You are aware the paper isn't even edited in New Jersey anymore? After Gannett took over, more than 350 layoffs included nearly all of the remaining copy editors, the last line of defense against grammatical and factual errors, and the enforcers of style. The design studio for The Record was in Neptune, N.J., where Gannett's crappy Asbury Park Press was published. That place closed, and design of The Record was moved somewhere out of state where minions work on a number of Gannett papers.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on February 11, 2019, 02:06:07 PM
DIABETIC SHOCK:

The readers of The Record's print edition are predominantly older, and I imagine many went into diabetic shock when they saw a huge photo on the Better Living cover last Friday, Feb. 8, of a French dessert called tarte Tartin topped with a scoop of ice cream, said to be served at a restaurant in Westwood.

The cover photo was part of a story on "5 new restaurants you need to try now" by Food Editor Esther Davidowitz, who single handedly has recommended more unhealthy or low quality, crappy food than any other single staffer at the paper. (There's the number 5 again, suggesting that is all the room the paper had on that Friday, when you include blown-up photos of the recommended dishes.)

Don't you resent some faceless food editor claiming you must try a restaurant and do it now? What arrogance. Davidowitz is one of the staffers who survived the Gannett takeover; the rest of the staff is made up of young, inexperienced reporters who don't know shit from Shinola, and can't possibly fathom some of the biggest issues in Hackensack, such as the impact of tax-exempt non-profits on the property taxes paid by homeowners and small businesses.

Two days earlier, on Wednesday, Feb. 6, the Better Living cover article carried these headlines:

"Urge to splurge"

"Treat yourself to fabulous food at these 14 restaurant"

Make sure your gas tank is full or that your electric car is fully charged, if you intend to eat at all of them. Although Bergen County is where the majority of readers live, eating at most of the 14 would be a road trip -- the recommended restaurants are in Princeton, Warren, New Brunswick, Merchantville, Swedesboro, New Hope (Pa.), Collingswood, Middletown and Asbury Park.

And, of course, if you went to any of those 9 far-off restaurants and wanted to enjoy wine with your dinner, you'd have to have a designated driver.

Davidowitz, the arrogant food editor, sniffs, "Here are 14 NJ restaurants where the food may be more than you're used to paying but it's often better -- much better -- than you're used to getting."

How could she possibly know that? And she wrote "the food may be more..." when she meant to say "the food may cost more..."

What she doesn't say is to assure readers she and the other reviewers whose bylines appear over the article actually paid for their meals; otherwise, the article would be little more than advertising.




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on February 11, 2019, 03:10:30 PM
1. Your reading comprehension really needs some work. How else could you get "you claim one of your readers works at The Record and cares how the paper looks?" from "Hopefully, at least one of the people reading this works at The Record, is in a position of authority and does not appreciate how the paper currently looks..."?

Don't waste your time making up stuff because you're gonna get called out on it.


2. "There's the number 5 again"

Thank you, Captain Obvious, but you KNOW I've already got that one tucked away, right?
(rhetorical)


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on February 12, 2019, 11:44:34 AM
As for the union truck parked in front of a no parking sign, were you suggesting it should be ticketed?

Once again, you're missing the point. I'm saying that there are big attention-grabbing things in the center of the picture that was chosen to represent the story, yet they are not addressed in either the story OR the caption. Why run the picture if you don't explain what's in it?


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on February 12, 2019, 12:00:12 PM
After the pair of Fives, the first picture is NOT from The Record, but rather from its local step-child - the Hackensack Chronicle. The Chronicle is a weekly rag that arrives with the Friday Record, though its purpose escapes me.

It only contains news that's at least a week old - news you've already read in The Record. However, this image was NOT in The Record. If it was, you'd already have seen it in this thread.

Why?

I've been under the same Route 4 bridge as these "Volunteers" (why is that capitalized?), but I've yet to come across the section that has the nice flooring, good lighting and decent, clean clothing (that still has a dry cleaner's plastic bag over it) that the image depicts.

Nice to see that the Chronicle is picking up on The Record's ghastly habits (keep it in the family) and here's the lastest installment of said gaffes:


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on February 27, 2019, 01:10:12 PM
The last entry in this post is NOT from The Record, but it IS related to the thread.

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on March 08, 2019, 11:50:37 AM
Today's pile of fives and flubs

Click to enlarge:



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on March 09, 2019, 12:40:40 PM
The latest fish tale from The Record stinks to high heaven

'6 best places' for fish misses Costco, H Mart and The Hill

Rebecca King, a food and dining reporter for The Record and NorthJersey.com, describes herself on Twitter as a "theater nerd, bookworm and ice cream addict." I'd like add, Knows nothing about where to buy or eat fish in northern New Jersey.

Her piece on the 6 best places to go for fish appeared on the Better Living front this past Wednesday under a clunky headline:

'FIND FRESH FARE AT FISHMONGERS'

She's even wrong about the biggest reason many people complain about living in New Jersey. She lists "traffic, rude drivers, and astronomical rents," but omits high property taxes (and local daily newspapers that Gannett, owner of The Record of Woodland Park, has turned into rags filled with sloppy or inaccurate reporting, headlines and captions).

And she's wrong when she says that because the state isn't landlocked, we "have access to beautiful, yummy fresh fish." As I discovered when I wrote a cover story for The Record's Food section in 2003, most of the fish and shellfish that reach our tables comes from out of state or out of the country.

Wild-caught fish sold in New Jersey comes from Iceland, Alaska, Canada and even Suriname, a small country in South America.

She lists only one restaurant, Seafood Gourmet, a Maywood fish market with a small dining room in the back. It's one of my favorites. But she fails to mention The Hill in Closter, a fine-dining restaurant that opened last June with a focus on seafood. The restaurant serves a "First on The Scene" menu -- a fixed-price three-course dinner with a glass of wine for only $29 during limited hours four days a week. I enjoyed a beautiful piece of pan-seared Mahi-Mahi with mushrooms and bok choy, plus a salad, dessert and glass of wine.

King's list of markets is topped by The Fish Dock in Closter, a shop run by an Icelandic couple who specialize in the incredible variety of wild fish from the pristine North Atlantic, as well as some Gulf seafood.

But she doesn't mention the seafood counter at Whole Foods Market in Paramus is simply the biggest and best in northern New Jersey. And her claim that Whole Foods has "high prices" is nonsense now that the merger with Amazon has reduced prices throughout the store. Fresh Monkfish is only $8.99 a pound, and Amazon Prime members get special seafood deals.

Her list of fish markets also omits Costco Wholesale in Teterboro, which has unbeatable prices for such fresh, wild-caught fish as Icelandic cod and haddock, flounder from Canada, Silver Corvina from Suriname and Mahi-Mahi (all $8.99 a pound or less).

Also missing is H Mart, the Korean supermarket chain with an incredible variety of whole fish at its Ridgefield branch, and smaller fish counters in the Little Ferry, Fort Lee and Paramus stores. The fishmongers there will clean and prepare your fish any of 5 ways, including fillets.

Two of the photos with King's article carry awkwardly written captions:

"Neon signs in the storefront windows advertise fresh food at Seafood Gourmet in downtown Maywood." The only visible sign says, "Seafood Market."

Another photo shows the front of a Whole Foods Market, but the caption describes the place as a "grocery store."

And the cover photo showing the seafood case inside The Fish Dock in Closter appears against a dark background that makes it impossible to see any of the fish or the descriptive signs and prices.

All in all, this was another report from The Record's Better Living section and Food Editor Esther Davidowitz that was filled with misinformation or missing information.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: ericmartindale on March 10, 2019, 03:36:15 PM
I didn't know the Whole Foods / Amazon merger resulted in lower prices. 
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on March 11, 2019, 04:40:15 PM
Fives & Flubs: two of the first and 17 of the second.

This HAS to be a first. It's bad enough that I find 18-20 errors in the paper every 10-14 days, but 17 flubs in THREE days? And ELEVEN of them came from the nimble fingers of writer Mr. MetScribe? (#11 is a doozie)

EGAD! That's truly shameful.




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day (3-12-19 to 3-17-19)
Post by: BLeafe on March 18, 2019, 10:20:39 AM
3-12: 7

3-13: 3

3-14: 2

3-15: 2

3-16: 2

3-17: 4



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on March 20, 2019, 11:27:14 PM
I didn't know the Whole Foods / Amazon merger resulted in lower prices.

Yes, Eric. It got off to a slow start, but now there are deals all over Whole Foods in Paramus. And there always were reasonable prices on Whole Foods' budget line, 365 Everyday Value, including pasta sauces, salsas, organic whole wheat pasta from Italy and so forth. Plus, there are plenty of bottles of wine under $6, including one of my favorites, a Carmenere from Chile for $5.99. If you buy 6 bottles of wine, you get another 10% off. You can still find expensive items. But if you download the Whole Foods app, you'll find a list of items on sale every week, including organic pears and apples for $1.99 a pound. But it's best to shop early in the day for sale items, which tend to run out. Cheers
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on March 20, 2019, 11:31:17 PM
I still need help with a technical issue. Oldest items appear first under every topic and I have to scroll down each time through a long list of posts. How do I get newest items on top??????
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on March 21, 2019, 08:32:15 AM
We've had this discussion before, Victor.......

http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,3582.msg12937.html#msg12937


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: itsamike on March 21, 2019, 09:18:33 AM
The board's software doesn't support sorting, but the next-best-thing is the RSS feed. Subscribe to the feed using your RSS reader of choice (I like https://feedly.com/ (https://feedly.com/), but other readers are available) and add the board's URL: http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php?action=.xml;type=rss (http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php?action=.xml;type=rss). That'll show you each new message and let you click directly to it, where you'll find its most recent friends right above it.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on March 22, 2019, 12:03:33 PM
SLOPPY, SLOPPY, SLOPPY

When I was looking at The Record's story on the expansion of Hackensack University Medical Center, I used the version reprinted in the Hackensack Chronicle on Feb. 8. The lede paragraph by Melanie Anzidei referred to a "nine-story ... tower on Second Avenue," apparently a reference to Second Street in Hackensack.

A photo caption shows the hospital president "looking out onto Second St. in Hackensack." A second caption says, "Construction is underway on Second St. in Hackensack ... on the Second Street Tower."

And thank you to those who are trying to provide technical help.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on March 24, 2019, 06:13:19 PM
What The Record Had to Say About Congestion Pricing Plan In New York

The Record weighs in

Transportation writers at my local daily newspaper have never met a driver they didn't like.

On the other hand, Staff Writers John Cichowski and Curtis Tate of The Record and their editors have never, as far as I know, fretted over a struggling  trans-Hudson public transit system in one of the world's most congested metropolitan areas or called for its expansion.

Those reporters and opinion writers at the once-great daily -- now a Gannett rag based in Woodland Park -- may be kowtowing to car dealers and makers, whose advertising helps keep NorthJersey.com and the print edition afloat despite declining readership.

'Big costs?'

In a Page 1 story on Feb. 6, Tate warned that New Jersey commuters who pay Hudson River tolls to drive into the city "could face a double whammy that New York drivers coming into Manhattan from the outer boroughs would not."

But he doesn't say New Jersey drivers can reduce the impact of congestion pricing by carpooling or cut their commuting costs dramatically by switching to mass transit.

The clunky headline:

Big costs from NY
congestion pricing?

The cash toll at the three Hudson River crossings is $15 (collected going into the city), $12.50 with an E-ZPass tag during peak hours (weekdays 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.) and $10.50 off-peak.

Tate doesn't bother giving the E-ZPass carpool discount of $6.50 at all hours -- weekends, too --as long as there are 3 people in the vehicle.

The Port Authority told The Record 43.2 million passenger vehicles crossed the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey into Manhattan last year, but Tate doesn't say how many of those were then driven south of 60th Street into the planned congestion zone.

The Lincoln Tunnel was used by 14.4 million vehicles going to Manhattan, and 13.1 million used the Holland Tunnel, Tate said.

Will N.Y.C. be first?

New York would be the first U.S. city to adopt congestion pricing, but central London put a fee into effect in 2000.

Stockholm, Milan and Singapore also employ similar charges.

See my full comments on congestion pricing:

http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/03/attention-nj-commuters-you-dont-have.html (http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/03/attention-nj-commuters-you-dont-have.html)

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on March 25, 2019, 11:22:44 AM
So-called Road Warrior John Cichowski retires, resigns or is dismissed

Looks like John Cichowski -- The Record transportation columnist responsible for more errors and misinformation than any other single reporter in the history of that once-great local daily newspaper -- has retired:

I found this by Googling his name today:

"Jan 6, 2019 - Sloppy roads trigger reader outrage John Cichowski, The Road Warrior, @njroadwarrior. No matter how long or enjoyable the ride, it’s never wise to overshoot the exit, so as of this week I’m retiring as The Road Warrior for NorthJersey.com, The Record and the USA TODAY Network."

Good riddance. Cichowski and other reporters at The Record let Chris Christie, our former governor, destroy mass transit in the region without a protest -- from killing the first rail tunnel project to New York, stealing leftover transit funds to fix roads and bridges, and slashing NJ Transit aid by more than 90%. Christie also delayed a gas tax increase as long as possible, bringing the state's Transportation Trust Fund, which aids transit, to the brink of bankruptcy.

I tried to follow the link announcing his retirement, but there was nothing there.

The last item on his Twitter feed @NJRoadWarrior is from October 2017.

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on March 31, 2019, 01:03:39 PM
Note: Mr. MetsScribe is no longer with The Record. He has been replaced by Mr. JetsScribe, who will now become Mr. MetsScribe2. Better luck to you, sir.

Onward to this edition of Fives & Flubs:



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on April 01, 2019, 03:29:25 PM
The Record and NorthJersey.com lose even more readers in 2018

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-record-and-northjerseycom-lose-even.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-record-and-northjerseycom-lose-even.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on April 04, 2019, 03:58:24 PM
RECORD FOOD EDITOR DISHES ON BEST BURGERS

Not 5 best, but 15 + more than a dozen others

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/04/from-shit-to-ritz-are-these-really-best.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/04/from-shit-to-ritz-are-these-really-best.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on April 09, 2019, 12:26:28 PM
If you are looking for an alternative to The Record and NorthJersey.com, take a look at this site, TAPIntoHackensack:

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/hackensack/

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on April 14, 2019, 01:39:57 PM
Note: If anyone cares, the title of "Mr. MetsScribe" will NOT be taken over by Mr. JetsScribe. Apparently, that was only temporary until someone else was found. It looks like that person has been installed and will become Mr. MetsScribe2.

Onward and downward with Fives & Flubs.................

Click to enlarge.






Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on April 23, 2019, 11:51:42 AM
The only "5" is mixed with a flub. The three after that are a series from the 4-15-19 Record.

Everything else - with the exception of the last item - is Flub City.

That last item came from an intelligent reader and it was in today's Record, so it's quite timely.

Click to enlarge.






Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on April 29, 2019, 12:00:25 PM
Sloppy season is upon us (does it ever leave?). You know things are bad when it's only been 6 days since the last Fives & Flubs post - usually it's around twice as long. I smell an upside-down learning curve at my "favorite" (that's beginning to wear thin, guys............get your collective act together soon, please) newspaper.

Let's get started.

You can bet that when one team writer does it, the other has to, right? After an almost-Five, the flubs follow.............


Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on April 29, 2019, 06:22:23 PM
The photo of Art Stapleton is probably 20 years old, if not older. After The Record left Hackensack in 2009, the Sports section was put out in Rockaway, where the presses were located, not in Woodland Park. Not sure if that is still the case. The paper's clips -- newspaper stories going back I don't know how long -- also were kept in Rockaway.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on May 02, 2019, 01:12:05 PM
NEWS OF STING AND PASSAIC COUNTY

BERGEN READERS GO BEGGING

http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/05/bergen-readers-of-record-go-begging.html (http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/05/bergen-readers-of-record-go-begging.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on May 04, 2019, 11:59:56 AM
It's getting worse. This time, it's only been FIVE days since my last post of FIVES & FLUBS. I hope this doesn't devolve into a daily event. Who has the time every day to deal with an increasingly-Devo newspaper?

Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on May 17, 2019, 01:33:03 PM
I have 5 things in the "5 things" section and the last one also has a flub which leads right into the never-ending flood of flubs:


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on May 25, 2019, 12:40:01 PM
Only one "5" this time - probably because the paper was too busy doing other important stuff, like writing dopey "reacts" captions on every other sports picture and and featuring the same article on the Opinion page twice within a three-day period.

Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on June 12, 2019, 02:00:19 PM
Those 5s - they're just so darn helpful! How else would you know what to watch, what to take away, what to know, how to mark D-Day and those all-important restaurant openings you missed?

The flubs speak for themselves...................unfortunately.

Click to enlarge all but some verticals:



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on June 13, 2019, 11:38:34 AM
AT THE RECORD'S OLD SITE, TOMBSTONES FOR GREAT LOCAL JOURNALISM

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-records-old-address-markers-serving.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-records-old-address-markers-serving.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on June 23, 2019, 11:30:01 AM
3 Fives and 17 Flubs (and I'm not including the SUPER flub that was recently in the Obituary pages where one deceased gentleman's last name was changed to the town he lived in.....that poor family!):

(Click to enlarge)







Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on June 24, 2019, 01:09:30 PM
SHIT IN MY DRIVEWAY WASN'T FROM DOG WALKERS;
THE RECORD WAS DELIVERED TO US BY MISTAKE

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/06/shit-in-driveway-wasnt-from-dog-walkers.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/06/shit-in-driveway-wasnt-from-dog-walkers.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 02, 2019, 11:15:01 AM
Today's edition of Fives & Flubs features only one Five and 17 Flubs, which are rated DG (Doozies Galore!).

Click to enlarge:



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on July 04, 2019, 09:57:41 AM
Kudos to BLeafe for maintaining his sense of outrage on an almost daily basis over the typos, errors and just plain stupid mistakes from whomever is putting out The Record's Sports section from a Gannett design center hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from New Jersey. The saying, "You got to believe" could just as well be "You got to B Leafe." #gannettruinedmypaper https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/06/shit-in-driveway-wasnt-from-dog-walkers.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/06/shit-in-driveway-wasnt-from-dog-walkers.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 04, 2019, 10:56:58 AM
#gannettruinedmyaper

Gannett ruined your "aper"?

The good news is that there's a job waiting for you at The Record.............again.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on July 06, 2019, 01:45:03 PM
Did you ever think of working as a copy editor at a newspaper? Wait. Newspapers fired all their copy editors.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 13, 2019, 11:45:07 AM
Storylines, players, takeaways...............they only come in fives (but stupidity is endless).


Ckick to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on July 14, 2019, 10:08:29 AM
More much ado about nothing. One way to look at it is that many sports fans are barely literate and wouldn't know the difference between correct and incorrect syntax and silly captions. Judging from the number of arrests for human trafficking at the Super Bowl each year, fans are more interested in sex with underage girls than in typos and broken syntax. The New York Times Sports section today (Sunday) is 8 pages, including the TV listings on the back page. A recent copy of The Record I saw during the week also devoted 8 pages to Sports (what a waste), and only 3 to local news. Do sports fans even vote in presidential elections or care about municipal affairs in Hackensack or anywhere else? I seriously doubt it. When I was a reporter for the Hartford Courant in Connecticut in the 1970, I lived in a corner apartment overlooking a newspaper box in Hartford. I'll never forget the time I saw a man put a coin in the box, grab a copy of The Courant (which had many pages in a few sections), and dump all but the Sports section into a trash basket. That said it all, and has shaped my opinion of the large majority of sports fans.[size]
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 14, 2019, 03:50:09 PM
Once again, you COMPLETELY miss the point. I'm not trying to tell sports fans about grammar and captions. My writing is basically a complaint about the people who create all the errors and stupidity - people who are supposedly quite literate and who have been properly trained to do their jobs and should know better than to put out the crap they do. If I'm lucky, somebody in charge might realize what's going on and do something about it (and maybe the sun will be green tomorrow). I'm of the opinion that none of this should go unchallenged.

I'm a sports fan. Do I sound barely literate and grammatically-challenged to you? You're REALLY judgmental in your out-of-left-field and over-the-top characterizations. And how do you know that the Courant guy wasn't a subscriber whose Little League son got his picture in the sports section and Dad wanted another copy?

It's hardly healthy to get your opinions shaped by the weird biases that you let bounce around in your head.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on July 15, 2019, 09:05:08 AM
Thanks for the psychoanalysis. But you are talking about Gannett, the biggest newspaper publisher in the United States with a track record of buying papers, slashing the payroll and pages of local news, and centralizing production in major design studios around the country, so The Record of Woodland Park is being put out, edited and so forth who knows where, certainly not in New Jersey. Nothing will get better. Readers are abandoning the website and print edition in droves (as shown in the annual reports I have posted on my blog), and I would not be surprised to see the paper folded in a couple of years.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on July 16, 2019, 01:25:57 PM
The Record formally announced a policy apparent to readers for many month, restricting some stories on NorthJersey.com to subscribers. Reader reaction was swift:

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/07/readers-of-record-turn-thumbs-down-on.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/07/readers-of-record-turn-thumbs-down-on.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 23, 2019, 01:45:04 PM
The Record of Woodland Park is being put out, edited and so forth who knows where, certainly not in New Jersey.

It's a pretty good bet that the sportswriters - who attend all home games, press conferences, etc., and are in the locker rooms after games asking dopey questions - are, of necessity, local people.

Speaking of dopey............


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on July 26, 2019, 05:35:10 PM
More fractured syntax and other errors from The Record of Woodland Park, as reprinted in the Hackensack Chronicle:

A story warning drivers of flooding in Hackensack appeared on the front page of the weekly today, July 26, referring to July 23. "Hackensack Fire Department is advising drivers to avoid flooded areas, as firefighters have rescued 14 people from stranded vehicles," the second paragraph said.

Were streets still flooded today? "Drivers were getting stuck in the water," the story reported, but it is unclear whether they were in vehicles or just on foot.

A photo caption noted "flooding on Lodi and Gregg Street in Hackensack."

The amount of rain that fell in Westwood, Ramsey, Bergenfield and Lyndhurst ended the story, but no figure was provided for Hackensack.

Sharing the front page with the flooding story was a wildly promotional story on the opening of a "healthy-eating restaurant at The Shops at Riverside," the mall that provides a lot of advertising to The Record. The story jumps to Page 4, and goes on and on about the final phase of a makeover for the luxury mall.[size]

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 01, 2019, 11:15:21 AM
"Drivers were getting stuck in the water," the story reported, but it is unclear whether they were in vehicles or just on foot.

If they were on foot, they wouldn't be referred to as "drivers"...........and cars are much more likely to get "stuck" in the water than pedestrians.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 01, 2019, 11:22:10 AM
Well, the Fives are in full bloom..............unfortunately, the Flubs never seem to go out of season.

Click to enlarge:





Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 10, 2019, 11:12:01 AM
This time around, "Fives & Flubs" is "Five & Flubs".


Click to enlarge.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on August 16, 2019, 09:51:42 AM
After slogging through yet another repetitive "gotcha" post from BLeafe, it finally has occurred to me that Gannett's production staff in a design studio far from Hackensack, N.J., is subjecting readers to:

A Reign of Error
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 19, 2019, 02:55:01 PM
Chapter 346 of Fives and Flubzzzzzz (geez - even I'M falling asleep looking at these):


Click if you feel like it.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 02, 2019, 11:47:11 AM
Because of the 20-image limit per post, I usually post these when I've accumulated 18-20 of them. This one's slightly short of that because of the absolute flub flood that has occurred in the last 3 days that will follow this post later today.

Labor Day, indeed!

Click to enlarge.

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 02, 2019, 03:37:34 PM
What a mess The Record's been this Labor Day Weekend - ESPECIALLY the sports section! It only took 3 days to gather the same number of flubs that I usually find in a week-and-a-half (which, in itself, is extremely sloppy to begin with).

Saturday, August 31 - Sunday, September 1 - Monday, September 2, 2019

1,2. After the Five (the first of two), we start off with a big NON-SPORTS error from yesterday. I placed it here because it's a two-parter that ended today (8/31).

Everything else is sequential and the publish dates are below each image.

The last four images feature a familiar theme.


Click to enlarge.





Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on September 05, 2019, 03:12:35 PM
THE RECORD'S BLINDSPOT TO THE BIGGEST QUALITY OF LIFE ISSUE IN BERGEN COUNTY

Teterboro Airport -- used by corporate titans, and the rich and famous -- is the biggest source of annoying aircraft noise over homes in Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and other towns in Bergen County, but The Record has never treated the Port Authority owed airport as the nuisance it is.

Efforts to change the flight path of business and private jets to avoid roaring over Hackensack University Medical Center, Prospect Avenue high-rises and schools have been unsuccessful, and the noise-reporting complaint line has had little effect in reducing the racket.

When Malcolm A. Borg was publisher of the Hackensack daily, he pushed for the creation of an aviation museum at Teterboro, and in 1986, he invited Stephen Berger, the new executive director of the Port Authority, for lunch in Borg's private dining room along with a few editorial staffers, including me, who covered the bi-state agency at the time. The first words out of Borg's mouth were on the order of, "What the f--k is going on with the aviation museum?"

The Record did manage to muster enough coverage to kill a proposal to allow bigger jets, like the 737, to land there, but hasn't consistently campaigned to get rid of the older, noisier aircraft that use the airport

Now, at least 2 sensational articles in The Record have identified Teterboro as the hub of Jeffrey Epstein's sex-trafficking ring:

"From his mansion in Manhattan to his ranch in New Mexico and his island in the Caribbean, Epstein allegedly used his fleet of private jets to deliver dozen of sex slaves -- some as young as 14 -- to celebrities, royals, and famous politicians, according to statements ... in criminal and civil court filings since 2008, some of which were first released to the public last week," Staff Writer Christopher Maag reported in a story reprinted in the Hackensack Chronicle on Aug. 23, 1979.

Good luck trying to get anyone to do anything about the endless noise from Teterboro now.[size]
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on September 10, 2019, 11:05:24 AM
READERS OF THE RECORD GO BEGGING FOR BERGEN NEWS

Last Friday's edition of The Record was another slap in the face of Bergen County readers looking for local news.

The front page carried a long column on challenges facing the George Washington Bridge paint crew [yawn], and an even longer anniversary story about a Camden man who killed 13 of his neighbors 70 years ago. In a royal FU to readers looking for local news, the mass-killing anniversary covered an entire page inside (along with 3 ads), showing once again how newspapers love anniversaries, using them as an excuse for not covering local news or anything else of interest to Bergen County readers.

Readers of the Local section found a story about a lawsuit filed by the former Elmwood Park borough clerk on the section front along with a fundraiser involving Passaic County first responders at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson.

Stories about the city of Passaic, Paterson, and Montclair were on 2L and 3L. No local town news from Bergen County except Elmwood Park (on 1L) appeared in the section, unless you count two Fair Lawn teenagers hospitalized after their car crashed (3L).

An entire page of Local is devoted to a house ad promoting northjersey.com "revealing truth" about pollution left behind by the DuPont plant in Pompton Lakes -- a story the paper has covered for many decades.

What about the "truth" of Gannett company buying up daily newspapers like The Record, slashing their staffs and then ignoring news that holds county and municipal officials accountable to residents who are paying some of the highest property taxes in the nation?


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 10, 2019, 11:59:55 AM
5 Fives and 5+5+5 Flubs

Click to enlarge:


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 17, 2019, 11:45:05 AM
No Fives, but Flubs as far as the I can see:

Click to enlarge:


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on September 19, 2019, 10:26:52 AM
THE RECORD'S FOOD COVERAGE PANDERS TO ADVERTISERS, IGNORES LOCAL RESTAURANTS

Here is a shocking development at The Record of Woodland Park and Hackensack Chronicle, the weekly that no longer has its own staff and reprints articles from the once-great daily newspaper:

"Enjoy a 'Taste of Alaska'" was the headline on the front of the Chronicle last Friday the 13th, reporting a promotion at Oceanaire Seafood Room, the fine-dining restaurant in the Shops at Riverside, referred to by its old name, Riverside Square Mall. Since when did a fixed-price dinner of Alaska seafood constitute the most important local news in Hackensack? OK. This article is no different than The Record designating a retailing reporter many years ago and running all of the front page news about the malls in Paramus to pander to advertisers.

Wednesday's Local news front in The Record carried a breathless story by reporter Stephanie Noda, offering a 'first look' at a new Stew Leonard's in the sleepy Paramus Park Mall. The 80,000 square-foot-supermarket invited Martha Stewart to the private preview, and a photo with the story showed the queen of food manhandling a whole salmon (farmed or wild?, the caption doesn't say).

The ultimate insult to Bergen County readers who keep kosher was published on the Sept. 11 Better Living front in The Record -- a long story on kosher restaurants in Lakewood, a 75-mile drive from Hackensack on the insanely crowded Garden State Parkway.

Why didn't The Record report on all of the kosher places in Teaneck and Englewood? Because the owner, a newspaper conglomerate called Gannett, also owns the Asbury Park Press and decided to run the APP's long, rambling piece instead of one focusing on kosher food in Bergen County.

Oy! At one point, the writers, Kelly-Jane Cotter and Sarah Griesemer, say they are ready for "an Anthony Bourdain-like experience" at an Israeli restaurant they call a hole-in-the-wall. All I can think of is Bourdain's suicide, and stop reading. Anyway, who in their right mind is going to drive 75 miles for a falafel sandwich, kosher or not?

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 24, 2019, 11:30:01 AM
Fives seem to be back in season and one of them is a two-fer (AND the only sports-related Five - a rarity).


Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on September 30, 2019, 12:47:02 PM
Six days later - not exactly a sign of improvement - here are twenty more Fives & Flubs:

(Click to enlarge)


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: irons35 on October 03, 2019, 08:24:02 PM
the paper is the worst pile of crap...   there is no journalism.... just cut and paste....   todays paper.  page BL2...  article about the air show...  apparently these are printed long in advance, since they are advertising a show in which one of the planes prominently featured crashed yesterday in Connecticut, killing 9 people and injuring several others... time to cancel. 
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on October 04, 2019, 10:08:51 AM
DID GANNETT FOLD THE HACKENSACK CHRONICLE?

Another delivery error this morning at my home in the Fairmount section or did Gannett fold the Hackensack Chronicle, the weekly that no longer has its own staff and reprints stories from The Record of Woodland Park?

This morning, I picked up from the driveway a plastic bag containing the Northern Valley Suburbanite, which supposedly covers a territory that includes Alpine, Cresskill, Englewood, Englewood Cliffs, Teaneck and Tenafly. This is labeled "South Edition."

This tabloid also reprints stories from The Record, but seems to have many more pages than the Chronicle.

The last delivery error brought me the Sunday Record (I dropped my subscription eons ago), as I said in my blog:

"Shit in the driveway wasn't from dog walkers"

http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/06/shit-in-driveway-wasnt-from-dog-walkers.html (http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/06/shit-in-driveway-wasnt-from-dog-walkers.html)








Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 04, 2019, 10:50:35 AM
Sorry to disappoint you, but the Chronicle was delivered to my home in the NoPass section (North of Passaic) this morning.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 05, 2019, 11:12:01 AM
This is a record, Record - one to be ashamed of: FIVE days later, here are 20 more FIVES & FLUBS!


Click to enlarge.




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 11, 2019, 01:39:58 PM
Six days later............20 more Fives & Flubs (actually, 23, but I combined a couple of them to fit them all in my 20-item-per-post limit).

Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on October 13, 2019, 11:30:37 AM
What an incredible waste of time.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on October 13, 2019, 02:26:20 PM
ERRORS IN NEWS STORIES ARE REALLY WHAT MATTERS

Reducing local news and boosting sports coverage is a development that really impacts readers, not an endless series of gotchas on every single typo, broken syntax and other errors in the bloated sports section of The Record of Woodland Park, formerly of Hackensack. The elimination of the staff at the Hackensack Chronicle and other weeklies now put out by Gannett also is troubling.

When I worked as a copy editor at The Record, I often heard writing headlines is an art, and although I did it for many years, writing headlines has always been a challenge. The Record probably no longer has any copy editors who write headlines, and the paper is put out in a design studio many miles away from New Jersey.

Here's a hilariously stupid headline in Friday's Hackensack Chronicle, one that proves names are rarely appropriate in headlines unless it's Trump or other well-known figure:

"Hackensack chamber
honors Tank as a
Distinguished Citizen"


How does a tank become a distinguished citizen? The recipient being honored is Dr. Lisa Tank, chief medical officer at Hackensack University Medical Center, the hospital that ate Hackensack. I'd wager few people outside the hospital have ever heard of her so "Tank" isn't a headline word, and should have never been used in the headline on Page 4 of Friday's Chronicle, which reprints stories from The Record.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 14, 2019, 01:37:43 PM
You're STILL whining about this? I told you before not to bother reading it. Are you masochistic too?

You're STILL the only person I ever hear this from. You might be surprised to learn that others feel differently. Want an example?

Check this out:

'My favorite paper'

Bob Leafe, a professional photographer in Hackensack, has been using a community message board called HackensackNow.org to catalog numerous typos, errors and other production problems in The Record.

His well-read entries appear under this heading:

My favorite paper is not having a good day


"Well-read" - you know what that means? "knowledgeable and informed as a result of extensive reading".


No whining there..........I wonder why.

OH WAIT! YOU wrote that in your blog!

What a hypocrite! And how many people do you think like a whiny, masochistic hypocrite?

Some advice: you stick to your niche and I'll stick to mine.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 16, 2019, 12:00:02 PM
Fives & Flubs used to happen - by necessity - about every 11 days. Lately, it's been every 5 or 6 days - nice to see the huge effort they're making to put out a better product.

Today's edition has 22 problems in 19 items.

Click to enlarge.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on October 17, 2019, 12:20:11 PM
Mr. Leafe: Please stop beating a dead horse. Yes. I recommended your posts, but now, you've become so repetitive, you are annoying. And I still object to you advertising your photography business on this message board. I guess you have to advertise it because so few people actually hire you, and with all the free time you have, you spend most of it playing gotcha with the nameless, faceless Gannett Co. production people hundreds of miles away from Hackensack who put out The Wretched [The Record of Woodland Park]. In short, get a life. I'd like to see more of your photos as downtown Hackensack is made over. Look, I get it. If you are in my age group (Seventies), there isn't much to do and people pay you no mind. What can I say? This isn't the way to get attention. Thanks, Victor Sasson.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 17, 2019, 03:00:45 PM
Your "powers" of speculation have failed you dismally. You are SO far off on EVERYTHING you guessed about that it's not worth my time or that of anyone else on this board to dissect each and every error, but I WILL tell you one thing:

Twenty-seven years ago, I retired from the business that you seem to think I'm "advertising", so I'm hardly looking to be hired and I'm certainly not desperate for attention. I had enough of that during my "business" to last me several lifetimes.

And FYI............someone on this board asked to hire me for an event a couple of months ago and I had to explain that I don't do that anymore. If you really need confirmation of that, I'll set that up for you in hopes that it would shut you up, though I really doubt that would happen (but hope is everlasting).

So your choice is to either quietly stay in your lane or continue embarrassing yourself. And for the 346th time..............DON'T READ MY POSTS if they bother you.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on October 20, 2019, 12:18:21 PM
LOL
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on October 21, 2019, 11:23:26 AM
Ooooo! Another snappy and oh-so-clever comeback (if you're 12).

Believe it or not, I've been giving this some thought for quite a while. Yes - there is a mind-numbing repetitiveness involved, but you're misplacing the cause. Picture a teacher who fails a kid for making stupid mistakes. The kid keeps making the same mistakes and keeps failing. The cycle repeats........and repeats. The teacher is tired of this, but hope springs eternal.

The process of putting all this stuff together on an almost-daily basis is quite time-consuming and, frankly, I'm kind of sick of it too (you'd hope they'd have learned something by now). So, having created a lengthy report card on the problem, I think I'll just stick to what galls me the most - really stupid photo captions. That way, I can spend a lot less time on the overall lack of "professional" writers' language command - an everyday occurrence - and just post about my favorite newspaper's blind (and sometimes unintentionally funny) caption writer, who very well may be that perpetually-failing kid as an adult.

On a semi-related note, while I welcome posting less often about local "writers", I'd like to see other people posting more often about local things of interest or who have questions involving local history or whatever else comes to mind. We used to have a LOT of contributors, but now it appears that we only have a couple of them who post regularly..............and THAT'S becoming repetitive as well.

Speak up, people! It would be a shame to lose this wellspring of history and future history (i.e., everything current).



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on November 10, 2019, 12:00:11 PM
SUGAR SHOCK

READERS OF THE RECORD, (201) MAGAZINE OVERDOSE ON COVERAGE OF DESSERT


In the past week, The Record promoted pies, extolling bakeries as close as Englewood and as far away as Morristown, and (201) magazine devoted an entire glossy issue to desserts. The Dessert Issue was labeled "The Best of Bergen."

Last Wednesday's Better Living cover story, written by Food Editor Esther Davidowitz, praised 10 North Jersey bakeries for their pies. Davidowitz, a fashionably thin woman who could pass for a Jewish grandmother, looks like she never eats desserts.

(By the way, Davidowitz and the other food writers at The Record and NorthJersey.com call themselves @NorthJerseyEats. I suggest a change to @NorthJerseySucks.)

The cover of the November 2019 issue of (201) only shows glazed donuts and lemon slices for some reason, but inside you'll find lavish praise for more bakeries with photos of their owners, some of whom look like they've eaten too much of their own sugary desserts.

Readers who are diabetic likely were repelled by the sight of so much sugar in one place. I never eat dessert, and felt like throwing up.

One could argue the editors of the Gannett-owned Record and (201) magazine are irresponsible in publishing so many pages devoted to pies and other desserts. Too much sugar, like excessive salt, can and does kill.

Industry lobbyists have spent millions bribing Congress to hide the amount of sugar listed on the government-mandated nutrition labels. Sugar is the only ingredient listed in grams, but unless you know how many grams there are in a teaspoon (about 4), you may not realize that 5-ounce cup of yogurt with fruit you're enjoying has 4 or 5 teaspoons of sugar in it.

Now, The Record and (201) are complicit in this coverup.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 25, 2019, 01:01:06 PM
This is REALLY stupid.

If you look at last Saturday's "Dear Abby" column in The Record, you might see something you've never seen before. Who could make such an idiotic mistake?


Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on December 08, 2019, 11:24:34 AM
From Eye on The Record:
In 2019, The Record's slide toward mediocrity didn't slow


https://eyeontherecord.blogspot.com/2019/12/in-2019-records-slide-toward-mediocrity.html (https://eyeontherecord.blogspot.com/2019/12/in-2019-records-slide-toward-mediocrity.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on December 15, 2019, 01:44:17 PM
The Record Cheats Bergen Readers:

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-records-local-section-cheats-bergen.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-records-local-section-cheats-bergen.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on April 10, 2020, 11:43:24 AM
Not only is the Hackensack Chronicle now square, but the top story on page 2 of the April 10 edition tells of an electronic public meeting to be held on April 7.

Good to know.

Click to enlarge.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Editor on April 27, 2020, 04:58:58 PM
New Jersey Globe | New Jersey Politics: Bergen Record lets editorial page editor go.
https://newjerseyglobe.com/media/bergen-record-lets-editorial-page-editor-go/
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on May 07, 2020, 04:56:50 PM
In 2019, The Record and NorthJersey.com lost 16,000 readers daily, 19,600 on Sunday

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2020/05/in-2019-record-and-northjerseycom-lost.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2020/05/in-2019-record-and-northjerseycom-lost.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on July 10, 2020, 12:41:07 PM
HACKENSACK CHRONICLE REPRINTS NEWS STORY
ON 'LIKELY' CLOSING OF SEARS STORE.


The Sears Roebuck and Co. store on Main Street in Hackensack is called "iconic" and an "outdated mainstay in the heart of Hackensack" by reporter Melanie Anzidel of The Record and NorthJersey.com.

"The retail dinosaur has slowly lost its footing in the Garden State," she wrote, noting Sears filed for bankruptcy in the fall of 2018. The store opened in 1932.

Anzidel then wrote:

"The store [in Hackensack] even downsized, in a potential last ditch effort to survive, by selling off a separate parcel of its land to build an ALDI, a German discount grocery chain that opened on the shared property in 2017, at the other end of the parking lot."

Knocking down the Sears tire and auto battery store to clear the property for construction of a supermarket doesn't sound like downsizing to me, and it wasn't "a separate parcel," as Anzidel notes herself when reporting ALDI opened in 2017 "at the other end of the [Sears] parking lot."

When Sears filed for bankruptcy, the retailer still operated stores in Hackensack, Livingston, Rockaway, Wayne and Jersey City, which soon may be the only Sears left in New Jersey, Anzidel said.
-- VICTOR E. SASSON
[/b][/i]


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on July 18, 2020, 09:15:31 AM
THE RECORD, (201) MAGAZINE AND OTHER GANNETT PUBLICATIONS ARE NOW OWNED BY A JAPANESE CONGLOMERATE

On July 16, 2020, a New York Times story reported that hedge funds and private equity firms have become the owners of newspapers in Canada and the United States.

"The private equity fund Fortress Investment Group controls the largest American newspaper chain, Gannett, which published USA Today, The Arizona Republic and 250 other dailies, [including The Record of Woodland Park]," Times reporter Edmund Lee says. "Fortress is owned by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank."

Here is a profile of SoftBank from Google:

SoftBank Group Corp. is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Tokyo. SoftBank owns stakes in many technology, energy, and financial companies. It also runs Vision Fund, the world's largest technology-focused venture capital fund, with over $100 billion in capital. Wikipedia
Stock price: SFTBF (OTCMKTS) $59.75 +0.25 (+0.42%)
Jul 17, 4:00 PM EDT - Disclaimer
CEO: Masayoshi Son (Feb 1986–)
Owner: Masayoshi Son
Founder: Masayoshi Son
Founded: September 3, 1981, Tokyo, Japan
Headquarters: Minato City, Tokyo, Japan
Subsidiaries: SoftBank, Yahoo! Japan, WeWork, MORE

READ: https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2020/07/japanese-conglomerate-owns-equity-fund.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2020/07/japanese-conglomerate-owns-equity-fund.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on July 23, 2020, 10:55:38 AM
BOWEL MOVEMENTS TO ECHO
ACROSS HALLOWED NEWSPAPER SITE


BORG FAMILY, PARTNERS START CONSTRUCTION OF 5 APARTMENT BUILDINGS

READ: https://eyeontherecord.blogspot.com/2020/07/from-great-local-journalism-to-hawking.html (https://eyeontherecord.blogspot.com/2020/07/from-great-local-journalism-to-hawking.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 23, 2020, 12:37:25 PM
From: https://eyeontherecord.blogspot.com/2020/07/from-great-local-journalism-to-hawking.html

Think of it:

Tenants of the luxury apartments will be moving their bowels on the site of a great local daily newspaper Stephen A. Borg turned to trash.




Here's what I'm thinking: Hundreds of Record employees - including YOU - must have also moved their bowels there in the many decades that The Record and its bathrooms were on the River St site.

What's the difference? It's the same ol' sh*t, isn't it?


And what does any of this - and the post that precedes it - have to do with a thread about the poor quality of the writing in the newspaper?

Posts should only be in one relevant thread.

Try to keep that in mind.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 24, 2020, 10:25:01 AM
And - right on cue - today's Hackensack Chronicle (pg. 2, third and fourth words of the caption) reminds us what this thread's all about (you mean she's NOT the crane?):

Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on August 10, 2020, 11:14:12 AM
Mr. BLeafe:

I can safely say that in all my years at The Record's building on River Street, I never moved my bowels there during a work shift or at any other time. I did all my business at home.

Sincerely,
Victor Sasson
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on August 11, 2020, 07:14:26 AM
As for the $25 million contribution to build a surgical tower at the Hospital That Ate Hackensack, wouldn't the money be better spent on educating people about what foods are linked to cancer, including nitrates and nitrates used to preserve hot dogs, bacon and other cured meats? So, then instead of Medicare and Medicaid shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for cancer operations in a new surgical tower and enriching doctors and the CEO of that medical monstrosity, people can live longer and disease-free lives.

--VICTOR E. SASSON
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 11, 2020, 01:57:14 PM
You're STILL not paying attention. That post has absolutely nothing to do with the poor quality of the writing in the newspaper. In any thread, restrict your comments to the topic.

Either find an appropriate thread for this or start a new one for it in your soapbox.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on August 11, 2020, 02:03:21 PM
Now THIS fits!

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 02, 2020, 11:30:02 AM
Blind, stupid..............take your pick:

(click to enlarge)



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on December 04, 2020, 09:03:02 AM
How is it that the HACKENSACK Chronicle can't distinguish between a Main St view and a River St view? And why are the last two sentences in the caption not even sentences?

I guess we're fortunate that the picture isn't upside-down.

Click to enlarge


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on December 11, 2020, 01:41:59 PM
How is it that the Hackensack Chronicle STILL has problems when it comes to River Street? This week, they're not able to name the street properly from one picture to the next............one that's literally right next to it!

I guess we're fortunate that.............nah, we're not fortunate at all when they continue their sloppiness over the simplest of things after screwing up in the previous issue.

We're now all left to wonder what blunderful thing will they do next week.

Stay tuned and click to enlarge.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on December 17, 2020, 01:14:54 PM
Another stupid caption............

If this was really "setting for a pass", then he would be telling the defense what the next play would be................duh!

Captions for sports images should be done by someone with at least a basic knowledge of the sports they're captioning.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on January 15, 2021, 01:11:32 PM
The Record dismisses
airport's quality of life threat
in just a few words



Before the Covid 19 pandemic, air traffic from Teterboro Airport had the biggest impact on the quality of life in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood, as noisy multimillion dollar business jets owned by big corporations and celebrities roared overhead day and night. During the warmer months, residents of some of the high-rises along Prospect Avenue feared going out on their terraces as jets lining up for a landing seemed to skim their rooftops.

But in a Record article on the opening of a new diner near the airport that was reprinted in the Hackensack Chronicle today, reporter Philip DeVencentis refers to a "small airfield parked with private jets and prop planes."

What a buffoon.

Although the pandemic, shutdown of businesses, lockdowns and quarantines in 2020 cut air traffic significantly, there has been a lot more activity at Teterboro and other airports in the last month or two, and an increase in jet noise over Hackensack's Fairmount section and other neighborhoods.

To call the Port Authority owned airport "a small airfield" is inaccurate and irresponsible.

Runway Diner is owned by the same couple that own Fairmount Eats, according to the weekly newspaper, and they and a partner "also share a stake" in Chillers Grill in Fort Lee.

Devencentis reports the new diner is "delivering amid the pandemic."

So, no takeout?


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on January 30, 2021, 02:07:25 PM
The Record's looking longer and the Hackensack Chronicle's looking wider (first pic).............until you flip them over (second pic).

This is like a short person putting lifts in their shoes - it's fake. And it looks really stupid to not fold them in half. When you open to the middle of the Chronicle, the left page is 11.5 inches across, but the right page is only 10.5 inches across (third pic).

C'mon, guys...............learn how to fold a paper in half.

PAGE EQUALITY MATTERS!  ;)


Click to enlarge.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on February 12, 2021, 10:38:15 AM
Oh, brother!

When you're reading something - especially if it's a serious subject - the last thing you want is to encounter a dopey error that disrupts the reading flow.

Read the second paragraph and do so knowing that "dentition" pertains to the development of teeth and their arrangement in the mouth. It's highly unlikely that SpellCheck would replace a common word like "detention" with the less common "dentition", so what's the excuse, Record?

Click to enlarge:




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on March 21, 2021, 10:45:41 AM
The Caption Monster took three big bites out of The Record today:

1. The very first word.........

2. At least the story got his name right.

3. This is utter stupidity. You can SEE the player's name on his uniform!

Click to enlarge.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on March 28, 2021, 05:35:28 PM
Here's a typo that could give a celebrated chef indigestion:

A gushing profile of Chef Laurent Tourondel appeared on the front page of the Hackensack Chronicle last Friday (March 26), reprinted from NorthJersey.com and The Record of Woodland Park. I'm not sure what the purpose of such profiles are, but they are a specialty of Esther Davidowitz, The Record's food editor and chief restaurant reviewer who rarely, if ever, makes clear whether she is comped or pays for her meals.

Tourondel opened LT Bar & Grill "in Hackensack," the profile says, but the actual location, the Shops at Riverside on Hackensack Avenue, isn't mentioned. But that's not the typo.

The profile jumps from the front page to Page 3 and again to Page 4, going on and on about all the restaurants he's opened around the world, and how great his food tastes.

"He ended up cooking in Moscow, Brazil, Vietnam and Las Vegas," Davidowitz exclaims, "and in 2020 opened Cello in New York to rave reviews. He went on to open BLT Steak (2004), BLT Fish (2005)...."

Sorry, Esther. Cello opened in 1999.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on March 28, 2021, 11:55:50 PM
Here's a typo

As unbelievably horrifying as this error may be, the real error is that it is not a typo - a typing term that includes errors due to mechanical failure or slips of the hand or finger, but excludes errors of ignorance.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on May 09, 2021, 01:37:57 PM
Despite 2020 quarantine, more readers
drop The Record and North Jersey.com


Read:http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2021/05/despite-2020-quarantine-more-readers.html (http://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2021/05/despite-2020-quarantine-more-readers.html)
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on May 15, 2021, 11:35:03 AM
CLICK TO ENLARGE!
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on May 18, 2021, 04:02:40 PM
1. This is an article about Immaculate Heart Academy being ranked #1 in North Jersey high school softball. This is not the whole article, but you can see at least 3 references to IHA.

So why does the headline say "IMA has hold of top spot in poll"?


2. MORE stupidity:

I've written before about the clueless caption writer, who - when he/she has no idea what to write - insists that the pictured person is "reacting" in the photo, but gives no indication as to what that person is reacting to. By its very definition, a reaction is a secondary action to some other action. Showing a reaction is useless unless it's obvious what caused it, but showing something that is clearly NOT a reaction to anything, while insisting that it IS, is absolutely brainless.

The player in the picture is not showing any kind of reaction to anything - he's simply running around the bases after hitting a home run.

The Record's reaction should be to can this moronic caption writer.

Click to enlarge.

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on May 21, 2021, 01:17:18 PM
Two more problems popped up today, including one on the main page (1A).

Apparently, NJ lawmakers want to continue to keep some government records hidden from the public. Wouldn't that mean that they were trying to BAR the public's access, rather than to MAR (impair the appearance of) that access? Oops!

On to the front page of the sports section, where it's noted that Mets writer Justin Toscano's article continues on page 4S, but next to that link it says "TUSCANO". Surely someone must have corrected his name on page 4S, where it should say, "TOSCANO" in big bold letters, right?

Guess again.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on May 28, 2021, 11:57:26 AM
I know it seems like I'm jumping back into this topic, but I'm really trying not to. It's just that the waves of stupidity have gotten so much larger lately, it's hard to ignore. They DID seem to get a little better for a while, but that was very short-lived.

Today's little "gems" (click to enlarge):



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on June 14, 2021, 10:17:45 AM
You may be familiar with The Record's two advice columnists: Amy Dickenson and Dear Abby. This is about Amy.

Both columnists usually answer two letters per column and today is no different. Amy's two begin with the usual "Dear Amy" and the column ends with Amy's email address.

The problem today is that it says that the column is called "Dear Annie", the writer's name is supposedly "Annie Lane" and the picture is of someone other than Amy Dickenson.

None of this is particularly earth-shaking, but it's another example of the paper's continued sloppiness.


Want another example?

I was trying to find out who the paper's photo editor is. I could not find that information in the paper, anywhere online or even on The Record's site. But I DID find a "Help" chat on their site, so I tried it out.

Here's how that went. Mind the times:

Live Chat
 
Today
Chat Started
   
10:28 AM
Hello and thank you for waiting
   
10:28 AM
All agents are currently assisting other customers, please wait for the next available agent. As a reminder, for a fast and easy resolution, you can log into your account to report a missed delivery, enter a vacation hold, or make a payment.
Your estimated wait time is approximately 1 minute(s)
   
10:28 AM
Agent Connected
   
10:28 AM
Thank you for contacting Customer Service. My name is Nheonne. How may I help you today?
   
10:29 AM
Bob Leafe
Who accepts subscriber photos?
   
Better question: who is the photo editor?
   
10:30 AM
Thank you for letting us know your concern. Let me go ahead and check my resources here.
   
Please give me a minute or two.
   
10:31 AM
Bob Leafe
OK
   
10:41 AM
Bob Leafe
Tough question?
   
10:51 AM
Bob Leafe
Still there?
   
11:01 AM
Bob Leafe
A half-hour (and counting) wait? How about you call me when you get the answer. You have my number. Thank you.
   
11:01 AM
Chat Ended
   
Agent Disconnected
11:03 AM


That was two days ago. I'm still waiting for that call.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on June 21, 2021, 10:10:00 AM
Doesn't ANYBODY pay attention at this newspaper?

The stupidity starts right at the top of page 1A - THE FRONT PAGE! The Yankees won yesterday and ended the game with a triple play - hence, the "Triple play seals victory for Yankees" bold-faced statement next to the picture. That, obviously, means the Yankees had to be on defense.

But what does the picture show? The Yankees' Gary Sanchez sliding into third base (on OFFENSE!) and the umpire giving a very large "SAFE" sign.

There are NO safe signs in a triple play. There are only outs. What moron decided it would be a good idea to use this picture with that headline? Does one hand know what the other is doing at this paper?

The story - on page 1S of the sports section - continues on page 4S, where the paper shows what is apparently the only picture that have of yesterday's game (second picture below).

Well, at least the caption didn't describe the picture as showing a triple play.

Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day (BIG sports move!)
Post by: BLeafe on August 07, 2021, 10:35:46 AM
According to The Record today, the National Football League (NFL) has traded the Denver Broncos and the New York Jets to the National Basketball Association (NBA).

I can't WAIT to see the Jets and the Nets tip off.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on August 22, 2021, 01:38:23 PM
HACKENSACK CHRONICLE'S LAWSUIT EDITION

Greedy lawyers hope to cash in on a mask fight, spilled marinara


The front page of the Hackensack Chronicle on Friday (Aug. 21, 2021) carried "news" of two lawsuits in state Superior Court in Hackensack.

The first suit involves "a woman who broke her leg over a face mask dispute" in Staples "last year."

I'm not sure how you can break your leg "over" a dispute, but lawyers desperate for collecting up to one-third of big judgments will find anyway to get their clients into court.

The second suit was filed by a woman who claims she was scalded by spilled marinara in a takeout order from Brooklyn's Coal Burning Brick Oven Pizza in Hackensack.

Tom Nobile, who wrote both stories, doesn't explain why the plaintiff had "the scalding hot sauce on her lap while driving home with a takeout order." Her husband apparently was driving, but that isn't clear from the story.

Both stories raise more questions then they answer.

The Gannett editors who put out the Chronicle by reprinting stories from The Record probably thought this was a strong "local news" front page.

The real news is that legal fees are a scandal.

They're totally unregulated by the courts, because all of the judges were themselves lawyers chasing big judgments and charging their clients hundreds of dollars an hour before they were appointed,
.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on August 28, 2021, 03:01:36 PM
I'm seeing red over the Hackensack Chronicle's front page

As if the Aug. 21, 2021, front page of the Hackensack Chronicle wasn't silly enough -- reporting on 2 frivolous lawsuits -- desperate Gannett editors couldn't find anything else for the front page of Friday's edition (Aug. 27. 2021) except to repeat the story of the woman who is suing a Hackensack pizzeria, claiming she was scalded by a spilled cup of marinara as her husband was driving her home from picking up a takeout order.

The preposterous plaintiff claims that for some reason she was holding the cup of marinara in her lap when she felt the burning. The plaintiff was identified as Martha Valdez of Englewood, and she is suing over an alleged incident that occurred in May 2017.

The courts usually are closed in August so courthouse reporter Tom Nobile probably tried to look productive by re-filing the red sauce suit and hoping his editors wouldn't notice they had run it before.
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 03, 2021, 09:57:56 AM
1. Anybody see a "23" jumping out at you? Me neither.

2. I think one of their advertisers must be using The Record's proofreader. How big a screw-up is it for a sports book to not know how to spell "gambling"? And you would think that someone would have noticed this REAL fast and corrected it, but it stayed that way day after day after.............



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 06, 2021, 11:15:00 AM
Geez - even the obituaries aren't safe!

Who doesn't know the difference between "formally" and "formerly"? Hasn't anyone at this paper mastered the language yet?

I respectfully request that they show some respect for the deceased and their families and PROOFREAD these things. This isn't the only embarrassing thing they've done in this section.

And no - I don't know the deceased person.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on November 11, 2021, 07:50:56 PM
Is "touchdown celebration" the first thing that comes to mind when you look at this picture?

It looks more like he's saying, "Get that camera outta my face!" or "Get me a better caption writer".



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on December 23, 2021, 11:27:27 AM
"Merry Christmas........We're not publishing on 12/24 or 12/25!"

See for yourself - it's right in the top of the front page of today's paper (below - click to enlarge). Look at the date...............have you ever seen a 3-day publication date before? It's as if all the news that occurs today, tomorrow and Saturday is included in today's paper. How prescient of them!

Merry Christmas from The Record - Friend of the people it serves...............unless it's a holiday.


Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on December 30, 2021, 05:32:45 PM
"Happy New Year......Today's paper is your last of 2021 AND your first of 2022"

So this is a thing now, huh? Should we expect the same on Presidents' Day, Valentines Day and National Pie Day (January 23)?

Click to enlarge.




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on January 09, 2022, 11:17:20 AM
Kind of a large boo-boo on the front page of today's sport's section:

Last April, the Jets traded quarterback Sam Darnold. A few weeks later, they selected quarterback Zach Wilson with the #2 overall draft pick.

This article was about Wilson's best plays so far this season, which ends for the Jets today.

The first sentence tells you what the play was about. The last sentence tells you that the QB who is no longer with the team made the play.

Oops!



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: irons35 on January 13, 2022, 04:52:09 PM
they just had an editorial today that they are not printing on Saturday anymore.   just another reason to cancel...  that and the 5 dollar "special" editions that you dont want but cannot opt out of...
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on February 24, 2022, 09:19:41 AM
The Record didn't have a Saturday edition when I started working there as a reporter in the late 1970s (1978-9), and I recall the Borgs started publishing one in the late 1980s, when I was on the copy desk, but still writing a monthly road test of a new car. I started doing the road tests as part of my Business News beat covering the auto importers in Bergen County (Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and others).

Space was so tight in the Saturday paper that my car review was cut and done crudely.

As a Business News reporter, I also wrote stories analyzing whether Alfa Romeo and Peugeot would be able to continue doing business in the U.S. by marketing a comeback model; neither was able to do so. 
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on February 27, 2022, 03:07:32 PM
Gannett says circulation of The Record
and North Jersey.com dropped dramatically in 2021


Shrinks to 39,683 daily, 48,684 on Sunday

https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2022/02/readers-continued-to-drop-record-and.html (https://thesassonreport.blogspot.com/2022/02/readers-continued-to-drop-record-and.html)

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on March 13, 2022, 06:15:03 PM
Not having a good day? This paper's not having a good weekend.

So we got through the first Saturday without having a physical newspaper. The only bad thing I noticed with the online-only version was the lack of the evening's TV grid - a very necessary part of a newspaper. I'm hoping it was just an oversight that will be corrected next Saturday.

But that hope seems to have been shot down today (Sunday). No grid again..........and I'll bet there won't be one anymore during the rest of the week. Instead there were 11 items listed under the heading "What To Watch". I think I'd rather make my own choices from a grid listing of a couple hundred shows than from what some unknown person selects.

I'd be happy to lose that above bet, but then I saw something else under the "What To Watch" listing. It started off with "Prefer TV Grids?"

It was an ad for TV Weekly magazine ("Get expanded coverage delivered to your door!"). Oh goodie - something else to pay extra for..........just like those idiotic Subscriber-Exclusive Special Editions they make us pay extra for, even though no one wants them.

And they just happened to include one in today's paper - a useless 12-page one titled "Spirits of the South - A Journey Through the Region's Best Distilleries and Bars".

WHO CARES ABOUT THAT? WHY MUST WE PAY FOR THIS DRIVEL?

They've also replaced the Sunday Jumble with a weekday-type one, but the answer won't show up in the paper until next Sunday...............UNLESS you go to usatoday.puzzleanswers.com. To make up for this inconvenience, they've added even more of their never-ending supply of puzzles and games that no one wants - more useless filler.


On to the next disaster in today's paper............where else?............the Sports section.

Pages 3S and 4S have the EXACT SAME ARTICLE (verbatim!) about NFL quarterbacks' salaries (first pic). The only differences are that each used a different picture of Aaron Rodgers and Page 4's title has 4 extra words in it. That's it!

To show you how truly back-to-back they are, I held the page up to a light. Look at the headlines! (second pic).

Lastly, I didn't think their horribly inept caption-writing could get any worse, but guess what?

Now they're loading them with TONS of absolutely useless and unprovable information. These two little gems (third pic) were both on page 6S today.

Take the top one: what shows that he just flew out......or that it was to left field? How do we know that there were two runners on base and why would that matter if they were? What indicates that this occurred in the first inning or that the Red Sox were the opponent or the year was 2020?

HOW IS ANY OF THIS HELPFUL?

The first 7 words are the only provable part of this 28-word mess of a caption.


In the bottom image, he might be throwing to first base, but what indicates to us who the runner was (or even what team was the opponent) or what inning or year it was (it could be in Denver, but I'm not that familiar with their home jerseys).

A caption is supposed to tell us what's visible in the picture and most of this tripe doesn't do that.

And oh-by-the-way.........they're STILL writing that a photo's subject "reacts" when they show a photo in which he or she is just standing there doing nothing, but they never say what that person is reacting to, which makes the caption beyond useless.

And don't get me started about their cringe-worthy use of "looks on".

Other than all that, everything's peachy.

(Click images to enlarge)






Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on March 18, 2022, 08:26:34 AM
Also, "passed away" is a huge no-no on newspaper copy desks (The Record and NorthJersey.com don't have copy desks any longer). People "die." Obviously, it was done to fill space in the headline.
Title: Re: My favorite paper did not have a good day today
Post by: BLeafe on March 20, 2022, 07:30:46 PM
The print edition is getting sloppier and sloppier. The first pic below is the E-Edition of part of the front page of today's Sports section. In the print edition (second image), the swimmer swam down into the basketball coverage. I don't think I've ever seen that before. How could someone in charge not catch a flub like that before it was sent out?

That's not all they missed. Most of four different pages were unreadable (last 2 images).

I think they're softening us up to crave "the much better-looking e-edition". I guess we'll know soon enough.

Click pix to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on April 03, 2022, 11:55:04 AM
Here's another idiotic caption from yesterday's Sports section of The Record that's filled with unprovable "facts". In the space of 25 words, there are 6 uninteresting, space-filling suppositions that don't necessarily show what's in this 6-year-old picture of a long-retired player.

A better caption might be, "David Wright sticks his tongue out while making a throw." THAT at least accurately describes what you see, which is supposed to be the purpose of captions.


Click to enlarge.




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: Victor E Sasson on April 06, 2022, 11:05:22 AM
From the New Jersey Globe: Gannett charging more
for the newspaper it has turned to shit


READ:https://newjerseyglobe.com/media/massive-price-increase-at-the-bergen-record/ (https://newjerseyglobe.com/media/massive-price-increase-at-the-bergen-record/)

Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on July 31, 2022, 04:35:39 PM
This is a new one: half of today's paper is a different size than the other half. The front 4 sections are 22"x11" and the back 4 sections are 21"x12".

The picture shows how it looks when you start reading it from the front AND how it looks when you've finished. One's tall and skinny and the other's short and wide.

What possible purpose could this serve?

Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on January 31, 2023, 10:56:55 AM
I haven't posted on this topic in a while, but that doesn't mean that anything got fixed. Many captions still say that the photo's subject "reacts" when he/she is just standing there doing nothing, but we got a couple of new dopey captions today.

1. Why would the caption advise you to look for the guy wearing purple in a black-and-white photograph?

2. Does anyone in this picture appear to have been "thrown down", as the caption suggests? And when you look at the way the caption writer spelled "Joseph's", do you wonder if maybe he/she got thrown down on his/her head?


There's new twist lately to something that few people put any stock in: horoscopes - something that is usually read for amusement because they're usually so far off.

It appears that a new entity has taken over............one that almost solely involves ridiculous-sounding planetary connections and their effects. Check out these three from this month (and my apologies if you truly believe in any of this).

ONE LATE ADDITION: I just found this sitting for the last month on my desktop...............more great writing.

Click to enlarge.




Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on April 16, 2023, 06:25:01 PM
Today's paper appears to have been made in two different halves by two different companies in two different sizes.

The front sections are 11" x 22" and the back sections are 12" x 21".

The first two pictures show the measured widths. The third picture also deals with width as it shows what the folded paper looks like, with the back sections sticking out an extra inch on the left.

You'd think that they'd have uniformity figured out after almost 130 years.

Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on April 26, 2023, 04:30:00 PM
Boy, they are really messing up lately.

1. First, there was this notice on the front page of today's paper. It mentions deadline problems - time-related issues that did not prepare me for what was (or wasn't) inside.

2. The only time-related issue here is that it's time to find the colored inks. Black-and-white comics? C'mon! (BTW - they're fully-colored in the online edition.............is this another stunt to push people to digital-only?). I included the full-color front page of the main section in the photo to show that I didn't remove the comics' color.

3. I recycle my newspapers by collecting them in a paper bag and alternating where the fold of each paper is, so they don't pile up lopsided. That generally evens the pile vertically.............until you get to the "we-forgot-how-to-fold-a-paper-in-half" editions of the last 3 days.

What's next? White ink newsprint on white paper?


Click to enlarge.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on June 12, 2023, 10:00:04 AM
The Record is really screwing up the print editions these days. One day, they had one comics page in color and the other one in B&W.

But they're not doing themselves any favors with making some ads color and some B&W.

In today's paper, there was a full page ad for sleep chairs. Online, these chairs cost $2,000 each, so I would think the seller would want everything just right in their newspaper ads.

The first pic shows the ad.............uh, oh - B&W! But the kicker is in the bottom right corner (second pic - click to enlarge).

I don't know about you, but I'm kinda torn between the burgundy, the chocolate and the blue.



Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on December 19, 2023, 11:53:26 AM
Wow! It's been 6 months! Aside from the comics still being B&W most days and color on the other days, the paper has been somewhat flub-free.............until today.

You know when someone is being quoted and they use a naughty word, so the paper replaces that word with "(expletive)"?

Look what they did today:
Title: Re: My favorite paper is not having a good day
Post by: BLeafe on January 02, 2024, 03:26:59 PM
I see The Record is falling back into the habit of dopey captions in the Sports section that tell you that what's being shown is how someone "reacts" to something when they're doing nothing of the sort or just basically doing nothing at all. If there's a true "reaction" shown, then you have to indicate what "action" precipitated it, but that's REALLY asking too much from these poor caption writers.

In today's Sports section - which only has EIGHT pages - there are FOUR idiotic captions, with the first one truly being the dopiest:

1. On Page 1S, the caption says that "Giants quarterback Tyrod Taylor warms his hand...". Yes, his right hand is near his mouth, but he's clearly inserting his protective mouthpiece into it. Don't those caption writers even look at the picture? (click to enlarge pictures)

2. On Page 3S: "Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh reacts during the second quarter against Minnesota on Oct. 7". If you know the opponent, the date and even that it occurred during the second quarter, shouldn't you also have the photographer's information about why the coach made this very expressive gesture? A touchdown? Frustration over a bad call? "Reacts" tells us nothing.

3. On Page 4S: "Naomi Osaka reacts after winning a point...". She's not shown reacting to anything. She's just caught at the wrong moment by a photographer who should never have submitted this photo (and a photo editor who did no one any favors by OK-ing it for publication)..........so the caption writer isn't the only problem.

4.On Page 6S:  Poor Tyrod Taylor gets the unobservant treatment once again! "...reacts after being sacked...". REACTS? How about he's simply trying to get up? Isn't that obvious?

I guess not.