Blogger, North Jersey Media Group settle lawsuit

Former headquarters of North Jersey Media Group and The Record in Hackensack.

In the face of mounting legal fees, Victor E. Sasson has settled a federal copyright-infringement lawsuit filed against him by North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record and the North Jersey.com Web site.

Sasson signed a confidential settlement agreement on Thursday, and admitted no wrongdoing.

The suit alleged Sasson violated several copyrights when Eye on The Record published NJMG photographs and a news story.

So far, Sasson has paid more than $16,000 in legal fees in connection with the suit.

A federal judge dismissed the NJMG lawsuit without prejudice in January, allowing the publishing company to file it again.

Jennifer A. Borg, NJMG vice president and general counsel, was listed as attorney for the plaintiff. 

Borg also hired an expensive New York law firm, Dunnegan & Scileppi, to handle the suit.

Click on the following links to earlier posts:

Judge dismisses NJMG lawsuit

NJMG harasses 'Eye on The Record'

'Great pride ... in responsible journalism'

Today's paper

The thin Sunday edition features four of The Record's burned-out columnists, and more from pundits who are playing catch-up to the victory of the reformers' slate in the Hackensack municipal election.

The upbeat "Shore's ready to roll" takeout on Page 1 plays into the hands of Chris Christie, who hopes voters forget what a terrible governor he was before Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey last Oct. 29 (A-1).

Hospital profits

The opening of Bergen County's first for-profit hospital in Westwood -- under the Hackensack University Medical Center name -- raises anew questions about HUMC's $130 million in untaxed property in Hackensack, and whether the medical center will give back to the city (A-1).

The best story in the Local news section today is the obituary of Betty Ersalesi, a Rutherford school teacher, whose death appears to be the making of a medical-malpractice suit (L-1).

The worst piece is the Road Warrior column on whether seat belts are "your thing" (L-1).

Self-promoting reporter

On the Business front, Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais gives himself a huge pat on the back for 19-plus years of consumer reporting in a paper that long ago sold out to commercial interests (B-1).

Of course, DeMarrais' 1,000 columns virtually ignored the rise of organic and naturally raised food, which aren't listed in his monthly survey of supermarket prices.

And sadly, The Record's business editors still have to rely on a 4-page insert from The Wall Street Journal to make their Sunday section amount to anything (B-3 to B-6).

Kelly sells out again

On the Opinion front, Columnist Mike Kelly continues to fawn over Christie, calling the GOP bully "the political equivalent of the Kardashians" (O-1).

Have you ever read anything so ridiculously hilarious?

Playing catch-up

Brigid Callahan Harrison, a political science professor who writes a Sunday opinion column for The Record, and the newspaper's editors ignored the 3-month campaign of Citizens for Change, which won last week's Hackensack City Council election.

So did Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, who refused to "get involved" in the battle to decide whether reformers or the Zisa family political machine would prevail.

To the great surprise of everyone -- including apathetic voters -- the reformers swept the election for 5 seats on the City Council, unleashing a series of reaction stories and columns.

So, here is Harrison today taking Newark Mayor Cory Booker to task for forgetting his reform roots, and backing establishment candidates in Hackensack and Jersey City, where all of them went down to defeat (O-1).

Tea Party, Associated Press deserve what they get

A small parking lot and walkway on South River Street in Hackensack, above and below, will provide access to the Hackensack River.The new walkway, next to a large solar farm, was closed when I visited this past Monday.

I believe in the principle of certain groups being tax exempt, but not the Tea Party's radical, no-tax Republicans, who have sowed so much divisiveness in Washington (See Page 1 of The Record today).

Remember how the Tea Party compared President Obama's health care reform to the Holocaust?

The Associated Mess

I also believe in the principal of an unfettered press, but can't really get upset by the Justice Department issuing subpoenas for The Associated Press' telephone records (See Thursday's A-4).

The wire service's irresponsibly hysterical stories are used on the front page of The Record and hundreds of newspapers, and they form the basis of TV and radio news reports.

Look at Page 1 of The Record on Wednesday, when The AP reported "President Obama seemed to lose control of his second-term agenda."

Is that the same as losing control of your journalistic bowels?

On Thursday's A-1, the wire service reported the president "was hurrying to check a growing controversy."

Is it growing as fast as Governor Christie's waistline before he had lap-band surgery?

GOP plays The AP

All of these "scandals" and "controversies" are based on complaints from Republicans, who have set back America's middle class more than any other group.

Recall how bored wire service reporters caused panic among Obama supporters last year -- with daily reporting of polls and surveys that allegedly showed a real horse race in the presidential contest.

But the election wasn't close at all: Obama beat Mitt Romney handily in both the popular vote and in the Electoral College.

The story is politics

Yet, The AP continues to politicize every bill and every vote in Washington as a battle between Obama and Republicans, and rarely discusses issues -- just as The Record politicizes every story out of Trenton.

Today, political Columnist Charles Stile can't bring himself to criticize Christie for breaking his 2009 campaign promise to cut property taxes in New Jersey or to label re-election ads as deceptive (A-1).

Hackensack election

On the front of Local, Staff Writer Hannan Adely finally addresses voter apathy, which was a factor in the Hackensack City Council elections in 2009 and 2005 (L-1).

This week's historic victory of a reform slate, Citizens for Change, showed candidates were able to target discontent, despite low voter turnout.

The winning slate hopes to move the municipal election to November. It's about time.

Now, what about Hackensack's school board election in April, when turnout was less than half of the municipal election's?

Francis W. Albolino and two other candidates backed by the Zisa family political machine won.

That's a powerful argument for moving that election to November, as well.

Road Warrior peddles more fiction for drivers

An NJ Trantsit local speeding toward Trenton.

Editor's note: Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to spin fictional roadside controversies based on complaining e-mails sent in by his adoring fans, who love to see their names in print. Here is another e-mail from a reader concerned about these flights of fancy.

"What is it and what does it mean?

"Readers regularly ask these questions as the Road Warrior continues to  mistakenly report and grossly exaggerate utter nonsense, as he does in his May 12 column, about inconsequential roadside sights.

"The Road Warrior is unable to fill his column with anything relevant or accurate so he concocts stories with his senseless observations to make it seem like he is doing his job. 

"Road Warrior babbles endlessly about towers and high-rises, which are really only 6 and 8-story low-rise apartments being built next to the Lincoln Tunnel Helix roadway.  

"He never answers drivers' questions if the buildings will obstruct some of their Manhattan views, which they will.

"He exaggerates and falsely reports about drivers taking their lives in their hands when dealing with everyday roadside objects. 

"Road Warrior recommends NJ should buy up land for possible future widening of Route 17 south of the Garden State Plaza mall. 

"He makes his faulty assessment, even though he reports it is against NJ DOT policy to buy land if no project is approved. 

"He previously reported that NJ transportation fund has no money for capital projects."

The full e-mail can be viewed on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior is making it up as he goes along

Apathetic voters didn't derail Hackensack reformers

During Tuesday's election in Hackensack, a poll worker at the Fairmount Elementary School, above, told a woman who supported Victor E. Sasson for City Council to vote instead for the Citizens for Change slate at the top of the ballot. Sasson wrote a letter to the county Board of Elections, complaining about the alleged voter steering.

Voter apathy didn't stop a slate of reformers from sweeping Tuesday's City Council election in Hackensack.

Only 3,513 out of more than 20,000 registered voters cast ballots on Tuesday -- fewer than in both the 2009 and 2005 elections -- a spokeswoman for City Clerk Debra Heck said today.

In the past, low voter turnout doomed candidates who were seeking to oust the Zisa family dynasty, which has held power since the early 1990s.

But on Tuesday, incumbent Councilman John Labrosse led the 5-member Citizens for Change to victory -- denying a bid by 5 Zisa puppets to hold onto power in what is widely mocked as "Zisaville."

Sasson who?

Independent candidate Victor E. Sasson received 344 votes, some of which might have gone to members of the Coalition for Open Government, which he identified as "the Zisa slate."

The Record of Woodland Park denied Sasson a story announcing his candidacy -- unlike its treatment of the two organized slates -- then virtually ignored the campaign.

The victory of the Labrosse slate took the editors by surprise, forcing them to make it front-page news on Wednesday and to follow today with an interpretative story on A-1 and two related stories from Hackensack reporter Hannan Adely and her predecessor, Stephanie Akin.

'Daunting odds'

Today, the first paragraph of the Page 1 story reports the Labrosse team won "against daunting odds." 

But the total voter turnout, number of registered voters and Sasson's own campaign for reform are nowhere to be found.

Still, the story reveals how The Record and other media cover elections -- by comparing campaign donations, and usually giving more space and more favorable coverage to the candidates who amass the most cash.

Then, reporters call all those pundits and experts they have on speed dial, including a political science professor who also writes an opinion column for The Record.

Weinberg steps up

Even Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, belatedly got into the act, praising Citizens for Change on A-8, even though she had refused Sasson's request to make a robocall on behalf the reform candidates in the election.

That opened the way for Newark Mayor Cory Booker to make his own robocall for the Open Government candidates, bowing to their establishment ties and support from Lynne Hurwitz, Hackensack's Democratic Party boss.

Booker's clueless aide is quoted on A-8 today as calling the Hackensack contest "a tough race with good candidates on both sides, but ultimately the mayor supported what he believed to be the strongest overall ticket."

Christie reforms?

Those experts told The Record the Citizens for Change slate benefited from a reform movement sweeping the state, but how do the editors explain a quote from a professor of government at Fairleigh Dickinson University on A-8.

Prof. Peter Wooley alleges, "We are in reform period here in the sense that Chris Christie made real change the centerpiece of his first term as governor."

Of course, Christie loves to tout his "reform agenda," but the vast majority of his policies have hurt the middle and working classes, and catered to the rich.

The Borgs

So, it's no surprise Christie's war on the middle class is labeled "reform" in The Record, which is published by the elite Borg family.

The Borgs shut down the headquarters of The Record in 2009, abandoning Hackensack and dealing another blow to a struggling Main Street.

Their 20 acres along River Street have become an eyesore, and they haven't disclosed plans for the property.