Leaving readers in the dark again

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Fridays are sentencing days at the Bergen County Courthouse, above, and other courthouses, but that doesn't fully explain why The Record of Woodland Park is filled with Law & Order and court stories day after day.

"It's Bergen County's 'Miracle on the Hudson'!" "It's Bergen County's 'Miracle on the Hudson'!" Editors Francis Scandale and Deirdre Sykes shouted in the newsroom as they jumped up and down at word that a small plane landed undamaged and with no injuries Jan 31 on Route 80.

"Hold Page 1, hold Page 1!"! they screamed, even though it was many hours until deadline, before Sykes collapsed on the floor in hysterical laughter.

Clipped wings

Well, here's a follow-up story with old photos  -- about what the pilot did wrong -- on Page 1 of The Record today, and it goes into excruciating detail. (Yet, Staff Writer Jean Rimbach, who spends much of the year on vacation, fails, as she did in the original story, to name the town where the plane landed.)

You'll also find lots of detail in a second A-1 story today -- this the appalling account of how Fort Lee police left two Korean-American teenagers in a police van overnight.

But at the top of the front page, arguably the most important story of the day -- a deal to avert the shutdown of the federal government -- is a slipshod one from The Associated Press with no details on $37 billion in cuts.

A graphics-photo package laying out the cuts on A-1, below the story, would have been welcome, but Scandale decided opening day for the moronic Mets was more important, so he squandered the space with a big photo of the losers.

On A-2, a correction notes the wrong photo of a multimillionaire appeared in the Business pages on Friday. He's still laughing all the way to the bank, along with the Borgs.

About a dozen Law & Order and court stories appear in the paper today, including nine in Sykes' Local section, as the editors rely less and less on municipal news to fill their sections.

Charles Gibney

A reader of Eye on The Record says Charles Gibney has retired after 30 years as CFO and treasurer. Indeed, his name has been replaced on the Editorial Page (A-11).

Newsroom staffers remember Gibney well for the monthly profit-and-loss reports he gave after automatic profit-sharing ended.

Month after month, Gibney reported North Jersey Media Group was making some of its biggest  bucks  in Rockaway -- printing the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Irish Echo and other publications.

But when Stephen A. Borg took over as publisher from his father in mid-2006, he promptly shut down that highly profitable operation and moved printing of The Record and Herald News to Rockaway. 

Fuel costs for the converted German tanks NJMG uses to deliver papers to Bergen, Passaic and Hudson counties skyrocketed, but Borg was able to get rid of 55 press workers.

'Behind the Green Door'

The Second Helpings food blog on northjersey.com reports Green Door Cafe, closed by a fire in Tenafly, has reopened in Manhattan.

Staff Writer Elisa Ung says the name has been changed to Greensquare Tavern, though she  doesn't mention that's a good thing: "Behind the Green Door" is a notorious, hard-core porn movie starring Marilyn Chambers, not a documentary on serving organic and locally sourced food.

Ung also doesn't say why the restaurant abandoned their Bergen County customers, presumably because she abhors healthy food and doesn't care one bit about them.