Who does the editor identify with?

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Even if he had consensual sex with the Manhattan hotel maid whose credibility is weak, how does Dominique Strauss-Kahn's wife feel?

Editor Francis Scandale gives big play on Page 1 today to freedom for Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the sexual-assault case against the former IMF chief seems weaker. 


Scandale put the story on The Record's front page because:

• The accusations, arrest and indictment were on the front page, and in the interests of fair play, so should major questions about the credibility of the hotel maid.

• Or, the editor identifies with men whose brains are in their penis.

I guess Scandale didn't have any more New Jersey news and had to fill space with a long sidebar on Strauss-Kahn's chances in the French presidential election -- a subject of no interest in the Garden State (A-6).


Editor goes ape


Before that story broke, Scandale had ordered A-1 play for a story on a baboon making a surprise visit to his human relatives in Freehold (A-3).


The baboon must have eaten some of those sick, tumor-laden oysters from the polluted Hackensack River (A-1).


Publisher Stephen A. Borg was all set to sell the landmark building at 150 River St. in Hackensack to an oyster processor who claimed River City bivalves would some day rival those from Louisiana.


We get letters


A letter to the editor from James D. Storozuk of Fair Lawn says the Woodland Park daily erred on June 25 in calling  a self-propelled military vehicle "a tank" (A-13). 


That's like calling The Record "a newsletter," he said. You just wait, Jim.


A second letter, from Valerie Haymes of Hackensack, reveals the noisy truth about living near Teterboro Airport, in contrast to the June 28 propaganda piece that ran on the OpEd page.


Even the photo -- of a small prop plane against a blue sky filled with puffy, white clouds -- was a lie.


Hot news


Desperate head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes pads her Local front today with yet another story on solar panels and a photo of a fender bender.


A major story on a new job in New York State for the former Hackensack superintendent of schools appears on L-1 today, but readers find only an L-6 brief on the return of the city's first Hispanic mayor under a  rotation system.


Readers of Better Living are greeted by a major story on hot dogs, complete with photos and lists (F-1 and F-4). Yet, the reporter couldn't find any place that serves uncured, preservative- and antibiotic-free beef hot dogs.


Excessive consumption of conventional franks has been linked to cancer.


Jaeger takes a powder


It looks like Features Editor Barbara Jaeger is history.


The Contact Us box on F-2 today is missing her name as well as her title. 


The first name listed is her assistant, Marc Schwarz, who lost the "t" in his last name many years ago and periodically travels around the world to look for it.


Jaeger's exit follows that of Steve Adamek, her husband, who covered basketball and golf for The Record. His stuff stopped appearing on northjersey.com in late May.


Jaeger, who is about 59 years old, and Adamek were two of the most unpleasant people in the newsroom to deal with. 


Many say Jaeger got her first job -- as a part-time news clerk in 1974, right out of college  -- only because her father worked at The Record.


If Jaeger received severance, it would have totaled 12 weeks' salary under changes imposed by Vice President Jennifer A. Borg -- one-third of what she would have gotten under the old system, or one week's pay for every one of her 36 years at the paper.


Cut food news 


Jaeger hounded Food Editor Patricia Mack into retirement in 2006 as part of a pattern of discrimination against older workers she supervised.


She also rolled over and played dead when the younger Borg folded the Food section.


Reporters and editors who unsuccessfully applied for jobs in her department would console themselves -- and be consoled by other workers -- that at least they wouldn't have to work for such a difficult woman.


Among her supervisory traits was scolding employees for expense-account items she considered excessive or unnecessary. 


George Cubanski also left. He worked for Jaeger and supervised the features copy desk, where he allowed numerous errors to get past his cursor. 


Cubanski took over from Liz Houlton, his wife, who was promoted, despite the poor job she did as copy desk slot.


Jaeger and Adamek, Cubanski and Houlton, and Sykes and Kevin O'Neil were three of the married couples employed in The Record newsroom for many years, despite their lack of talent.


Years before O'Neil's exit, many co-workers couldn't figure out what he did as head of graphics at the Web site.


When he got the heave-ho, Sykes kept her job, just like Houlton kept her job when her husband left. 


Did they make a deal with the spoiled Borg siblings to help trim the payroll in these challenging economic times?