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| Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr Did the Borg family miss their calling by going into North Jersey publishing? |
Is it just coincidence the "housing meltdown" reported on Page 1 today began around the time Stephen A. Borg took over as publisher of The Record and laid plans for new sections, firing veteran employees and moving out of Hackensack?
Contrast the gloom of Bergen County's median home prices falling below $400,000 for the first time since 2006 to the relentlessly upbeat Real Estate section Borg launched to celebrate the greed of developers, bankers, real estate agents and home sellers.
Of course, the housing bubble didn't concern the spoiled son of Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, because he knew he could count on a company mortgage to fuel his grandiose plan to buy a $3.65 million McMansion in Tenafly.
A home worth around $2 million -- purchased with an earlier company mortgage -- wasn't good enough for him. He actually showed a photo of the columned mansion to employees at his first staff meeting.
Newsroom elephant
The big local news in head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local is about animals, not humans. The sale of nine horses dominates L-1, while their feathered friends are featured on L-3.
There is no news of Hackensack or many other towns in the section.
Road Warrior John Cichowski has turned the commuting column he took over in late 2003 into a column exclusively for drivers -- as in today's "Christmas wish list." He notes "reader help" in putting it together.
Eye on The Record received a comment today from a reader who once responded to Cichowski's appeal for help. Here it is:
"If you send an email to John Cichowski asking him a question, you get on his e-mail list. He periodically asks readers for information about something he's working on. Usually the subject line of the email is 'The Road Warrior Needs Your Help.'
"So, being the nice person that I am, I used to give him some feedback. Until one time he decided to get real cute in his column and he skewered anyone who had an opinion different than his. He referred to me in some snarky manner, so I wrote him back and told him basically to go f*&k himself and never bother me again. I never read him anymore or Kelly. I get the paper on Thursday and Sunday for the coupons. I hope this new editor is better.
"Anyway, for pure chutzpah, no one beats Mel Fabrikant of the Paramus Post. This hack takes press releases verbatim and slaps his byline on it. I've seen my press releases and those of my colleagues ripped off by this lazy SOB. And in his guidelines, he admonishes people who submit releases to write in the third person. This saves him the time of actually having to do any work. "
Glowing news story
In Business, the highly promotional story about self-serve yogurt shops turns a negative -- businessmen who refuse to create jobs to help the country out of the recession -- into a positive (B-7).
Did I miss how much self-serve yogurt costs compared to yogurt made by an employee? Do customers save money paying by the ounce or however it is priced or do the businessmen just stuff more profit into their pockets?
One-handed driver
That moron, Columnist Mike Kelly, bores readers to tears with how he got his second ticket for talking on a hand-held cellphone while driving (O-1).
He must be spending some of his huge, undeserved salary on helping his daughter live an Upper West Side lifestyle in Manhattan (mentioned in the column) rather than buying a car equipped with a wireless Bluetooth system.
James W. Holahan of Teaneck, who rides the No. 168 bus into the city, wrote a letter to the editor (O-3), vainly appealing for more coverage of mass transit, specifically inefficient operations at the Port Authority's midtown terminal.
Apparently, Holahan is unaware Sykes, the head assignment editor, spends most of her time in the office planning her next meal, not planning better coverage of commuting problems.
Here's another comment to Eye on The Record, which has complained Sykes, Cichowski and others ignore mass transit:
Newsflash. NJ Transit buses are also standing room only at 11:30 pm. on a weeknight. That's because 3/4 of the scheduled buses never show up. At 11:20 p.m on 12/16, the 166 xpress that was supposed to depart PA at 11 pm was still at Nungesser's, in North Bergen incoming to NYC. Needless to say, the 11:20 xpress was probably somewhere on Pluto.
Sky is the limit
In Travel, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung raves about a half-dozen restaurants in Charleston, S.C., but doesn't include entree prices (T-1).
Ung, who based her cover story on food she sampled during a conference of the Association of Food Journalists in Charleston, sent out several tweets at the time, including this one:
Love cola in desserts. Tonight @charlestongrill cola ice cream in bananas foster - reminded me of @maritimeparc cola-frosted choc cake #afj
An Oct. 5 story about the conference in the Post and Courier of Charleston said among the (presumably free) activities planned were a "Taste of Charleston" featuring nine local chefs, and lunch at Husk -- one of the restaurants prominently featured in today's Travel piece.
OnT-4, a photo is labeled "an oyster po'boy salad" at the Charleston Grill, but all readers can see is a bed of prosciutto or other thinly sliced ham, a few asparagus and an egg yolk.
Stephen did not show photos of a columned mansion. Were we at the same meeting?
ReplyDeleteThat's my recollection -- a home painted white with three or four columns.
ReplyDeleteHe showed the photo -- I recall it was a slide -- right after he told the SRO crowd, "I'm not in this for the money" -- his first big lie.
I guess he thought we all lived in homes like that. I guess he was saying he lived modestly. What a joke.
The meeting was on the second floor of 150 River St. in the biggest room in the building.
Hey, the bridge I lived under after being laid off by the Record had columns too. I didn't know I had so much in common with Stephen.
ReplyDeleteThe first Anonymous, who claims Stephen Borg's first house didn't have columns, misses the point.
ReplyDeleteIt was worth close to $2 million, so why did the greedy Silver Spoon need to suck out $3.65 million to buy a bigger place and, several months later, initiate a record number of layoffs to cut labor costs?
Also, in a subsequent comment, the first Anonymous claims Borg has paid back the $3.65 million with interest, without disclosing the interest rate.
I doubt that. He bought the McMansion roughly four years ago, and it's hard to see how he could have paid back about $1 million a year, even given his inflated salary.
Among his expenses are four sons, who presumably attend private schools, as he did, and a lifestyle that includes the Hamptons, Aspen and so forth.
If you want to get a glimpse into the life of Stephen and Monica Borg, you can take a look at her Facebook page under "Monica Lokey Borg."
I believe he met in her in Dallas, where he once worked, and that she is Mexican.
Their first house was at 22 Birchwood Lane in Tenafly. They purchased it for $865,000 in December 1999, and sold it for $2 million in August 2007, according to public records.
Even though the Birchwood Lane house was purchased with an earlier company mortgage, none of the $2 million was used as a deposit on the $3.65 million house on Churchill Road in September 2007; the second company mortgage was for the full $3.65 million.
I have only seen photos of the two houses, but I recall columns on the first. Perhaps they were faux columns on the facade, in relief, rather than free-standing columns, but it doesn't really make a difference, does it?
A privately held company can do anything it wants.
ReplyDeleteIf one does not like or agree with it, he can simply quit and go to a company that more conforms to his style and/or views.
Please. You and all the other apologists should just drop dead.
ReplyDeleteNJMG is a private company with a public trust, so it shouldn't act like all other private companies.
Public trust or not, it can do what it wants. If you feel it has violated and laws, perhaps you can sue them.
ReplyDeleteWhoops! Sorry, you already did that!
Or you can get some backing from all your supporters and friends and
begin a new, competing newspaper (which will honor that public trust!)
Hey buddy I was the comment you didn't post, and I'm not the same as Anonymous 1.
ReplyDeleteI didn't say he paid it off. I said he had to pay it off, and with interest. Let's say it's 3 percent. It means he is basically borrowing from his own inheritance and paying it back to his company at 3 percent interest.
I don't see the big deal in that.
People lost jobs? Not because of the house. Because daily revenue in didn't exceed daily revenue out. There isn't a paper in New Jersey that didn't cut - most with far more disastrous results. Look at the Ledger. Look at the Gannett papers. Look at the frigging Journal News, which is about the size of the Ridgewood News at this point.
I don't like the man, and I'm not an supporter or apologist. I just keep seeing you harping on this mortgage and I don't get it. It's his company, it's his money. If he wants to spend it on columns for his mansion (you're wrong by the way) or putting pictures of it in his publications, my choice is to live with it or walk away.
Not everyone can walk away from their jobs.
ReplyDeleteEmployers love to say that to disgruntled employees: If you don't like it, work elsewhere.
But for various reasons, including the economy and age discrimination, many veteran employees at The Record and NJMG don't have a chance in the job market.
The Record lost an age discrimination case? I must have missed that.
ReplyDelete