Dear Marty: Seven ways to save The Record

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It's a long way from The Times' new building in Manhattan to the unmarked office building on Garret Mountain in Woodland Park where The Record has set up shop. 

Editor's note: Marty Gottlieb is leaving his position as global editions editor at The New York Times to take over as editor of  The Record of Woodland Park some time early in the new year. Here is an open letter to Gottlieb on changes he should seriously consider to save the dysfunctional local newspaper.

Dear Marty:


In editorial terms, The Record of Woodland Park has been running in place for more than a decade -- laboring under the same tired editors -- and there's been a noticeable lack of hustle in gathering local and North Jersey news.


Here are a lucky seven changes you should consider to save the onetime great daily newspaper: 

1. Re-assign the local assignment desk, now run so poorly by Editor Deirdre Sykes, a lifer who can't get out of her own way to inspire the staff. If the assignment desk is the heart and soul of a newspaper, this one has suffered cardiac arrest.
2. Try and change a newsroom culture where several Sykes' favorites do as little work as possible or are allowed to pursue endless investigative projects.
3. Remove Sykes as an impediment to promotion in the newsroom, where only staffers she "likes" get anywhere. For example, news copy editors have gone on to better jobs at The Times, but none has ever been promoted to Sykes' assignment desk.
4. Replace the tired voices of Columnists John Cichowski, Mike Kelly and Bill Ervolino, all of whom ran out of ideas long ago. (See their stale columns in today's paper on L-1, O-1 and F-3, respectively.)
5. Empower the news copy desk, which was relegated years ago to the minor role of headline and caption writing. For that to happen, the news copy editors must be allowed to edit stories and suggest ways the assignment editors can repair them. And their copy desk supervisors, Liz Houlton and Vinny Byrne, should re-instate the high standards of accuracy and language enforced by Co-Slot Nancy Cherry before she left as part of a 2008 downsizing.
6. Change the focus of local-news gathering. Instead of only covering meetings or re-writing press releases and quoting the same officials and gadflies day after day, assignment editors should encourage reporters to go in search of  residents and quote them for a change, writing a "Talk of the Town" where appropriate. Local reporters also should be allowed to write a clearly labeled "analysis" or column on important or controversial issues.
7. Take on the really big issues -- from the broken home-rule system of government to a state tax policy that protects millionaires to the obesity epidemic -- that Sykes, interim Editor Douglas Clancy and former Editor Francis "Frank" Scandale did their best to ignore. For that to happen, the newspaper needs to treat Governor Christie more objectively and not constantly anoint him as a gift from the political gods. 

Good luck, Marty. You're about to enter a hornet's nest of a newsroom, where Publisher Stephen A. Borg, a marketing whiz, has had the upper hand since mid-2006, when he took over from his Dad. 

The younger Borg did his best to get rid of many older newsroom staffers in the downsizing that preceded the move out of Hackensack, and here you come at the age of 63. I can't wait to see what happens.


All the best in 2012,
Victor E. Sasson
Eye on The Record

Today's paper

Besides being a few months late, today's Page 1 story on the easing of property tax hikes ignores why Governor Christie hasn't been able to fulfill his major campaign pledge -- to lower those taxes -- even though he's been in office for almost two years.


Nor does the story explain why Hackensack raised taxes by 6.9%, compared to most other towns, which complied with a 2% cap.


On the front of Local, it's bad enough the Road Warrior column is based on readers' e-mails and strays once again from its core mission of discussing commuting problems.


But John Cichowski's answer to at least one question ignores reality. Asked why traffic on the 80/95 local lanes to the George Washington Bridge moves faster than on express lanes, Cichowski makes up a silly answer, instead of explaining there are only two express lanes, compared to at least three local lanes.


At the bottom of L-1, a look back at notable and intriguing North Jerseyans who died in 2011 begs the question why most of their expanded obituaries were buried inside the section.


There is no Hackensack new in Local today, but in letters to the editor on O-3, residents Joseph Urban and Richard Gelber question the city's change in insurance carriers, which was reported in Thursday's paper. 


Urban notes the apparent conflict of interest in the payment of more than $500,000 to  the firm of City Attorney Joseph Zisa, cousin of suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa.


Despite numerous stories about Ken Zisa's legal problems in recent years, The Record has never examined the propriety of this arrangement with Joseph Zisa -- in a city some residents refer to as "Zisaville." Frank Zisa, the family patriarch, died on June 8, 2011, at 91.


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