Tuesday, February 19, 2013

A rare mention of Main Street on Page 1

Main Dish replaced Naturally Good on Hackensack's Main Street.



Even before The Record abandoned Hackensack in 2009, the editors virtually ignored the city's downtown, as well as its counterparts in Teaneck and Englewood.

Today's Page 1 report on the closing of Mitchell Simon Co. on Englewood's South Dean Street is typical of the coverage -- nothing more than noting the failure of individual businesses.

Teaneck's troubled downtown is mentioned in passing today, but I can't recall anything in recent years on what happened to downtown Hackensack or even acknowledgement of new restaurants and other food outlets.

In fact, The Record went out of its way to ignore the impact the newspaper's departure had on Main Street businesses in the city where it had prospered for more than 110 years.

The Borgs took their money and ran, and the 20 acres they own on River Street have become an eyesore.

Good Tenafly coverage

Just on Monday, a story on the tony downtown in Tenafly appeared in Local -- yet another piece about the town where Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives in a $3.65 million McMansion.  

What a ho-hum front page, thanks to Editor Marty Gottlieb, who again wastes a large part of A-1 on sports. 

No Hackensack news

In head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, Hackensack municipal news is again missing in action or inaction, though the suicide of a 22-year-old woman is reported in a brief on L-7.

The woman, who jumped to her death from the 10th floor of 170 Prospect Ave., isn't identified.

Working- and middle class readers got some good news on L-2 -- yachts belonging to three millionaires were destroyed by fire at a marina in Weehawken.

Rusty ideas

On the Better Living cover, Jay Levin, the paper's local obituary writer, tells readers why he loves the 1991 Buick Century and 1981 Pontiac Grand LeMans he owns, neither of which are classics (BL-1).

The frugal journalist acknowledges they aren't as safe as modern cars, but ignores all the pollution they produce and all the gasoline they waste, and doesn't let on he cares so little about the environment he never takes mass transit. 

More wasted space 

Talking about pollution and waste, the Road Warrior column on Sunday caught the attention of a reader concerned about all the distortions he's found in the work of Staff Writer John Cichowski:

"The Road Warrior branches out in his Feb. 17 column from BAD, unsafe or incompetent reporting mistakes into incoherent, misleading or incompetent reporting about BAD ideas that shows he lacks expertise about N.J. road statutes, safety, travel products, medical ID tags/technology, and state legislation for emergency medical cards in vehicle glove boxes.

"The Record's management should be appalled by his strange combination of BAD reporting mistakes and incompetent reporting about BAD ideas.

"The Road Warrior continues to publish readers' comments without reporting needed info that would better inform readers.

"Road Warrior's reports on 2 named products were based on incoherent, misleading, false, or unsafe statements and advice.  Shame on The Record for allowing these atrocious reports."

See the full e-mail to management at the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

The hard sell

 

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