Cartoonist Jimmy Margulies is discarded

The Record's old headquarters in Hackensack have become an eyesore.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg -- the marketing whiz who has been running The Record since 2007 -- has fired Jimmy Margulies, the award-winning cartoonist who joined the staff more than 22 years ago.

Readers of Blue Jersey got the news in an item posted Sunday evening. It included a message from Margulies:

"After almost 22 and 1/2 years at The Record in northern New Jersey, I became the latest editorial cartoonist to lose a full time staff job at a daily newspaper. Despite having won a few national awards,  syndication and frequent appearances in some high profile places like USA Today, as well as being a popular local speaker and using social media to become one of the most popular features on the paper's Web site, it was not enough to save me from the paper's decision to trim expenses."

The Record recently offered buyouts to editorial staffers who are at least 60 years old, but it's not known whether Margulies qualified.

Here is a link to the item on Blue Jersey, which calls itself "All the news that slips from print":

'A true Jersey treasure' 


Not long after the young publisher took over, he asked Margulies to focus his cartoons on New Jersey topics.

The buyouts and firing of the cartoonist follow cuts in the news hole that apparently are linked to a lack of advertising support, including the folding of the Signature section and less space devoted to Travel and the weekly restaurant review.

Borg is the spoiled rich kid, also known as a Silver Spoon, who puts his own welfare above that of the newspaper's staff.

2008 downsizing

Recall the 2008 staff downsizing that followed by several months his use of a company mortgage to buy a $3.65 million mansion in Tenafly

Apparently, Borg felt his growing family didn't have enough space in his $2 million mansion.

One staffer who left in that bloodletting was Nancy Cherry, a supervisor of the news copy desk, who single-handedly upheld standards of accuracy, grammar and good news writing.

'Queen of Errors'

With her departure, the number of errors, inaccurate and clunky headlines, and flawed photo captions has soared under the inept supervision of Production Editor Liz Houlton.

Another one of Borg's boneheaded moves was to fold The Record's Food section.

Houlton, known as the "Queen of Errors" from all the years she ran the features copy desk, is paid six figures.

If Borg wanted to cut expenses, he should have shit-canned Houlton or another six-figure staffer, Deirdre Sykes, the supremely lazy head assignment editor who is directly responsible for the drastic decline in news coverage of Hackensack and so many other towns. 

It's a sad day when talented staffer like Margulies are let go and incompetents like Houlton and Sykes stay on to continue wreaking havoc.