Editors scramble to catch up to big local story

These rules of conduct displayed on an NJ Transit local train to Suffern, N.Y., above and below, help explain why Governor Christie has such disdain for mass transit. The GOP bully surely would be thrown off the train if he tried his in-your-face, insulting behavior with other commuters.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The Record of Woodland Park continues to play catch up today on a big Hackensack story -- the untimely death of prominent businessman Jerome S. Some, who was killed crossing the street in front of his Prospect Avenue high-rise on Tuesday night.

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza has struggled to keep up with the story since then, even following the lead of this blogger in reporting charges against the driver and interviewing the 87-year-old's survivors.

It doesn't seem possible for a daily newspaper, but here it is the fourth day after Some's death and Sforza is only now naming the poor man's widow, Diane Some, who is shown in a photo on the Local front (L-1).

The photo runs with a story on Friday's humor- and tear-filled funeral in Hackensack.

Local editor wilts

Running the local-news operation in the absence of his boss has exhausted Sforza, but the former reporter is doing a good job padding his report with Law & Order news, photos of minor fires and accidents (L-3 and L-4) and wire service obits of obscure people (L-5 and L-6).

Food crystal ball

What's the point of the Better Living cover story today on "the next big trends in cuisine" (BL-1)?

It's pretty clear the North Jersey chefs interviewed have at least one eye on the bottom line: 

Not one predicted that restaurants will be serving more organic and naturally raised or grown food, knowing that would cut into their profits.

Second look

It's hard to believe that Friday's front-page story on so-called apartheid schools in New Jersey completely omitted mention of Englewood's long-segregated public schools.

The elementary and middle schools in the white-ruled city certainly fit the profile: "1 percent or fewer of the students are white."

Maybe someone can explain to me how North Jersey Media Group Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, former publisher of The Record, could have lived on Englewood's East Hill for decades and allowed his newspaper to be so derelict in its duty to the city's minorities.

Of course, his children, Stephen and Jennifer, were considered too special to attend public schools. And now that they are running The Record, they have as much disdain for Englewood's public schools as their father.

Cashing in on 9/11

The Borgs refused to spend a few thousand dollars to remake the front page on Sept. 11, 2001, and relegated to a back page the iconic photo of firemen raising the American flag over the rubble of the World Trade Center.

But in recent years, Jennifer A. Borg, Esq., the paper's hotshot lawyer, has milked the photo for all of the damages she can win from people who violate NJMG's copyright.

On Thursday, an L-3 story in The Record reported NJMG is seeking as much as $150,000 in damages from Jeanine Pirro, a Fox TV personality, for such a violation.

A few years ago, a glossy 8-by-10-inch copy of Tom Franklin's famous photo was inserted into copies of The Record.

On the other side was an advertisement for a Ford dealer in Hackensack.