Editors somehow miss plan to fell 100 trees in parking lot

In 2009, North Jersey Media Group and The Record newsroom moved to 1 Garret Mountain Plaza in Woodland Park, above, from 150 River Street in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Gannett Co. executives were so busy redesigning The Record's print edition and website, as well as laying off staff, they missed a controversial story unfolding in the parking lot.

According to Page 1 of The Record today, editors failed to report that Mountain Development Co. applied for a permit to cut down more than 100 trees in the parking lots of their building, 1 Garret Mountain Plaza, and two other office towers in Woodland Park. 

That means the public and environmental groups didn't have a chance to comment on a plan to remove the trees to make way for solar panels to power two of the three buildings.

A photo caption on 1A today shows a tree service worker removing a tree "last week."

The story also reports the building operators paid $3o,000 so Woodland Park can plant 100 trees elsewhere in the borough.

Bruce Springsteen

Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen's comments on President-elect Donald J. Trump should have been on Page 1 today (3A).

"I mean, they're lies, they can't occur," Springsteen said of building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and other "Trump exaggerations," as the USA Today story puts it.

The story doesn't mention Springsteen refused to perform at the 2010 inauguration of one of his biggest fans, Governor Christie.

Food reporting

The Record appears to have given up all pretense of critical reporting on restaurants, food and nutrition.

The weekly restaurant review ended with the departure of Elisa Ung in November, more than nine years after she was hired.

Since then, editors have published "food crawl" stories that read like advertising.

Today's Better Living front focuses on "the best fireplace restaurants in North Jersey" or what the article calls "cozy local spots" (1BL).

"Baby, it's cold outside," writes Joanna Prisco, a freelancer who also owns a culinary business. "But inside these restaurants, the fire is blazing and fine food is cookin'."

Cheesy promotion

Most of Monday's Better Living front was devoted to Lisa Dosch, who has won "Best Cheesecake" at the New Jersey State Fair five years in a row.

Her cheesecakes, which happen to be served at her family's restaurant in Nyack, N.Y., cost $35 to $1,200 (with gold flake).

The enormous headline declared her, "Queen of Cheesecake."  

From a nutrition standpoint, that should have been, "Queen of Cholesterol."

Tens of thousands of readers watching their weight, cholesterol and sugar intake likely stared dumbfound at this promotion.

The Borgs finally come clean with readers

Image via Wikipedia

After months of falsely stating on Page A-2 every day The Record still is located at 150 River St. in Hackensack and that it's published daily at the same address, the Borg family and North Jersey Media Group today finally admit they moved to Woodland Park last year.

The editors jettisoned the ridiculous "Good News" story on top of the weather map on A-3 and moved the map to A-2, devoting the third page to state news, as it was in the past, although half of it is now advertising. (Photo: Church on The Green, across the street from the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack.)

Who takes responsibility for the appearance of "150 River St." on A-2 for so many months after the former Hackensack daily moved most of its staff out of the landmark building, where Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg still holds down the ghost-filled fort? Publisher Stephen A. Borg? Vice President and General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg? Mac himself?

The River Street address appeared on A-2 day after day under the paper's new motto, "The Trusted Local Source." What a hoot. How can you trust a paper that hides its wholesale abandonment of Hackensack, where it was founded in 1895 and prospered for more than 110 years?

To rub salt in readers' wounds, editorial coverage of Hackensack has shriveled, as head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes keeps ordering Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado to cover anything about Police Chief Ken Zisa but nothing about schools, development, municipal affairs, City Council and school board meetings, pockmarked streets, gas-guzzling police cruisers, creaking local buses,  relentless aircraft noise, and the impact on Main Street of the paper's move to Passaic and Morris counties -- just to cite a number of potential stories.

Is Monsy stationed in the newsroom at 1 Garret Mountain Plaza in Woodland Park or with a handful of reporters at 150 River St.? 


Take a look at the correction on A-2 today. It's the second time in a matter of days the incompetent editors ran the wrong picture. The first time, the picture with an obituary was of the wrong man. Today, the paper acknowledges it ran the wrong picture of a woman charged with distributing painkillers.