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| Today's New York Post cover reports that after Ivanka Trump appeared on Sunday's "60 Minutes" with her father the president-elect, her jewelry company sent out an email blast to fashion reporters about her $10,800 bracelet. |
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
The payroll-slashing Gannett Co. today springs a surprise makeover of The Record's print edition on readers who were already wondering where all the local news went.
Page 1 carries only three stories -- compared to eight stories and briefs on Tuesday's A-1 -- and a cleverly worded Gannett promotion to mask how the changes will reduce content even further:
"More great news, great new look."
Local or Section L carries only a handful of local-news stories -- if you don't count 2.5 pages of death notices -- and those stories are outnumbered by wire-service and staff stories in an expanded Business section.
In addition to employing a great deal of white space and larger photos, Gannett even revised page numbers: A-1 becomes 1A, L-1 is 1L and so forth.
Under The Record masthead on Page 1, Gannett has replaced the Borg family's boastful but inaccurate motto -- "North Jersey's Trusted Source" -- with the address of the North Jersey.com website.
Staff slashed
The editorial changes coincide with Gannett cutting in half the remaining 426 positions at North Jersey Media Group.
That resulted in a great many retirements among employees in their 60s who received only one week of severance pay for each year of service.
And production of The Record was moved from Woodland Park to a Neptune design center, where six other Gannett New Jersey dailies are put out in the headquarters of the Asbury Park Press.
NJMG publishes The Record, Herald News, (201) magazine, a reduced number of weekly papers and North Jersey.com, which was revised on Tuesday.
Those reporting and editing staffs have been consolidated in Woodland Park.
In July, Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper publisher, purchased The Record and other NJMG assets from the Borg family for a reported $40 million.
