Cats, dogs and just plain animals

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The Penn State Lion Shrine. Students who rioted did a good imitation of wild animals.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

With dogs and cats on the front page today, cows on A-2 and a bunch of animals from Penn State on A-5, you could argue The Record's editors are inhuman.

You wouldn't get any push back from former newsroom employees whose lives were ruined by the mercurial Stephen A. Borg, Barbara Jaeger, Deirdre Sykes and  Francis "Frank" Scandale.

The Page 1 story on how "pets suffer in hard times" may pull many readers' heart strings, but others will wonder why the paper writes so little about how humans and Main Street businesses have fared during the recession.

Dog eat dog

Anyway, interim Editor Doug Clancy, aren't millions of unwanted pets destroyed every year in good times and bad? Why is this Page 1 news -- outside of you didn't have anything else?

The lead story today is another speculative one from Staff Writer Juliet Fletcher on how much money the state will save from high-deductible health plans for public workers.

But Clancy and the assignment desk should have known this story sounds just like the four or five earlier accounts she wrote about health-care and pension savings. 

Why not wait until the savings are realized and then report them?

For development

As usual, Staff Writer John Brennan comes down on the developer's side in another A-1 story today, this one about an expansion of the former Xanadu project into 5 acres of sensitive wetlands.

The Penn State story completely omits how a student protest turned into a riot after head coach Joe Paterno was fired last week in a child sex-abuse scandal. Who knows whether any of the students shown in an A-5 photo took part in the rock-throwing and other violence.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section is filled with soft weekend news. 

Hackensack residents, among others, continue to wait for the end of a news drought.

Food fight

On the front of Better Living today, the highly promotional Starters column on recently opened restaurants is unusually long and carries a new byline, Joyce Venezia Suss (F-1).

It's hard to tell whether Suss knows anything about the origin of food from this sentence about an Irish pub:

"Ingredients are a particular source of pride and include certified Angus beef, hormone-free poultry and seasonal sustainable seafood ...."

Certified Angus Beef is nothing special; it is raised conventionally, with antibiotics and growth hormones. 

Federal law prohibits hormones in poultry, so it's possible the chicken and other poultry served at this pub were raised on antibiotics and animal byproducts. 

That doesn't sound like anything a restaurant owner would be proud of.

Page 1 news is boring us to tears

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Hackensack in the 1890s.

It doesn't get any duller than Page 1 in The Record today.


I saw all I wanted to see about the earthquake in Turkey on TV last night.


More prostitution arrests in North Jersey? The off-lead A-1 story has no statistics to back that up. And what man is so hard up he'd go with one of the hags pictured on A-6?


The story on witness intimidation at the bottom of the front page is another one of those court stories that sound important, but really don't affect many readers.


Sunday night blues


It's the kind of story that runs on Monday's front pages, because the pitiful editors who get stuck working Sunday nights really have nothing else from Editor Francis Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes.


In Sykes' Local section, there is municipal news from Englewood -- actually, a story about police salaries (L-2) -- but there's no news from Hackensack, Teaneck and many other towns.


A graphics package on L-1 tells readers 2011 may become the wettest year in New Jersey since 1931, when data collection started.


The Woodland Park daily also appears to be on its way to setting a record for publishing the least local news since the paper was founded in 1895 in Hackensack.


In Better Living, a rumpled Bill Ervolino completely misses readers' funny bones with a story on his pedicure (F-1). Too bad, the shop couldn't manage to do something for his odd sense of humor.


Free lunch


On Sunday, Ervolino's Better Living colleague, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung, used her Sunday column to list her "top 10 nicest things that some restaurants do for their customers" (F-8).


How strange. She has to roam as far as San Francisco and recall a service experience "several years ago" in Manhattan to complete the list. 


What does that say about North Jersey restaurants -- where she can indulge her dessert obsession on The Record's expense account -- that she couldn't find her "top 10 nicest things" here?


Of course, the nicest thing a restaurant can do is cut its prices in this difficult economy -- in the form of a multi-course meal that delivers great value. She doesn't list any of those.


'Eye on The Record' 


Sunday marked the 2nd anniversary of Eye on The Record.


I recommend the most popular posts, listed on the right.


Eye on The Record could not have lasted this long without the uninspired newsroom leadership of Scandale, Sykes, Tim Nostrand, Liz Houlton, Dan Sforza and all the other editors who have been there "forever."


The infamous Barbara Jaeger -- who ran the features department so badly and for so long -- is gone. 


She shared a contempt for older workers with Scandale and Sykes, but some of the young staffers she championed simply fall flat on their faces more times than not.


Absentee Publisher Stephen A. Borg's greed seems to have blinded him to how far this once-great daily has fallen.

Younger Borg makes a pitch to the rich

Image by toyohara via Flickr

A July 2008 front page from the Khaleej Times, which is partially government owned.

Stephanie Rivers is the new director of features for The Record and Herald News, replacing Barbara Jaeger, a feared and despised editor who left or was pushed out around July 1, 2011.


On her LinkedIn page, Rivers says she has "extensive experience in graphics design and fashion."


Rivers work will be most visible in Better Living, the daily features section created by Publisher Stephen A. Borg to replace separate sections for Food and other subjects.


It's unclear whether Borg hired Rivers, whose last job was as editor of Indulge magazine, a publication of an English language newspaper, the Khaleej Times, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. 


The magazine's mission recalls Borgs' pet project, (201) magazine:

"Luxury magazines come and go, especially in these times of economic woe. But a luxury magazine that strikes the right journalistic chord, resonates with its intended audience, and evokes a passion, if you will, begins a beautiful, satisfying relationship. The reader looks to the magazine to take them on a hedonistic journey filled with items of their desire; the low down on what’s haute and provide them the visual wanderlust that fills a lazy afternoon. Such is the mission of INDULGE magazine. We want to make you lust after the latest accessories, be filled with the desire to travel to distant and not-so -distant lands, be in the know about the efficacy of your purchases on the environment; and anticipate what the next page may unfold. Oxford defines luxury as “the state of great comfort and extravagant living,” and we here at INDULGE define luxury as an “understated yearning for the ‘best-of-the-best’ life. Do join us on our quarterly trek and discover new places to visit, new faces to know, and new treasures to fill your fashionable heart’s desire."

Editors ignore people Christie screwed

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Editor Francis Scandale has portrayed Silk City as Sin City, where drugs and prostitution have corrupted scores of Bergen County suburbanites.


 

When is the last time The Record ran an interview with advocates for abused children or the parents of a child denied an after-school program?

Have you seen anything on women whose grandmothers are in nursing homes facing $29 million in cuts proposed by Governor Christie? 


What about the views of low-income parents whose children no longer get a nutritious, state-subsidized breakfast at school?


Sixteen days into the state's new fiscal year, Editors Francis Scandale and the clueless assignment editors working under Deirdre Sykes don't care about any of those people or the thousands of others suffering under Christie's mean-spirited budget.


What do you want from them? They never talk to readers, just sit in the office all day long, eat lunch and move their bowels. 


Hey, they're journalists at a once-great suburban daily. Do you really expect them to send reporters out to measure all the pain the GOP bully of a governor has inflicted and put it into words?


But someone is giving a voice to Christie's victims.


You can read all about the cuts in the letters to the editor that keep on pouring in, such as the three on Page A-11 today from Dianne Douthat of Wayne, Duane Ross of Waldwick and Jessica Cheng of Cranbury under the heading:

Series of attacks

on N.J.'s poor

Kudos to Letters Editor Charles Saydah, a lifer, for printing these letters and others. Keep them coming.


Of course, printing letters from readers doesn't fulfill the responsibility of Scandale, Sykes, Dan Sforza, Christina Joseph, Rich Whitby and other editors to bring the budget cuts to life.


Page 1 sleeper


What do readers get instead?


The lead Page 1 story reports more mea culpas from media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who lost two loyal editors in the growing phone-hacking scandal.


I wonder how much soul-searching is going on at The Record's Woodland Park headquarters among Scandale, Sykes and their minions for all the questionable tactics they've employed?


Look at that deadly dull, bureaucratic process story on curbing the state's nearly 600 local authorities, boards and commissions at the bottom of A-1. 


The third paragraph begins, "It will be a year from now and likely much longer before the authorities, board and commissions must upgrade their online transparency ...." 


OK. They spend $5 billion annually, but why is this snoozer on A-1?


More 'woops'


Page A-2 has the second correction in a row on a Paterson story, though this one is labeled a "clarification."


Someone should clarify how everybody missed a typo in the A-1 photo caption with the soccer story. "In" appears instead of "is."


Sykes' Local section is filled today with Law & Order copy ad naseum, including yet another study of two towns merging their police departments and a plan to have the superfluous Bergen County police patrol three towns.


Twelve precious inches on L-2 are wasted on a stolen landscape truck with fake plates in Oradell. Why isn't this a brief?

Marc Schwarz


On Page F-2 of Better Living, Marc Schwarz is listed in the Contact Us box without a title above his name -- a change from when he was listed as assistant features editor under Features Editor Barbara Jaeger, who was shown the door earlier this month.


Is he the new features editor?

Who does the editor identify with?

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Even if he had consensual sex with the Manhattan hotel maid whose credibility is weak, how does Dominique Strauss-Kahn's wife feel?

Editor Francis Scandale gives big play on Page 1 today to freedom for Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the sexual-assault case against the former IMF chief seems weaker. 


Scandale put the story on The Record's front page because:

• The accusations, arrest and indictment were on the front page, and in the interests of fair play, so should major questions about the credibility of the hotel maid.

• Or, the editor identifies with men whose brains are in their penis.

I guess Scandale didn't have any more New Jersey news and had to fill space with a long sidebar on Strauss-Kahn's chances in the French presidential election -- a subject of no interest in the Garden State (A-6).


Editor goes ape


Before that story broke, Scandale had ordered A-1 play for a story on a baboon making a surprise visit to his human relatives in Freehold (A-3).


The baboon must have eaten some of those sick, tumor-laden oysters from the polluted Hackensack River (A-1).


Publisher Stephen A. Borg was all set to sell the landmark building at 150 River St. in Hackensack to an oyster processor who claimed River City bivalves would some day rival those from Louisiana.


We get letters


A letter to the editor from James D. Storozuk of Fair Lawn says the Woodland Park daily erred on June 25 in calling  a self-propelled military vehicle "a tank" (A-13). 


That's like calling The Record "a newsletter," he said. You just wait, Jim.


A second letter, from Valerie Haymes of Hackensack, reveals the noisy truth about living near Teterboro Airport, in contrast to the June 28 propaganda piece that ran on the OpEd page.


Even the photo -- of a small prop plane against a blue sky filled with puffy, white clouds -- was a lie.


Hot news


Desperate head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes pads her Local front today with yet another story on solar panels and a photo of a fender bender.


A major story on a new job in New York State for the former Hackensack superintendent of schools appears on L-1 today, but readers find only an L-6 brief on the return of the city's first Hispanic mayor under a  rotation system.


Readers of Better Living are greeted by a major story on hot dogs, complete with photos and lists (F-1 and F-4). Yet, the reporter couldn't find any place that serves uncured, preservative- and antibiotic-free beef hot dogs.


Excessive consumption of conventional franks has been linked to cancer.


Jaeger takes a powder


It looks like Features Editor Barbara Jaeger is history.


The Contact Us box on F-2 today is missing her name as well as her title. 


The first name listed is her assistant, Marc Schwarz, who lost the "t" in his last name many years ago and periodically travels around the world to look for it.


Jaeger's exit follows that of Steve Adamek, her husband, who covered basketball and golf for The Record. His stuff stopped appearing on northjersey.com in late May.


Jaeger, who is about 59 years old, and Adamek were two of the most unpleasant people in the newsroom to deal with. 


Many say Jaeger got her first job -- as a part-time news clerk in 1974, right out of college  -- only because her father worked at The Record.


If Jaeger received severance, it would have totaled 12 weeks' salary under changes imposed by Vice President Jennifer A. Borg -- one-third of what she would have gotten under the old system, or one week's pay for every one of her 36 years at the paper.


Cut food news 


Jaeger hounded Food Editor Patricia Mack into retirement in 2006 as part of a pattern of discrimination against older workers she supervised.


She also rolled over and played dead when the younger Borg folded the Food section.


Reporters and editors who unsuccessfully applied for jobs in her department would console themselves -- and be consoled by other workers -- that at least they wouldn't have to work for such a difficult woman.


Among her supervisory traits was scolding employees for expense-account items she considered excessive or unnecessary. 


George Cubanski also left. He worked for Jaeger and supervised the features copy desk, where he allowed numerous errors to get past his cursor. 


Cubanski took over from Liz Houlton, his wife, who was promoted, despite the poor job she did as copy desk slot.


Jaeger and Adamek, Cubanski and Houlton, and Sykes and Kevin O'Neil were three of the married couples employed in The Record newsroom for many years, despite their lack of talent.


Years before O'Neil's exit, many co-workers couldn't figure out what he did as head of graphics at the Web site.


When he got the heave-ho, Sykes kept her job, just like Houlton kept her job when her husband left. 


Did they make a deal with the spoiled Borg siblings to help trim the payroll in these challenging economic times? 

Editors fiddle while Trenton burns

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On 9/11, Editor Francis Scandale blew a chance to make The Record's front page unique by ignoring a potential Pulitzer Prize-winning staff photo.

Editor Francis Scandale uses the front page of The Record today to distract readers from the looming battle over the state budget between slash-and-burn Governor Christie and Democrats fighting for the middle class.


The big photo-and-text element on the 9/11 memorial and the story on the Prudential Center in Newark elicit a "gee whiz" and little more.


The 9/11 story -- the third, detailed takeout on Ground Zero in about six months -- only serves to remind many readers of Scandale's deeply flawed news judgment on the day of the attack nearly a decade ago.


He still hasn't lived down relegating to a back page The Record's iconic photo of fireman raising the American flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center in 2001.


Today, readers search in vain for stories on the future of NJN, the millionaires tax, public school funding and other issues that have to be resolved by next Friday, the deadline to balance the state budget.


Scandale also is quoted today in the obituary of Gil Spencer, onetime editor of the Daily News in New York (L-5). Scandale worked for Spencer at The Denver Post.


"He commanded a room by his presence," Scandale says of Spencer.


Sadly, no one will ever say that about Scandale.


The Record's editor apparently inserted his comments into the obituary. His quotes don't appear on the Daily News Web site, where the obit appeared first.


Weight and see


On the front of Local, a story about a tank pull for veterans recalls the rumor that staffers planned to pull head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, Projects Editor Tim Nostrand and  Production Editor Liz Houlton down the street to raise money to fight the obesity epidemic.


Unfortunately, officials in Woodland Park denied them a permit.


Swimsuit edition


Features Director Barbara Jaeger relies on T&A today to distract readers from the lack of food news in Better Living.


The 24-year-old woman, who works at Hooters in Wayne, was a public relations major at William Paterson University.

Sasson loses appeal in NJMG age-bias case

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The media ignored the trial, held in Superior Court, Hackensack.

The unfavorable jury verdict in Victor E. Sasson's age-bias lawsuit against North Jersey Media Group has been affirmed by the Appellate Division of state Superior Court.

In a 20-page decision released this morning, a three-judge panel agreed with the verdict -- that Sasson wasn't discriminated against because of his age in the 2006 selection of the food editor, and that his 2008 firing didn't constitute retaliation by Record managers and editors upset that he filed suit several months earlier.

The appeal court said Superior Court Judge Joseph L. Conte in Hackensack didn't commit reversible error. Sasson represented himself at the trial.

Joshua L. Weiner, the plaintiff's Morristown lawyer, argued during a March 16 hearing that Conte improperly permitted the use of posts from Eye on The Record during cross-examination to impeach the plaintiff's credibility.

He also said Conte should have barred defense use of performance reviews dating to 1985 that weren't relevant to events of 2006-08.

Weiner believes Conte should have instructed the jurors to use the blog entries only for the purpose of judging the plaintiff's credibility -- and to disregard Sasson's views the paper kept on older, white male columnists, while silencing older black, Hispanic and female columnists.

At the 5-day trial in April 2010, Sasson was barred from presenting evidence of age-bias against many other employees, including Patricia Mack, The Record's food editor, who was hounded into retirement by her editor, Barbara Jaeger.

See previous post on Thursday's paper

 

Sands of time yield murder conviction

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Women pay for shorter restroom lines at the New Meadowlands Stadium.

Dominating the front page of The Record today is a guilty verdict in a murder trial few readers followed as closely as Editor Francis Scandale did.

One man's freedom ended, but the other major Page 1 stories are about getting away -- high gas prices for the Memorial Day weekend and the condition of the state's famed beaches.

Kevin DeMarrais' A-1 column on the summer driving season should have appeared Friday -- the traditional start of the holiday weekend -- but I guess it was crowded out by earth-shaking news.

I'm still waiting for Your Money's Worth to tell readers they can save about 11 cents to  17 cents a gallon by using a cash-rebate credit card at service stations.

Cold-case verdict

The trial of Stephen Scharf of Morris County accomplished two things: 

It rescued a conviction from bumbling police work 19 years ago, and forced Staff Writer Kibret Markos, who covered the trial, to cut down drastically on his smoking breaks in front of the Bergen County Courthouse.

On A-4 today, Governor Christie keeps up the double-talk on greenhouse-gas emissions. He's content with the "green" credentials he gets from giving tax breaks to millionaires and wealthy business owners.

No shit, Sherlock

Who knew there is at least one venue where the lines to the men's room actually are longer than to the women's room?

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local news section updates readers on waste management today -- with breaking news on the addition of more men's rooms at the New Meadowlands Stadium (L-1).

It's too bad the story by Staff Writer John Brennan only serves to remind  readers how his work, and the local columns, don't rise much above the level of bowel movements.

Early getaway

The Woodland Park daily's assignment editors must have gotten an early start on the holiday by the looks of the huge photos on L-2 and L-3 -- apparently blown up by the layout editors to fill holes where local news would normally appear.

A full page of Memorial Day events appears today (L-5), supplementing the listing that ran Friday and another set for Sunday. A-2 carries a correction of one Friday listing.

Meat market

Better Living Editor Barbara Jaeger continues her comprehensive food coverage today with an F-1 story on how a butcher from New Jersey fared on "The Bachelorette."

Rounding up news of senior citizens

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Old houses and old people -- they're all the same to The Record's editors.

The Record's editors have spent so much time in the past decade making the lives of older newsroom workers miserable, they've neglected news about senior citizens -- until today.

The older population in Bergen County is growing, Page 1 declares. That's earth-shaking news? The census-based story is as much about the increasing number of children in Passaic County's immigrant centers.

Don't expect to see more stories in the Woodland Park daily about Alzheimer's disease or the challenges facing older drivers. 

Editor Francis Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes just don't give a shit -- and the same is true about the spoiled Borg siblings' attitude toward their father, Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg.

Oldsters and porn

In a roundup of senior news, Scandale made sure to find room on A-1 to promote child-pornography charges against a 63-year-old art teacher in Cliffside Park (L-1).

Pornography? Is that the only thing old people are good for? 

What happened to that lawsuit by a former employee, who alleged the elder Borg used a company computer to send pornography to other male managers?

$40,000 ceiling

Older workers at The Record have been looking over their shoulders since Publisher Stephen A. Borg was overheard several years ago saying he dreamed of a newsroom where no one made more than $40,000 a year. 

Veteran workers found Features Director Barbara Jaeger especially difficult to get along with, and Jaeger hounded Food Editor Patricia Mack into retirement in 2006 -- replacing her with an inexperienced man half her age.

It doesn't add up

The off lead A-1 story today -- on settlement of a 20-year-old water bill -- contains confusing numbers. First, readers are told $1.6 million was in dispute, but just before the jump, the numbers add up to only $1,340,000.

Still, the reporter made sure to tell readers how impressed he was with the size of a 96-apartment building, calling it "huge" in the lead paragraph.

Page A-2 has two embarrassing corrections, including one about a misidentified member of the Ramsey Board of Education. Ouch.

Sykes' Local section is filled with historical news, as well as court and police stories, but is light on municipal news, as usual.

This millionaire didn't get away with it

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

A newspaper reports the fall of one of France's most powerful men.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg knows intimately how New Jersey millionaires like himself get away with everything -- from not paying a tax surcharge on their incomes to taking tax breaks and not creating jobs.

Didn't he get away with a $3.65 million company mortgage to buy a Tenafly McMansion, following up several months later with an unprecedented downsizing and the first layoffs in more than 15 years?

Didn't he get away with folding the Food section, and allowing Editors Frank Scandale and Deirdre Sykes to gut local news as they pursued expensive investigations that went nowhere? 

French tickler

Well, at least one millionaire didn't get away it -- Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the wealthy chief of the International Monetary Fund -- who is shown on The Record's front page today awaiting his arraignment in Manhattan, unshaven and in rumpled clothes from a night in the lockup.

The story and photo take up more than a third of A-1, but there's no mention the defendant was handcuffed and forced to take a perp walk in front of the media.

Strauss-Kahn apparently thought having his way with the room maid is included in the $3,000-a-night rate at Sofitel, a French hotel chain. We don't know if the 32-year-old woman is married or a mother.

If she does have children and the sexual assault and attempted rape charges prove to be true, then Strauss-Kahn can joke the initials IMF stand for "I'm a Mother F----r."

The Daily Show on Monday night identified the victim as an African immigrant. The words "DOUCHE, BAGGED" appeared under a picture of an unshaven Strauss-Kahn.

Instant coma

For the third day in a row, Scandale beats readers senseless with another dense, eye-glazing process story on state or federal finances (A-1 lead). How about that embarrassing typo in the A-1 graphic ("ixed income")?

Compare the claim by the teachers union that Governor Christie has a net worth of $3 million to the pathetically vague A-3 story today. There's no explanation why the governor is earning "royalties" from Listerine.

It's good to see some Seton Hall graduates jeered Christie and one told him to shut up (A-3). When is the state's media going to do their own jeering?

Angling for a makeover

Sykes continues to run stories and photos on the front of Local to promote the bimbos on "The Real Housewives of New Jersey." Is she indirectly asking for a free makeover for herself, Liz Houlton and other fashion-challenged editors?

Today also marks the second court story on erectile dysfunction pills she has run on L-1 in the past three days. Maybe what they used to say about her is true: She has a hard-on for some of the news copy editors.

Of course, there's no room to run municipal news from Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood, even if she had some.

Editor Barbara Jaeger's Better Living front promotes another book-signing today (F-1), but food coverage is from hunger, just two recipes (F-2). 

There's so little news on the front page

Image by babyknight via Flickr

The Record rented the New Meadowlands Stadium and invited readers to meet with Francis Scandale, Deirdre Sykes and other editors, as well as Staff Writer John Brennan. See the photo for how many showed up.

Instead of listing credit cards that give you 5% off at the pump, The Record leads the paper today with all the partisan rhetoric sparked by high gas prices -- a process story that amounts to little more than toilet paper.

Meanwhile, the editors of the Woodland Park daily buried a consumer column reporting gasoline prices ended their climb and actually fell last week (L-8). 

And where is the story telling drivers whether cheaper fuel at off-brand stations is just as good for their engines as the high-priced stuff?

Stalling the GOP bully

Readers get more non-news in the off-lead story on Page 1 -- Governor Christie's stalled attack on teacher tenure, plus lots of blather on the success of his Republican cohorts in other states.

The final long, boring A-1 story is aimed at a tiny but greedy minority who own those pricey "seat licenses" at the New Meadowlands Stadium. Yikes. Why is this news?

Someone should check Editor Francis Scandale's journalism "license" and how much seat time he's spending in the men's room.

Journalism jam

When I was at The Record, the reporter, Staff Writer John Brennan, earned a reputation among editors as a royal pain in the ass, loudly talking up his sports-business stories nearly every afternoon in a usually successful bid to get them on A-1 -- no matter how trivial or obscure.

Brennan, a former sports reporter who still struggles with reporting and writing fundamentals, would invade Tim Nostrand's office -- forcing the editor to stop planning his next meal.

Then, Brennan would obsessively describe in excruciating detail what he was working on, forcing every news copy editor to listen to his loud voice through the editor's open door.

To get him to shut up, Nostrand usually agreed to push Brennan's tripe for the front.

Killing readers

Instead of focusing on how most motorcycle owners deliberately modify their bikes to make as much noise as possible and disturb as many people as possible, Road Warrior John Cichowski devotes his column today to a spike in bikers' deaths (L-1).

Petty potentate

Should any mayor rule for 20 years? The story on state Sen. Nicholas Sacco winning another term in North Bergen makes no attempt to evaluate whether his tenure has been good for the town, but does quote the incumbents'  campaign claims (L-1).

Thanks to head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, the same superficial treatment is given to the victory of incumbents in Lodi's municipal election (L-3).

A rare story on mass transit appears on L-3, likely because those noisy diesel locomotives have awakened Staff Writer Karen Rouse, who lives next to the tracks, one too many times.

Free advertising

The only food coverage in Better Living today is shameless promotion of two cookbooks on F-1 and a cafe in Manhattan on F-3. 

Features Director Barbara Jaeger wanted her section to carry the letter "F" for all the times she has f--ked employees and readers.

 

Union -- not the press -- exposes Christie wealth

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Three top aides to Governor Christie are millionaires, as he is.

A continuing problem with The Record is too many news stories that read like advertisements. 

Recall the recent pieces on a high-powered lawyer and a woman who sells private jets -- both do or did business with the Borg family.

Now, an advertisement trumps cowardly Editor Francis Scandale and his weak Trenton reporting staff -- claiming that Governor Christie's net worth totals more than $3 million and three of his top aides are themselves millionaires.

The ad -- paid for by the New Jersey teachers union -- takes up all of Page A-22 today:

CHRISTIE'S

MILLIONAIRES

Governor Christie cut our schools, women's health care

and our public safety to give a tax break to millionaires.

After Christie vetoed a tax surcharge on millionaires passed by Democrats last May, the Woodland Park daily has tried its hardest to ignore discussion of the the levy, which could generate close to $1 billion.

I'm still waiting for The Record to name the many millionaires who contribute to Christie's war chest.  

Mine your own business

On Page 1 today, the centerpiece is  a sleep-inducing takeout on abandoned mines in North Jersey. The unmapped mines in Hackensack must be why no reporter has covered news here in weeks.

Christie is superb at managing the news, as he does in refusing to say anything more about defying the state Supreme Court, if the justices order him to send more aid to public schools (A-1 and A-4).

GPS moment 

On A-2 today, Better Living apologizes for giving an incorrect address for a store it promoted. You can't get any sloppier than that, Features Director Barbara Jager.  

On A-4, a news story notes Newark airfares are the highest in the nation. I don't recall seeing anything about that from globe-trotting Travel Editor Jill Schensul, who is more worried about the welfare of animals in Africa than of readers who travel.

Solar plexus

Look at that huge L-1 story about an Upper Saddle River church installing solar panels on its roof. What's all the fuss? It's far from a first, but sadly, this is what passes for municipal news from Staff Writer Evonne Coutros and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes.

Also on L-1, Columnist Charles Stile comes down hard on Christie -- for a change -- for savaging Associate Justice Barry Albin, who questions why the Raging Bull refuses to tax millionaires to help fund education.

Another L-1 story reports the hiring of a new city manager in Englewood, where the old manager did little to fill empty storefronts or integrate the elementary and middle schools. 

Lying to readers 

Publisher Stephen A. Borg crows about The Record "retaining circulation," without telling readers the figures cited include the Herald News, which is called an "edition" of the bigger paper (L-8).