Hear the one about the farmer's daughter?

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The farmer's daughter, nephew, cousin, hired hand and the farmer himself won't be bringing fresh produce to Hackensack this summer, as in previous years, when the market was set up on Wednesdays in Johnson Park. (Did you expect a dirty joke?)

Food Editor Bill Pitcher, who was writing about farmers' markets before he left the paper Friday, didn't let on that Hackensack's market is no more. The city's Web site doesn't carry an explanation, either, though it has lots of other news I didn't see in the former Hackensack daily.


When The Record of Woodland Park ignores the city where it was founded and where it prospered for more than 110 years, it means residents have to rely on their own devices to find out both the big stuff  (city budget, tax hike, new mayor) and the little stuff (farmers' market, park projects, new signage for visitors).


Occasionally, head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes and Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado do come out of their holes, but they often play the same tune -- another legal pissing match between suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa and the police union over legal fees (L-1 today). It seems that Alvarado is finished for now writing about the parking-garage collapse and school board appointments, virtually the only two subjects outside the chief and the union she has tackled since June 2009.


Her story today describes the chief as "deposed." That's OK. Reporters often use words without knowing what they mean (and the news copy editors are in a deep sleep). Staff Writer Dena Yellin on Friday described "a throng of dogs" (a multitude, a large number), when in fact she was referring to 26 kept in a filthy Clifton house, revised to 25 in today's lavish coverage, which starts on Page 1.


Did anything else on A-1 interest you? Staff Writer John Brennan talked Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale into allowing his story to lead the paper -- it's the battle between Atlantic City and the Meadowlands for gamblers' dollars. Wow. I'm riveted. Al-Qaida's new leader lived in the U.S. for 15 years. Gee-whiz. I'm shaking in my sandals.

Meanwhile, Scandale buried Staff Writer Elise Young's eye-opening tale about the possible state takeover of Trenton and the new mayor's huge financial problems. 

The inside of the A-section is filled with national and international news I saw on TV both Friday night and the night before. Where is the New Jersey news? Where is the local news?


The front of Local has to blow up a photo of an ex-New York cop gone wrong as big as possible to fill space the local staff couldn't. Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano apparently is subbing for the vacationing police reporter, so Englewood readers can expect the drought on news from their city to continue. Nothing happened in Teaneck on Friday.


Have you ever heard of Marilyn Buck, Lorene Yarnell and Ole Ivar Lovaas? You can read all about their lives in three expanded wire obits that desperate editors had to use to plug the half-page hole left by the lack of local news from many of the 90 or so towns in the paper's circulation area.


The food editor's name no  longer appears on Page F-2, but he left behind his disdain for healthy eating. Pitcher's recipe for melon salad on the front of Better Living today calls for 1 cup of heavy cream, one-third cup of sugar, 8 ounces of cream cheese and a quarter-cup of mayonnaise. Those poor melon balls. Readers are running for their cholesterol pills.

We'll tell you about it when we want to

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On Page 1 or in the Local section, stories are reported days, weeks, even months after they happened. Editors and reporters at The Record of Woodland Park give the impression they don't want to rush around handling breaking news, lest their workload become too onerous. Are readers less informed? The editors say, We don't care.


Today, A-1 brings us a lot of soft news, but the most important story to homeowners in North Jersey is skimpy on details. 

The main story reports bounty hunters have to carry licenses. The first ones were issued "several months ago."  Why take up all this space for a story of interest to only a few of us? Is this the work of Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale?


In the story about towns heading off tax appeals by reassessing homes, officials say the new home values -- adjusted to current market value -- would be "fairer" to taxpayers, but doesn't go on to say whether that means tax bills will be lower, too. No examples are cited from towns that have already reassessed -- home value and tax bill before, home value and tax bill after. Why skimp on this story, and cover the bounty hunters so lavishly?

If you doubt, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin has rolled over and played dead amid all of Governor Christie's budget cutting -- which has targeted women, schoolchildren, seniors and other middle- and working-class residents -- read the limp editorial on A-10 today. Here's the last sentence:

"We can only hope -- and keep close watch over our elected officials, and pressure them to retool these reforms if the costs are too dear and the benefits too little."

Hope? Too dear? Where is the newspaper's outrage, its thunder? It's not enough to have a hard-hitting cartoonist like Margulies, who today blasts Christie for "gambling with women's health."  You can just see Doblin sipping tea and eating small, crust-less sandwiches while he composed or edited this pathetically weak editorial, which makes no mention of huge tax breaks for the Borgs and other millionaires.


Charles Saydah, editor of letters to the editor, is a member of Doblin's staff who at first glance has one of the cushiest jobs at the newspaper. If he has other duties, I am unaware of them.

When the "lifer" worked in Hackensack, he always had time for a midday jog over the bridge to Bogota. (He ran in the street, not on the sidewalk, and I almost ran him down one day near the Afghan restaurant in Teaneck.)

I don't know how Saydah avoided joining the exodus of workers over 50 that Publisher Stephen A. Borg set into motion when he took over in mid-2006. Saydah used to work in an office at the rear of the newsroom, and maybe Borg didn't know he existed. 

After I left The Record in May 2008, I sent in at least one letter noting the decline of local news, but Saydah ignored me.  
 

Maybe the letter editor is doing a really great job, but you'd have to question that after reading a letter published Tuesday on A-8 from Gail C. Dever, a Bergenfield woman who tried a number of roads but couldn't find the entrance to the new Overpeck Park. 

You'd think Saydah would have looked up the stories on the opening of the park and written an editor's note with the answer, but the letter ran without comment.

In Local, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado finally gets around to reporting school board appointments made at meetings in June and July, and the need for re-votes. This is the third school board story or brief Alvarado has written since July 30, but she has gone 11 months without writing about the city's schools. 


Maybe head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes has told her poor baby chick not to overwork herself, and see if she can go a year or 13 months without writing about the schools.


On L-3, another big story on "American Idol" auditions in the Meadowlands fills space that could carry Englewood or Teaneck news, but there is none today. 

On L-6, space was especially tight after cramming in a huge photo of a man at a lectern AND an 18-inch story and photo on the stabbing of a Manchester Regional High football player in Clifton. Layout editors had to omit the "Brief Tributes"heading over two expanded obituaries at the top of the page.
 

Putting black people on the front page

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How many newsroom staffers remember the time, before Barack Obama was elected president, when black people had to commit a crime, especially a violent one, to get on Page 1 of The Record? How times have changed. Today, the front page of the Woodland Park paper honors a black, World War II Army pilot who was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.


Coverage of minorities was so bad when Frank Scandale was brought in as editor in 2001, he actually had to order local reporters to leave the office and come back with a story about blacks and Hispanics at least once a month.


After Publisher Stephen A. Borg took over in mid-2006, he castrated Scandale as the chief decision maker in the newsroom, hence the latter's nickname of "Castrato." The editor never was able to recruit or retain many minority journalists, and he got rid of the paper's only Hispanic columnist (Miguel Perez) and its only black columnist (Lawrence Aaron).

Scandale sat by as head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes took another wack at his nut sack by ordering her Hackensack reporter to virtually ignore the city's minorities and all other residents, and concentrate on Police Chief Ken Zisa. Coverage of Teaneck and Englewood, two other core Bergen communities with sizable minority populations, is spotty at best.

That policy continues, as readers can see from the lack of Englewood and Hackensack news in today's paper. Oh, Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado has another superficial story in the Local section on the parking-garage collapse on Prospect Avenue, but the paper was forced to cover that by the national attention it got. Today, she reports the owner of the building "plans to spend $12 million" on repairs and related costs, but the number is meaningless without knowing the size of the company, how many buildings it owns and so forth.

Wait. I just saw a three-paragraph story by Alvarado on L-6 about a special Board of Education meeting tonight to interview candidates for a vacancy.  She hasn't covered a school board or City Council meeting in years, and didn't even report on the city budget and tax hike. 

Also on Page 1 today is another expose that will accomplish nothing from Staff Writer Jeff Pillets on an audit of the Bergen County Improvement Authority in 2008 and its role in public projects, including the new county park. Buried on the jump page, we learn a spokesman for county Executive Dennis McNerney had no comment. Next time, that should be Pillets' lead.


The restaurant review in Better Living today is one of the strangest from lame-duck Food Editor Bill Pitcher, who gives Vista Rosa in Totowa a rating between Fair and Good, largely because of a lazy and indifferent wait staff (reminds me of the lazy and indifferent local assignment desk of The Record, and his own laziness as food editor).

But listen to this: A steak arrived "tragically overcooked." Tragically? Cmon. Where the hell is the editing? Despite the "flagrant overcooking," the steak tasted OK. He raves about the lobster and asparagus risotto, but mistakenly says it's part of an "old-school" Southern Italian menu. Risotto is found more often in the north of Italy, and the restaurant should get extra points for serving it.


Still, why do a full-blown review of a terrible restaurant? Why not tell your readers of the best restaurants around, and save the bad ones for a round-up of shorter, capsule reviews? I'll tell you why. Because Features Director Barbara Jaeger puts such a tight reign on spending, reviewers must write about every restaurant they seek reimbursement for -- no matter how bad.


And why continue Eating Out on $50? Two people can eat for $50 at probably 75 percent of the restaurants out there, so what service is the paper providing? The reviewer manages to spend just under $40 at Fairmount Eats, which has gone downhill in the three years it has been open. (I'm sure Jaeger had an orgasm when she saw the low, $40 reimbursement request from the writer.)

What's more, Jeffrey Page, the free-lancer who writes the reviews, can ill-afford to be eating red-velvet cake and other desserts. The space for his reviews could accommodate more restaurant inspections, which are far more important than Page's blabber. Today, you'll find health ratings from only 14 of the 90 or so towns in the paper's circulation area. 

For years, Wyckoff has refused to supply health ratings of its restaurants, and the paper has rolled over and played dead.
 

(Illustration: Tuskegee Airmen fund-raising poster.)

A funny thing happened to Hackensack reporter

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A funny thing happened to Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado on the way to the Woodland Park office or wherever it is she hangs out while ignoring basic coverage of River City, where The Record was founded in 1895. A parking garage on Prospect Street collapsed, forcing the evacuation of the attached luxury high-rise and forcing Alvarado and other staffers to cover Hackensack for a change.


Since the initial collapse on Friday, the story has been front-page news, including today, when Alvarado reports on city inspections of other parking garages. But the paper still has not given readers details of Hackensack's proposed budget and tax hike, or reported the naming of a new mayor.


For the past few years, Alvarado appears to be the kind of reporter who has to be told what to cover, and she has been taking her cues from head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who acts like a Mother Hen to her staff. 

Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale, meanwhile, doesn't appear to be much of a force in the newsroom, even after Publisher Stephen A. Borg stopped taking an active role in editorial decisions that rightfully were Scandale's.


Desperate for a big A-1 photo today, all the editors could come up with was the aftermath of a storm in Belmar. The lead story reports that despite the drastic cuts in the state budget, we face a deficit almost as large as before. So much for the property tax cuts promised by Governor Christie -- friend of the rich and enemy to just about everybody else.


Local has no Teaneck, Englewood or Hackensack news. A new feature, Brief Tributes, is a roundup of local obituaries (L-6).

In Better Living, Food Editor Bill Pitcher discusses one of his obsessions -- beef short ribs -- a perfect dish for the heat waves we've been having.

Overemphasis on sports

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The Record of Woodland Park, which has denied the front page to New Jersey Supreme Court justices who have died, today leads Page 1 with a column on a stadium public address announcer most readers have never heard of. The tribute is in the form of a sports writer's tortured prose, and on the front of the Sports section, there's another big story on the dead guy. Bob who?


This likely is the work of Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale, who often dictated what went on A-1 when I was still at the former Hackensack daily. Scandale acts more like a high-fiving, ass-slapping jock than a journalist.

You'd think another front-page story -- asking if homeowners will save money under Governor Christie's proposal to cap property taxes at 2% -- would have gotten the biggest play, but that doesn't happen with Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, who have shown contempt for the concerns of North Jersey residents, especially those who live in Hackensack, where the paper was founded in 1895.

The lack of state and local news must have driven the desperate wire editor to use a story on upscale hamburger restaurants on A-6, when such a story should appear in Better Living. Only one of the new chains uses naturally raised meat -- many years after Fuddruckers began serving natural ostrich and buffalo burgers.

The misplaced food story raises the question of just how much work is being done by the overpaid food editor, Bill Pitcher, who has been filling in for the restaurant reviewer while she is on leave. Although he has written weekly reviews, he hasn't attempted to write her Sunday column. About all he seems to do is edit recipes, run wire stories on food and, this summer, visit farmers' markets.

Today's thin Local section contains no municipal or development news about Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood. Did the Hackensack City Council pass the budget and set the tax hike? Maybe that was reported while I was away, but I am still reviewing a week's worth of papers. (My "Vacation Pack" was missing Thursday's paper.)   


Even if Monsy Alvarado (Hackensack) and the other municipal reporters had gotten off their asses to report and write something, non-profit news today would have prevented the layout editor from using those stories. 

And would you look at all the space the incompetent editors devote to a pair of wealthy Asian Indian sisters from Franklin Lakes who made their "artistic debut" before a select audience of 200 on Saturday (Page L-6). What's next, lavish coverage of bar mitzvahs?


It was Publisher Stephen A. Borg's idea to hire a non-profit reporter, but the editors have never matched his enthusiasm, placing the charity copy in the Business pages for several years before moving it to Local, where it fills space the local reporters can't fill. 

Maybe that was why it was moved to Local,  just as more and bigger accident photos and stories are being run to fill the section, in the absence of basic news every North Jersey resident needs.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

A half-dozen staff members managed to work on the Page 1 heat wave story last Wednesday without leaving the building and interviewing people on how they were coping with the heat. Apparently, the entire story was done by phone. Not a single ordinary person is quoted, not one cook trapped in a hot restaurant kitchen, not one motorist without air-conditioning.


Reporters at The Record of Woodland Park are no fools, and their assignment editors allow them to get away with such incompetence on a daily basis. It just shows you what a great job head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes is doing in inspiring her staff.

The only Hackensack "news" in Local is an L-2 photo showing three men watching a World Cup game at Lazy Lanigan's.  Obviously, it was too hot for Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado to venture out or even to pick up the phone.


An L-7 story reports that Michel Bittan, the Englewood businessman linked to one of those alleged Russian spies, is named as a defendant in a lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault. Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano has yet to report the extent of his holdings in Englewood beyond his ownership of a restaurant and a club.

New Jersey and the oil spill -- boring together

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I've been waiting for the story on how New Jersey scientists and residents have responded in the two months since the massive oil spill in the Gulf, so what do the editors at The Record of Woodland Park do? They plaster a long, confusing and, ultimately, boring, piece on mini subs all over Page 1 today.


This story couldn't possibly have been written for A-1. The assignment editor must have fallen asleep while editing it. Even the news copy editor drops the ball on polishing this turd. The headline says,  "Rutgers' mini subs monitor oil spill." Monitor? Watching paint dry is more exciting. An oceanographer is shown "observing" data.


You have to plow through most of it before you find out whether the New Jersey Shore is in danger from the BP spill. That should have been high up in the story. And the reporter never resolves the controversy over whether huge oil plumes exist below the surface, despite all the evidence presented by other scientists that they do.


The lead story on the front page is the murder of another teacher. Unless Governor Christie is a suspect, this doesn't belong on A-1, especially given the Morris County location and the lack of Bergen County news in the paper. 


A better, more relevant story for Page 1 is on A-4 -- the battle over beach access on the Jersey shore. This could have supplanted the mini-sub story, too. That story could have been told by an inside photo and graphic. But news judgment isn't a strong suit among such editors as Frank Scandale, Deirdre Sykes and whoever got stuck working Sunday.

An editorial on A-11 criticizes Christie for proposing huge cuts in legal services for the poor, but in a column on the same page, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin takes the governor's side in  opposing a millionaires tax. I guess Doblin stlll wants to get his weekly check form the wealthy Borgs.

Doblin presumably also edits and approves editorials, including those about Christie's policies, so isn't his column a conflict? And his column usually is so poorly written and juvenile, no reader would miss it.


Local is pathetic. No Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood news, yet another story on the proposed expansion of The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood. The story rehashes the same arguments readers have seen for almost three years. The overly dramatic headline doesn't help.

(Photo: Jersey shore)

We demand better food coverage

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If The Record of Woodland Park can squander half of the front page on a single baseball game, I feel free to start right off demanding better food coverage -- and during the obesity epidemic, food news has a legitimate place on Page 1.


What we get now are poorly written, poorly researched articles and recipes from Food Editor Bill Pitcher, who is famous around the Woodland Park newsroom for his poor eating habits and unhealthy lifestyle. His food writers are no better, and that includes Elisa Ung, the on-leave restaurant reviewer, who is constantly obsessing about desserts and throwing around the word "quality" as if she knew anything about the origin of the food she writes about.



How does Better Living publish a Starters piece on a 350-seat steakhouse in Paterson without putting the place in context? Surely, this is the Silk City's first high-end, destination restaurant to open in decades. And don't readers deserve to know whether the beef served there is free-range and grass-fed or just conventionally raised and stuffed with antibiotics, growth hormones and animal byproducts?


The same goes for the meat served at Locale, the Closter restaurant reviewed by Pitcher today. Where does it come from and how was it raised? What about the odd name? Locale? Did they mean Local? What about that embarrassing typo that starts the second paragraph? "But" comes out "bur." Then, there is this about the owner's visits to white-tablecloth restaurants in Bergen County:

"He studied their customers, taking note of their wealth and wondering if there was room for another restaurant in their repertoires."

 Huh? Customers have "repertoires" of restaurants? Pitcher also makes it sound as if  Locale replaces the long-shuttered Korea Palace. Did the reviewer mean the first Korea Palace?


Later, Pitcher samples a dish of "Gulf shrimp." Gee. Are those the shrimp marinated in that special BP sauce? This reminds me of the pork tacos recipe he published at the height of the swine-flu epidemic. Hey, Bill, for your inflated salary, you should get your nose out of those gooey desserts and pay attention to what's going on in the world -- like the obesity epidemic.


If Editor Frank Scandale or head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes or your editor, Features Director Barbara Jaeger, don't recognize the importance of reporting on the obesity epidemic, you should go out on a limb and propose such a project involving all departments of the newsroom.


I hope you and the other editors aren't taking their lead from Governor Christie, who is greedily protecting the Borgs and other wealthy folks like himself from the "shared sacrifices" he is imposing on everyone else.


Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson has the best story on Page 1 -- contributions to congressmen who voted to fund a fighter-jet engine -- but it's shoved down near the bottom of the page.


The only Hackensack news in Local today is a story on the postponement of a hearing for suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa -- just two days after a long, detailed preview of the hearing by the same reporter, Monsy Alvarado. What a waste of space. What about the proposed city budget and tax hike, Monsy? When are you going to write about that? After the City Council approves them?


Does Publisher Stephen A. Borg have his eye on the 30,000-square-foot mansion in Alpine listed for $68 million (Page L-7)? Is he feeling cramped already in the $3.65 million Tenafly mansion he bought in late 2007 with a company mortgage only months before he downsized The Record and Herald News?


Will Borg order the project on the obesity epidemic? After all, he was a hands-on publisher when he took over in mid-2006, reshaping both local news and food coverage.

Or does "Let them drink wine" sum up his attitude?

(Photos: The stuffing in a stuffed shirt.)

The worst governor ever?

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Do you need more evidence Republican Chris Christie -- in less than four months in office -- is rolling up a record that will earn him the worst-governor-ever title in New Jersey? Forget the bully pulpit. He's just a bully -- taking out his budget problems on schoolchildren, teachers, mass transit users and many others, while scoring big points with the rich and powerful business owners who bankrolled his campaign.

Now, as The Record of Woodland Park reports on Page 1 today, he's denied reappointment to the only African-American state Supreme Court justice and nominated a lawyer who has defended corporations to replace him. Christie is out to remake one of the most respected high courts in the nation; he complains it is too progressive.

At least the Editorial Page today has the good sense to call Christie's court maneuvers what they are: "Politics." Let's hope the Legislature stops his nomination cold.

Why crowd this court story into two columns on the front page? "Christie's high court makeover" suggests it's already accomplished -- far from the truth. Then look at the other ridiculous headline at the top of the page: "Costlier commute is reality." You can imagine a similar headline on a murder story: "Man is dead."

On the front of Local, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado reports Police Chief Ken Zisa has been suspended with pay -- then finally gets around to sharing with readers his inflated salary: $191,606. What has she been waiting for?

But there isn't much local news today, judging from the big photo of a minor traffic accident on L-1. Glen Rock, where Editor Frank Scandale lives, has an education story for the second day in a row -- while Hackensack schools and Englewood's segregated elementary and middle schools are ignored for yet another edition. Could you find a more wonderful head assignment editor than Deirdre Sykes?

Does anybody care -- even a little?

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If you live in Hackensack and subscribe to The Record of Woodland Park like I do, you have to get out there and pick up your paper early. Are you thinking there is some important Hackensack news in the paper, or stories about Teaneck and Englewood? How naive can you be?

No. I should have gotten out there early today, because it is pouring, and the dysfunctional circulation department had some poor, exploited guy with three jobs steer his SUV down my street and throw my Sunday paper onto my driveway in a single plastic bag -- open to the rain. Most of the paper was soaked and it was past 10:30, so I couldn't call for a replacement. Hey, I have the news sections. Am I really missing anything in the other sections? Mike Kelly? Ha! What a joke.

Staff Writer Elise Young deserves to have most of the front page today for another in an occasional expose on the state's screwed-up public pension system, and even a law Governor Christie signed last month won't touch lobbyists who are enrolled in lifetime health care. But one great story can't carry the paper.

The lazy, incompetent news and food editors won't budge on assigning reporters to a project on the obesity epidemic, but A-1 today has a Star-Ledger story on overweight military recruits from New Jersey.

There is so little Bergen County news of any import in Local today, readers must feel they've been slapped in the face by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes. Why is a story on two Catholic schools in East Rutherford and Wood-Ridge running today and not earlier in the week when The Record reported the closing of Paterson Catholic Regional High School?

Why is there a huge story about falling home values in Little Falls in my paper? Or a fish kill in Caldwell? Or Wayne's search for a superintendent? Or even a man shot in Paterson? Did nothing happen in Hackensack and Englewood?

Does former Publisher Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, who lives in Englewood and goes to his Hackensack office, care about the lack of local news? Does Editor Frank Scandale care about the job he's doing at the former Hackensack daily or is he still boasting about what he did at The Denver Post more than 11 years ago? Do Mac's spoiled children -- Stephen and Jennifer, who are now running the paper from Woodland Park -- care? 


Does Sykes, who lives in tiny Harrington Park, care about the lack of local Bergen news? When is the last time you saw a story about Harrington Park in the paper? Must be a great place to live with low taxes and wonderful municipal and school officials, a veritable heaven on earth for home-rule advocates.

The sad truth is they don't care. The editors are secure in the knowledge they have employment for life -- no matter what they do in the newsroom -- because none of the Borgs pay any attention to the newsroom. If you're spent time around the Borgs, you know they act as if they are American royalty.


You should have seen Mac in the Bergen County Courthouse on April 9. He and Superior Court Judge Joseph S. Conte, who presided at the jury trial of my age-discrimination lawsuit, recalled a speech Mac had given on the courthouse steps. Then Mac, dressed in a beautiful pinstripe suit with a pocket square, was off to see Judge Peter Doyne, whose father the elder Borg knew. How cozy.

How much does Stephen Borg make?

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How much does North Jersey Media Group pay President and Publisher Stephen A. Borg, son of company patriarch Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg? 

How much does NJMG pay Editor Frank Scandale, who was promoted to vice president -- after Stephen Borg repudiated many of Scandale's news policies? How much does Stephen Borg's assistant publisher, Mala Lawrence, make? What about Features Director Barbara Jaeger, who hounded many of her most experienced staffers out of her department?

The better question is how much are they really worth, and did anyone of them take a salary cut during a company downsizing that included lower salaries for many new positions or unilateral cuts of as much as $10,000 for veteran newsroom workers?


$40,000 ceiling

Recall Stephen Borg's statement -- overheard by a sports reporter -- that his goal was a newsroom where no one made more than $40,000. Obviously, he wasn't talking about the editors.

Stephen Borg called Scandale's initiative on news and gossip to attract 20-year-old readers "a failed strategy." Borg also started "every day" coverage of education (except during summer recess). Frank just kept asking young female reporters to lunch.

Stephen Borg folded the Food section, moved printing to Rockaway Township and decentralized news gathering -- as he licked his chops over the tens of millions he could bring in by selling 150 River St. and surrounding acres. Unfortunately, the recession put a kabosh on that plan, and Mac insisted on keeping a presence in Hackensack, even if it's only his office.


Low morale

Scattering reporters and editors probably ended any sense of shared purpose the news staff had in Hackensack. Has moving the paper's headquarters to Woodland Park been responsible for the lack of Bergen County coverage? Only the lazy, incompetent editors can answer that one, but readers look in vain day after day for news of their towns.

The recession didn't stop Stephen from selling his $2 million home in Tenafly and buying a $3.65 million estate in the same town. As with the first house, he got a mortgage from NJMG.

So how much do Stephen, Frank, Mala and Barbara make? I know, but can't say. Their salaries were disclosed in depositions given under oath in the pretrial stage of my age-discrimination lawsuit, and anything said was covered by a confidentiality agreement. You can be sure Stephen and the editors are paid a lot more than they are worth.


'I don't know'

Vice President and General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg refused to disclose her salary and other executive compensation when she was deposed nor would she say whether any of the vice presidents took a salary cut. 

When Stephen was asked how much he is paid, he said he didn't know -- three times. He was prodded by my attorney until he gave an estimate. Despite his unkempt look -- messy hair and wrinkled white, open-collar shirt  -- you can be sure it is a ton of money.

Editor hides his incompetence

Did you see Editor Frank Scandale's column on the front of Opinion today -- an elaborate explanation of why The Record of Woodland Park ran a photo showing a female suspect giving the finger to the photographer? 

He mentions his involvement over the years in deciding what photos to run, going way back to the Columbine massacre in 1999, when he was at The Denver Post. But he conveniently ignores his biggest blunder -- relegating Record Photographer Thomas Franklin's incredible flag-raising shot on 9/11 to a back page. How shameful. 


Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais has probably written about the solar panels he had installed at his home a half-dozen times, including today's takeout on the front of Business. 

But because his story only refers briefly to the experience of one other homeowner, readers never learn how the process of getting solar panels is frustratingly slow, because of a stubborn state and local bureaucracy. Yet, he's familiar with my experience, because I sent him e-mails.


I had to lay out more than $40,000 to get solar panels put up on the roof of my Hackensack home. From the day I applied for a state rebate and put down a $10,000 deposit with the installer, 1st Light Energy, it took more than two years to get the panels onto the roof, and a couple of more months to get them online (in October). 

I still have not received any solar renewable energy credits, which I  anticipated will repay me in six to seven years.

-- VICTOR E. SASSON

An agenda-driven Sunday paper

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There are only three stories on the front page of The Record of Woodland Park today -- pushing two of the main agendas Editor Frank Scandale and his minions adopted several years ago.

Two of the stories continue an editorial campaign that seeks to portray the "high salaries" of police officers and teachers as the chief reasons our property taxes are so high.  

So it's no surprise the paper quickly became an ally of Governor Christie in his battle with the teachers union -- shifting the public's attention away from the big guy's pandering to the Borgs and other wealthy folks.

Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano's A-1 story about high pay and overtime for officers in that city only restates a situation dating to at least 2007, when the Police Department was so short-staffed, extra duty guarding utility work was given exclusively to Tenafly officers. 

Then-Englewood reporter Carolyn Feibel looked into that and actually quoted city officials as saying they refused to hire more officers because their pay was so high.

The off-lead on Page 1 is another story by a less-than-objective Cuban exile, Staff Writer Elizabeth Llorente, on political prisoners in Cuba. At one time, she and another, bitter exile, Miguel Perez, were the only reporters writing about Cuba for the former Hackensack daily. 

Scandale ignored my call from the copy desk for more objectivity.

I got a kick out of Llorente calling Cuba "a huge enigma to so many Americans." That's no surprise, given the decades of one-dimensional coverage of the island by The Record and other U.S. media. (On the map of Cuba above, how many provinces can you name?)

Local today is truly pathetic, especially for a Sunday section. A mere eight pages, there is news from only one the 70 towns in Bergen County, and none from the most diverse, Hackensack, Englewood and Teaneck.

'Eye on The Record' is your sounding board

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Do you believe, as I do, that The Record of Woodland Park is being held hostage by lazy, incompetent editors, and that the Borgs are absentee landlords interested only in enriching themselves?

Are you tired of editors playing favorites among the staff? Are you tired of staffers who apparently do little work, and get away with it? Do you disagree with a news policy that largely ignores Hackensack and many other Bergen County towns?

Do you wonder what happened to the diversity of the newspaper's columnists? Do you believe John Cichowski, Mike Kelly and other columnists should be busted back to reporter to refresh their stale viewpoints?

Have you been called into a disciplinary meeting with Managing Editor Frank Burgos or are you one of the unlucky few people he took to lunch when he first came to the paper? Do you believe cliche-ridden Frank Scandale is the worst editor ever?

Please use this blog as your sounding board by commenting anonymously on any post. Just click on "comments" at the end of each entry. It's free, easy and confidential.

-- Victor E. Sasson

'Schoolgirl Scandale' and 'Mama Crass'

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You have to admit Jerry DeMarco is colorful. Here is his comment on my post about being isolated during the trial of my age-discrimination suit against The Record last week. It's not hard to guess that "Mama Crass" is none other than head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes. Apparently, "Mouth Breather" is Managing Editor Frank Burgos, the newsroom enforcer.

"Victor,

"From where did you expect support? ("from" at the end of the sentence is much more comfy, but I defer to your copy-editing expertise.)

"I honestly believe if you'd hired a real lawyer to handle the case, the outcome may have been different.

"Moreover, instead of wrongly lumping me in with your adversary, you might have considered seeking my assistance -- the way they did.

"Finally: Every time you point out a failing, you provide more guidance and instruction -- for free.

"Schoolgirl Scandale, the Mouth Breather, Mama Crass and her clueless crew (Claude & Troncone excluded) should remain clueless.

(Cue up Harry Chapin's "Dance Band on the Titanic")

"I've said it before and I'll say it again: Join the Pilot and help continue the rapid development of the meaningful alternative.

"Ask friends at The Record how often management looks at the site, cribs from the site, pursues stories that I break. Ask officials in various towns whom they'd rather deal with -- CVP or the Record.

"Imagine a world in which the abused, ejected talent bands together to build a better mousetrap.

"Look no further than Target. As the ignorant saying goes, "read up" on how that company began. By its nature, an LLC creates opportunities.... Why waste your intelligence, talent and institutional knowledge tilting at the windmill?

"Might as well make a good buck off it.

"Same offer applies to the rest of y'all. The time to sink or swim is comin' sooner than you think.

"For now, your pilot is going to watch movies about gladiators."

April 11, 2010 6:56 PM

Demonizing Obama, teachers

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Can't you see the lazy, incompetent editors of The Record of Woodland Park rubbing their hands in glee at the opportunity to demonize President Obama and North Jersey teachers -- the two major stories on today's front page?

What's with the unflattering photo of Obama in his big moment of triumph, signing health-care reform into law? Why run a big, A-1 photo showing him with his eyes closed (another black man with vision problems, like ethically challenged New York Gov. David Paterson)? That surely wasn't the only photo available.

And why give health-care reform such a negative spin, with a photo over line reading "LAWSUITS COME QUICKLY AFTER BILL SIGNING"? Again, that seems designed to deprive Obama and supporters of their big victory. (Photo: A handsome Barack Obama takes oath of office.) One thing you can say about the conservative editors: They love aggravating readers.


It makes sense that court challenges to health-care reform would be embraced by the unhealthy editors I worked with at The Record. There was no limit on their sick time, so they could be out for weeks with back problems or with the flu (they refused to get a flu shot). Of course, those employees raised the cost of health insurance for the rest of us, who, like me, had a great attendance record and had to take up the slack when they were "sick."

The second punching bag today are teachers, as they have been for years in The Record, where editors have blamed their salaries and the salaries of police officers for why property taxes are so high in all the little, inefficient towns we live in. So Governor Christie gets the lead position on the front with his call that teachers forgo raises and pay for medical benefits to make up cuts in state aid and avoid layoffs.

What has the governor given up in this austere time? What about the Borgs and his other rich, ruling-class friends? What sacrifices are they making?  The Record is silent on that.

The Hackensack news blackout continues in Local, where only Passaic County schools are discussed in "every day" education coverage. Haitian relief stands in for any news from Teancek and Englewood.

Is it fair to call The Record's editors racist? You decide, but first recall  how Editor Frank Scandale got rid of his only black columnist and his only Hispanic columnist; count the few minority staffers in the newsroom; consider how clueless head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes does her best to ignore Hackensack, with its large black and Hispanic populations; and weigh the deliberately negative treatment of the president on Page 1.

The media's enduring arrogance

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Don't you hate it when the media decide what is important to you or go on and on about themselves? Today, The Record of Woodland Park has the arrogance to tell readers they were riveted to the computer or TV to hear Tiger Wood's apology, then takes up more valuable space on Page 1 to cover how the media covered the story.

This is nonsense. It must have been a slow news day on Garret Mountain if the Tiger Woods story is all the lazy, desperate, incompetent editors could come up with. The reporting staff must have been in weekend mode, guarding better stories for the Sunday paper -- if they even had better stories -- like so many mice hiding a juicy morsel of cheese.

Sure, Woods is one of the greatest and wealthiest athletes of our time. But he also is a sex-addicted husband with the means to make his fantasies real. The poor schmuck needs help, not the judgment of so-called journalists. Editor Frank Scandale should be ashamed of himself, running gossip on the front page, while his editors and reporters neglect day after day to tell readers what is going on in their towns or hold municipal officials accountable.

There's only one other story on the front today, about the health problems of Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who is 86 and undergoing chemo for stomach cancer. I am sure older readers, who are probably in the majority, are more interested in Lautenberg's health, because they all know people facing the same problems or are heading there themselves.

The thin Saturday paper has little to offer elsewhere. Local has a dramatic story about a police officer who used his cruiser to guide the car of a stricken man to a halt on Route 208, but there is also a lot of Passaic County news and no real news from Bergen County.

Teaneck reporter Joseph Ax can't come up with anything better than a follow on the double murder that was all over the front page yesterday. You'd think Ax, who went to Haiti and spent a week or more away or writing about earthquake victims, would have a backlog of Teaneck stories to report.

Do you think Scott Fallon or another reporter should look into whether a developer gave campaign contributions to Hudson County or North Bergen officials to get approval for a shopping center at the base of the Palisades? Fallon today reports on a court ruling that doesn't stop excavation.

Staff Writer Elisa Ung omits giving prices for the hot drinks promoted on the front of Better Living today, and apparently isn't aware the sake used by Sushi Lounge owner Joe McCafferty -- Yaegaki Dry -- is a really cheap, California-brewed rice wine more suitable for cooking than drinking. Ung describes McCafferty's Tokyo Hottie drink as "crafted" and a "sake-based play on the classic hot toddy." What hype.

Hard news, soft news, no news

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It happens overnight. The front page of The Record of Woodland Park goes from hard news to soft news or no news with a command from dictatorial Editor Frank Scandale. When I worked there, the Page 1 editor would emerge from the afternoon news meeting and start listing what "Frank wants" and what "Frank doesn't want," even down to the words copy editors were to put into headlines.

Scandale, of course, is only yielding to the pressure on him to sell newspapers as local readers abandon The Record. And you thought putting out a newspaper was a group effort?

Today, an extended story on "sexting," with a large photo illustration, dominates Page 1, informing readers "a federal court may soon decide the legality of sexting" or "sending racy pictures of a young teen" over a cellphone.

Although the story reports a teacher at a Bergen County regional high school was charged with engaging a 16-year-old girl in sexting, the federal appeals court case involves a Pennsylvania school district and a ruling is expected "within the next few months." Even though that court has jurisdiction over New Jersey, the case seems destined to go to the high court, so what's the compulsion of putting this on the front page today?


What about Haiti? Old news. What about a poll on whether state residents think Governor Christie can cut property taxes? A promo on the front is enough. What about local news? There is no local news worthy of Page 1.

The bottom corner of A-1 has another story on autism, which only serves to highlight how little The Record reports on Alzheimer's disease. The editors are incompetent, lazy and desperate, and now we can see they also are discriminating.


But not discriminating enough to recognize the importance of local food news. Above the masthead on Page 1, the editors promote the syndicated Relish magazine, which is inserted into  The Record and hundreds of other newspapers, but not the local market or deli or recipes from local chefs that appear today in Better Living.

The Road Warrior column on the front of the Local section contains a major inaccuracy. The massive Toyota recall involves accelerator pedals that stick, not "unintended acceleration," also called pedal error, which is when a driver mistakenly presses down on the accelerator pedal, thinking it's the brake pedal. This has happened in vehicles where the two pedals are too close to each other.

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Two huge photos of the old Giants stadium (above left) on L-1 tell you there isn't any good local news today in the former Hackensack daily, so the editors had to fill the space with fluff. Inside, the only traffic accident pictured occurred near the paper's new headquarters in Woodland Park.

Education, development or municipal news of Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck and other important Bergen County towns? Not today. You have to wonder how some reporters keep their jobs. As for the editors, they're secure in the  knowledge the Borgs are too busy enriching themselves to pay much attention to what is happening to a once-great local newspaper.

Try another newspaper

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If you live in Hackensack, Teaneck or one of the other important Bergen County towns, you won't find any local news in The Record of Woodland Park today. Maybe you should start subscribing to a weekly.

Much of Page 1 is devoted to a "plume of contamination" in far off Pompton Lakes, the second day in a row the story has been on the front page.

In the Local section, police, fire, weather and Haitian relief news is all you'll see from a handful of towns. For yet another day, Hackensack residents lose out. Development news? Education news? Municipal news? Environmental news? Nada, zero, zilch.

You have Frank Scandale, Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes, Dan Sforza and all the other lazy, incompetent editors to thank for that.

Bill Ervolino clams up

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Now, it appears unfunny humor columnist Bill Ervolino has removed all of his explanations and indulgent self-analysis from his North Jersey Media Group blog after he posted a picture of the White House dog Monday and asked readers who they wanted to see naked, Barack, Michelle, 12-year-old Malia Obama or Bo?

Ervolino took down the photo and readers' comments first, but downplayed his pandering to pedophiles. Then he posted a long explanation and detailed his health problems, all of which fell far short of an apology. Now, all of that is gone from the blog.

We have yet to hear anything from the Borg family, Editor Frank Scandale or Features Editor Barbara Jaeger. It's clear Ervolino needs a rest and since he ceased being funny ages ago, readers won't miss him at all.

Let's hear the voice of the people

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People often achieve far more eloquence than many journalists can muster, but newspapers like The Record of Woodland Park don't give enough voice to them, as today's paper shows.

Nearly a week after the quake struck Haiti, a wire service reporter finally quotes a 71-year-old woman who goes to the heart of the matter: "The government is a joke," the dying woman says in a Page 1 story. "The U.N. is a joke." Buried inside Better Living today, on Page F-3, North Jersey residents are asked who ages faster, men or women? The discussion is revealing, and should been have displayed far more prominently. One man said: "Men! Because of women."

But what does The Record give us? Tired editorial writers, columnists such as Mike Kelly, John Cichowski and Bill Ervolino, and front-page coverage of sports. Ervolino today shows what he does best, his "Real Jersey" series, where he returns to his role as a reporter at North Jersey locales and draws people out on age and other questions. I would have been far more interested in seeing that on the front page than coverage of the Jets playoff chances.

Continuing coverage of Haiti and a staff-written piece on the race debate in North Jersey takes up the rest of Page 1 -- serving as a counterpoint to the diminishing amount of local news about communities such as Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood, among the most diverse in The Record's circulation area.

This is, after all, the paper that got rid of its only black columnist and its only Hispanic columnist. This is, after all, the paper that devoted hundreds of hours of staff time to series on drug dealing and prostitution in Paterson, and now runs numerous stories about the Silk City's municipal affairs in its single daily edition, because its Bergen staff of lazy, incompetent assignment editors, such as Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes, and its reporters produce so little news.

Haiti coverage in The Record has avoided any mention of the hundreds of Cuban doctors who were working in the impoverished nation before the quake hit or the aid the communist government sent since the disaster. This is what you'd expect from a paper that used to assign Castro-hating Cuban exiles to cover its occasional story about the Caribbean's biggest island, ignoring moderate views among the large number of exiles in North Jersey.

Editor Frank "The Fish Stinks from the Head Down" Scandale always defended the paper's slanted coverage of  the island. Was it because the newsroom had so few Spanish-speaking staffers or because he was hen-pecked by his Cuban wife?

And do we need the two long, detailed, staff-written stories on A-8 today about North Jerseyans who were in  Haiti and returned home safely? A few paragraphs on each would have sufficed.