NJMG unit focuses more and more on making news

Seen at a highway rest area in New York State.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

North Jersey Media Group -- publisher of The Record -- is no longer hiding the promotional activities of one of its units, Exposure.

This is how the publishing company describes Exposure:

"Exposure is a specialty area within North Jersey Media Group (NJMG) that produces unique, local events with mass appeal. Utilizing the marketing strength of NJMG products in North Jersey, Exposure offers advertisers and partners complete marketing and promotional services enabling them to reach the widest audience possible."

The Record is one of the NJMG "products" that have been used to promote Exposure events in notices and feature stories.

Using the Woodland Park daily to spread the word about Exposure further blurs the line between news and marketing that began with the ascendancy of Stephen A. Borg to president and publisher.

Hidden in past

In July 2013, Exposure's role in a poorly organized food-truck event at Overpeck Park wasn't acknowledged until a lack of parking forced hundreds of people to turn away or abandon their cars on highway exits and streets.

Now, a link to the Exposure Web site can be found on NorthJersey.com, and its ads appear prominently in the weekly Hackensack Chronicle and other NJMG publications.

The weekly's thin Aug. 29 edition carried four ads promoting Exposure events:

(201) Brides' Night Out, North Jersey Test Drive Experience, North Jersey Career Fair and Octoberfest Food Truck Mash-Up.

The unfortunate use of the phrase "truck mash-up" may remind The Record's readers of recent fatal accidents involving tractor-trailers and a dump truck.

In fact, this week, three people were literally cooked alive when a dump truck smashed into their car in congested traffic on Route 280 in East Orange, and the vehicle was engulfed in fire.

Today's paper

Page 1 today has lots of soft news -- whale sightings at the shore, a rare story about Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, and the low price of gasoline as Labor Day approaches.

The last story is likely to encourage owners of gas-guzzling SUVs to keep their wasteful vehicles, which they usually drive at high speeds, terrorizing other drivers.

The Local section is a mix of police news and features.

Drug care

The big Hackensack news is the arrest of a city man for allegedly possessing a duffle bag of marijuana in his car on Saturday (L-1).

He tried to flee, leaving his 10-month-old daughter in the back seat. 

Not to be undone, a Paterson man, who was charged with delivering cocaine "across North Jersey" on Thursday, had his 3-year-old son with him (L-6).

The two arrests may suggest to head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes or her deputy, Dan Sforza, the need to do a story on the lack of day care.

Second look

In his Sunday column on driving under the influence, Staff Writer John Cichowski again appears to be Reporting Under the Influence, with numerous omissions and errors about penalties, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers.

See:

Leave the Road Warrior at home this weekend

Newsroom mystery: Where is local Editor Deirdre Sykes?

People who live on Hudson Street and on Broadway in Hackensack appealed to the City Council on Tuesday night for 25-mph speed limit signs, and a change in regulations allowing them to park their cars on the street for 2 hours.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Deirdre Sykes, the once-powerful head assignment editor at The Record, hasn't been seen in the Woodland Park newsroom for more than a month.

Her absence has generated rumors of health problems, weight-loss surgery, even death.

Others speculate Sykes is being treated for depression brought on by the ascendancy of Editor Marty Gottlieb, a demanding New York Times veteran who appears to have his hands in every story.

Today's paper

Page 1 today is of limited interest to local readers.

Two days after the murder of 12 people who worked at the Washington Navy Yard, The Record uses a headline newspapers have on a save/get key:

"Disturbing portrait
 of ... shooter emerges"

How many times have we seen the same headline on a story about a gunman who "heard voices" and whose "life appeared to have suddenly unraveled" (A-1)?

How trite. The real story is the cowardice of Congress, which is failing once again to enact meaningful gun control (A-6).

Unchecked errors

Road Warrior John Cichowski follows his error-filled Sunday column with a piece on road repairs today that is packed with numbers, and he likely transcribed many of them incorrectly (A-1).

The number of error in the Road Warrior column has accelerated as Cichowski approaches the 10th anniversary this month of taking over the job from Jeff Page.

In answer to a reader's question on Sunday, Cichowski cited the wrong Web site for the Motor Vehicle Commission, according to a concerned reader:

 "In his Sunday column, the Road Warrior appeared like a clueless amateur unable to provide correct information and advice about Motor Vehicle Commission office operations, the agency acronym, and Web site address in order to help people get a driver's license.

"It is unlikely the Road Warrior realizes that he made one of his all-time great gaffes by sending readers to a non-existent Web address, njmvc.com, for the most publicized Web site for the most important New Jersey government agency, the Motor Vehicle Commission, that any reader, driver or Road Warrior has to deal with.

"The absurdity of this gaffe is compounded since the Road Warrior provided this address in response to a reader's question about going to a wrong Web site address, which was actually a commercial site instead of the official MVC Web site, for renewing their license.

"The correct Web address for the MVC is www.njmvc.gov, which actually directs users to www.state.nj.us/mvc, which the Road Warrior also failed to mention.

To read the full e-mail to Gottlieb, Cichowski, Production Editor Liz Houlton and others, go to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:
 

Road Warrior is lost in cybersapce


Board revenge?

The Local section, now under the supervision of Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, carries the first Hackensack municipal news since Sept. 3.

Staff Writer Hannan Adely reports the Board of Education is refusing to pay the city about $1 million for a full-time resource officer at the high school (L-1)

School board Attorney Richard Salkin is quoted as saying trustees haven't paid for the officer since the 2005-06 school year "because the district was never billed." 

The attorney may be upset because members of the new City Council stripped him of a second job -- municipal prosecutor -- after they took office on July 1.

Salkin was making $76,000 a year for working two half days a week as prosecutor in Hackensack Municipal Court, according to Hackensack Scoop.

Salkin's board job pays more than $100,000 a year, that blog reported.

The board, which is dominated by allies of the disgraced Zisa family, reportedly spends more money than Ridgewood, which has some of the best public schools in New Jersey.

Why doesn't Adely try to explain that?

Living dead

There are no expanded local obituaries in Local, but nearly 4 pages of death notices today should yield a few in the near future (L-4 to L-7).

What is a photo of a $41.5 million South Beach mansion doing on the first local Business page today (L-8)?

Food for thought

The Record's Wednesday Food section is a distant memory, thanks to short-sighted Publisher Stephen A. Borg.

Sadly, the most engaging item about food in today's Better Living section is the ShopRite ad on the back page (BL-10).

Is the fat bastard heading for the exit?

Will Governor Christie be GOP hopeful Mitt Romney's Oliver Hardy in their stand-up campaign to unseat President Barack Obama in November?

Hundreds of thousands of middle-class New Jersey taxpayers are keeping their fingers crossed that Governor Christie will stop hemming and hawing, and join Mitt Romney's losing GOP campaign for the White House.

What a sweet way to get rid of the fat bastard with the big mouth, who has been attacking unions and catering to the wealthy since he took office in January 2010 -- to the delight of The Record and other media.

If Romney asks Christie to run as his vice president, at least readers won't have to endure another column on the subject from Staff Writer Charles Stile (A-1).

Pro bono or boner?

On A-1 and A-6, Staff Writer Colleen Diskin apparently is incorrect in reporting that all of a $2.35 million settlement will be going to three plaintiffs who alleged they were repeatedly molested by a school administrator in Englewood.

That would leave nothing for the lawyers, who usually keep about one-third of any settlement.

Cop cars with meters?

It's bad enough the state police provided an escort for a caravan of super cars racing down to Atlantic City, but now Road Warrior John Cichowski seems to think they should also provide a taxi service to drivers whose cars are demolished in accidents (L-1).

Readers are scratching their heads over what this has to do with the commuting problems Cichowski is supposed to be writing about, just as they were with a previous column on head lice at a train station.

Traffic-light news

With a lull in utility pole news, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes has started a new photo feature on traffic lights (L-2).

The only Hackensack news today is another story on the criminal trial of suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa (L-3).

As with many previous accounts, this piece is heavily slanted to put Zisa's defense case in the best possible light.

Hackensack in the dark

Also on L-3, a story reports the approval of a budget and property tax hike for Teaneck residents. A story on the Englewood budget appeared last week.

Because of blanket coverage of the Zisa trial, Hackensack readers are still waiting for word about the city's budget and whether they will face a tax increase. 

Related articles

• Editors really know how to puck the reader
• Ken Zisa's lawyer blows his defense
• Fat president or black president?
• Zisa's defense lawyer has link to The Record

Why The Record no longer matters

A grand jury will review the fatal Dec. 10 police shooting of Malik Williams, 19.

 The lead story on Page 1 of The Record today officially tells readers the Woodland Park daily no longer matters when it comes to big local news stories.

Three months after Malik Williams, 19, of Garfield was shot dead in a confrontation with two police officers, county Prosecutor John L. Molinelli has decided to present the case to a grand jury.

No. Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her lazy, incompetent flunkies didn't force the prosecutor's hand. 

Press releases

Despite protests and demonstrations in Garfield, the editors dutifully regurgitated all of Molinelli's press releases and didn't move a finger to answer all of the questions raised by the shooting.

No reporter interviewed the owner of the garage where Williams allegedly hid and "armed himself with unspecified tools." 

No reporter looked for witnesses to the shooting. And, initially, no reporter tried to find out the identity of the two police officers involved.

Family's autopsy

In fact, Molinelli is reacting only to The Record's news report and editorial last month on the family's independent autopsy, which found two bullet holes in the suspect's back, with no apparent entry or exit wounds in the front of his body.

Four days after Editor Marty Gottlieb ran a Sykes-inspired, front-page  whitewash of affordable housing in Bergen County, a state appeals court told Governor Christie he didn't have the power to abolish the state Council on Affordable Housing (A-4).

Why isn't that story on Page 1 today, in place of a photo of an injured turkey? Maybe all the editors who are turkeys identify with the bird and not low-and moderate-income families.

More road kill

On Sykes' Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski gnashes his teeth for the umpteenth time over pedestrian deaths as the quality of mass transit in the region continues to decline (L-1).

The section is filled not with local news from Hackensack and other towns, but with Law & Order news, including photos of a minor traffic accident in Teaneck (L-2) and a trash fire in South Hackensack (L-6).

I'm sure Sykes and her sub-editors are heading for watering holes tonight to celebrate what a good job they did this week.