Borgs to Hackensack: Drop dead!

The Record's landmark building at 150 River St. in Hackensack is largely empty, just as the news pages carry little Hackensack news. Yet the Borgs -- Malcolm, Stephen and Jennifer -- try to hide how they've abandoned Hackensack readers and residents by continuing to list the paper's address on Page 2 every day as 150 River St., just under "The Trusted Local Source."

The former Hackensack daily continues to downplay the state's financial problems by putting fluff on the front page. Today's story about college textbooks completely ignores how greedy publishers and bookstores gouge students shamelessly, and should have run before the semester started.

On Page A-10, a letter to the editor praises the owner of Harley's on River Street in Hackensack for serving 150 to 200 Thanksgiving meals to the homeless, a story I didn't see in The Record. Now that it has moved to Woodland Park, why doesn't the newspaper use its largely empty landmark building several blocks from Harley's as a food pantry while the Borgs' North Jersey Media Group looks for buyers?

"What this country needs is more people like Pat Harley," the letter writer says. Can we put the young, wealthy NJMG President and Publisher Stephen A. Borg in that category, or will he be trading up soon to a $7 million to $8 million mansion from his $3.65 million estate in Tenafly?

You know there is little news in the Local section today by how large the paper ran a moody, holiday photo on the front. You certainly won't find any education or municipal or development news about Hackensack. But you will find a story about Jersey City.

If you doubt the levels of news copy editing and reporting have declined drastically at The Record, just check out the lead story on the first Business page:

N.J. companies taking flight

Recession, costs force CEOs

to relocate headquarters

But the story is about a study and doesn't name a single company that left New Jersey. Thanks to Staff Writer Hugh R. Morley and the anonymous copy editor who wrote the headline, it serves as tremendous publicity for a Princeton firm that helps companies relocate.

Ray of hope for readers?

More than a month after a new shelter opened in Hackensack and centralized services for the homeless, The Record of Woodland Park finally has taken notice.

On the Local section front today, we learn the innovative county shelter on River Street allows the homeless to stay there until they secure permanent housing and to use a number of private agency services that were previously scattered. Does the shelter's placement next to the county jail bother the homeless? The article doesn't say.

All the space devoted to the murderous father, on the front page and in the Local section, only serves to highlight how the former Hackensack daily has failed repeatedly to explore the human impact of the recession before people finally lose it, while obsessively reporting  housing starts, foreclosures and other cold, recessionary data.

At the same time, hundreds of thousands of dollars of staff time has been sucked up by an "investigation" into one man that is close to marking its third anniversary, without a single article published.

With the apparent backing of the Borg family, incompetent editors and hapless reporters -- including the poor woman who is supposed to be covering Hackensack --  have been screwing around for years trying to find something publishable about a single law enforcement official who never even rose to the rank of police chief or country prosecutor, according to talk in the newsroom before I left The Record.

And while this so-called investigation continues, with no end in sight, Publisher Stephen A. Borg, Editors Frank Scandale, Frank Burgos, Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes and  Tim Nostrand; and a bunch of sub-editors say to the readers in Hackensack and all the other towns that are no longer covered -- all together now -- Up yours!

'Ageism' determines news coverage

The Record today is a prime example of how "ageism" may determine what news is covered by the former Hackensack daily.

The front page is filled with a truck-car safety crackdown under the scary headline, "Drivers beware." But a far more troubling phenomenon is on Page L-1, where a story reports that a 77-year-old man woke up from a coma four days after ramming his car into a building.

In recent years, the paper has carried numerous individual stories, like this one, about elderly drivers hitting stores, other cars, even pedestrians, sometimes with fatal results. But The Record has never written a series of articles on the challenges facing older drivers and whether driver re-training or other state or private programs are available to help them.

Another example of apparent ageism is the newspaper's devotion in recent years to covering autism, giving hundreds of hours of staff time to articles that often run on Page 1. But has The Record made a similar effort in covering Alzheimer's disease?

The second big story on Page 1 today reports how conservatives are pinning their hopes to radically remake government on Governor-elect Chris Christie. "He has ... to be prepared to close government," one former mayor says. Close government? Is there some reason The Record didn't report this story before the election.

The Local section continues its boycott of municipal news from highly diverse Teaneck, Englewood and Hackensack. An annual story about white suburban high school students spending the night in boxes to get a firsthand look at homelessness doesn't explain why the newspaper has missed the apparent completion of a new homeless shelter in Hackensack, next to the county jail.

Better Living today has the usual single recipe for vegetarians to represent food coverage in a Monday paper, but there's also an item about a free pie-tasting in charming Chester. I wonder if restaurant reviewer Elisa Ung -- who has made no secret of her affection for dessert -- will claim her share?