More and more, editors speak for the rich and powerful

The Johnson Public Library in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's Page 1 "ANALYSIS" of Governor Christie's growing business-tax cuts takes literally forever to tell readers they have done little to improve the state's anemic economic recovery (see last three paragraphs on A-4).

This is the fifth year in a row the GOP bully plans to balance the state budget on the backs of public workers, senior citizens and middle-class homeowners.

Yet, the editors continue to fight any notion of higher taxes on millionaires or a modest gas-tax hike (O-2).

And, with only two weeks to go before the June 30 budget deadline, they refuse to condemn all the time Christie is spending out of the state raising money for conservative Republicans like himself (Saturday's A-4).

Borgs' mouthpiece

The Record's news stories, columns and editorials continue to speak for the rich and powerful -- reflecting the views of the Borg publishing family -- despite the governor's dismal record and the political dirty tricks he used to get reelected last November.

Another story on today's front page argues observant, well-to-do Orthodox Jews in Teaneck, Bergenfield, Fair Lawn and Englewood are under-served (A-1). Really?

The Record has consistently under-reported how parents who send their children to expensive religious schools undermine public schools, and sometimes actively work to slash school budgets as a way to cut their property taxes. 

Noisy skies

The major element on the Local front today promotes the Wings & Wheels Expo at Teterboro Airport -- where noisy, unregulated business jets represent the biggest impact on the quality of life in Hackensack, Teaneck and other towns near a hub favored by the rich and famous (L-1).

Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg of Englewood was one of the biggest boosters of the airport's aviation museum.

The elder Borg also was listed as "managing partner" of Trio Air Holdings LLC in a testimonial to the broker who upgraded the 1984 Citation III business jet he owned with a friend. See:

Did the Borgs meddle in the news?

Unfortunately, today's Teterboro story is written by Staff Writer Christopher Maag, who covers Hackensack, but couldn't manage to find anything about the city to report.

Restaurant mogul

Staff Writer Elisa Ung cranks up her publicity machine for restaurant owners with another gee-whiz piece on multimillionaire Drew Nieporent, the Ridgewood fat cat behind Tribeca Grill, Nobu and other fine-dining venues (BL-1).

How can Ung serve as the chief restaurant reviewer, presumably representing customers, and yet write one promotional story after another about Nieporent and other wealthy restaurant owners in her column, The Corner Table?

One of my strongest memories of lunches at Tribeca and Nobu more than a decade ago were of flies in the dining rooms, and how I actually asked the server at the former to move me to a table free of the dirty insects.

Saturday's paper

The follow-up to Thursday's fatal tractor-trailer crash on the George Washington Bridge struggled to answer all of the unanswered questions in the original account of the resulting regional traffic paralysis.

Joao Daponta, 59, the trucker who died after his rig slammed into the back of another tractor-trailer at 2 in the morning, had been cited for speeding and careless driving,

But two reporters couldn't find out if he was behind the wheel of a truck or a car when he got them (Saturday's L-6).

They also couldn't find out the name of the second tractor-trailer driver.

However, the story was poorly edited, and said the "Port Authority didn't release ... the name of the rear-ended truck."

Like many stories in The Record, this one made readers fell they are the ones who are constantly being rear-ended.

Failing to deliver local news

Image via Wikipedia

If you are an editor at The Record of Woodland Park, you never have to explain why there is so little local news in the paper day after day -- certainly not to the Borgs, who pay little attention to the newsroom as they dream of untold riches from the sale of their former Hackensack headquarters and surrounding land.


Can't you just see North Jersey Media Group President and Publisher Stephen A. Borg waking up each morning in the $3.65 million Tenafly mansion he bought with a company mortgage? Do you think he walks down his driveway to fetch The Record or does he even get the paper delivered to his estate?


What about his big sister, Vice President and General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg, who lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan? She doesn't see the paper unless she goes to her office on Garret Mountain.


Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg? I doubt he goes out every morning to pick up the paper from his East Hill driveway in Englewood. Can the marginalized NJMG chairman even bend down to pick it up? Maybe he sees it in Hackensack, where he is holding down the old fort with a few reporters and the computer folks, surveying all the new, unsold Toyotas in the parking lot.


So, if you are Editor Frank Scandale (his news policy is to front page all sports stories and many sex crimes) or head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes (her news policy is to ignore Hackensack, Englewood and Teaneck), it's likely you never get a call from the Borgs or anybody else about why a daily newspaper that made its reputation on covering local news is doing such a poor jobs of informing readers about what is going on in their towns.


Instead, as in today's Local section, readers get a lot of court, crime and accident news, plus one of those international custody battles that newspaper editors seem to love so much but that always read alike -- just substitute the name of the foreign country where the kids are living.


Nine candidates running for council in Teaneck, one of the most progressive and diverse communities in Bergen County? Sykes shoves it to the back of the Local section, and strips it of any information on whether the candidates are tax-weary Orthodox Jews, like the ones who tried to take over the Board of Education in the April school election.


Hackensack news? Another lawsuit filed against suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa -- this one from one of the two cops who allege he ordered them to cover up the real cause of the accident involving Zisa's  then-girlfriend. The chief's legal troubles have been reported in detail for close to a year -- to the exclusion of almost all other Hackensack news. Englewood news? Nothing.

At least on Page 1 today, to his credit, Scandale highlights more state aid cuts -- these affect legal services for battered women and others in Bergen, Passaic and Hudson counties -- but the coverage of Governor Christie's budget rampage has been piecemeal. What's called for is a standing front-page element detailing the cuts and how they affect everyday life in North Jersey.

The Borgs are more concerned about image, not local news, such as the image Stephen Borg wants to create by changing the paper's slogan to "The Trusted Local Source" from "Friend  of The People It Serves." He must have come up with that fiction while enjoying an expensive wine at the Englewood wine bar in which he and his sister are investors. Recently, they claimed NJMG is proud of the "responsible journalism" it practices.


I am sure they are not fooling readers.

(Photo: The Hackensack River in Teaneck.)