Repeated errors make a mockery of younger Borg's motto

The Record's Local section this past Saturday ran a photo of the old Bergen County Jail, above, but the caption said: "An iron worker working to secure a beam at the construction site of the Bergen County Justice Center next to the jail in Hackensack on Friday." The photo, cropped to show only the top of the beam and the jail's turrets and parapets, confused readers who have watched the slow construction of the Justice Center, below.

Is the beam shown in Saturday's L-3 photo part of a pedestrian bridge that will connect the new building to the Bergen County Courthouse? The Record's caption didn't say. Another photo caption, on Saturday's L-2, described a BMW as a Toyota. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

It's right there under the masthead on Page 1 of The Record every day:

"NORTH JERSEY'S TRUSTED SOURCE"

Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who took over from his father nearly a decade ago, made a marketing decision to replace The Record's original motto:

"FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE IT SERVES"

Borg followed with several big, money-saving decisions that resulted in less local coverage -- especially of Hackensack -- and a rising number of errors, which has eroded North Jersey readers' trust in the Woodland Park daily.

Monday's paper carried a story on a nationwide poll that found:

"Trust in the news media is being eroded by perceptions of inaccuracy and bias .... Nearly 90 percent of Americans say it is extremely or very important that the media get their facts correct." 

Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy

Literally hundreds -- if not thousands -- of errors have appeared in the Road Warrior column since the "trusted source" motto was adopted, and few of them have been corrected by six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton or Editor Deirdre Sykes.

Sykes handpicked Staff Writer John Cichowski to write the column starting in September 2003. 

In recent years, corrections of hundreds of editing and reporting errors by others have appeared regularly on A-2, but The Record rarely corrects an error unless someone calls to complain.

The message drummed into journalism students is "accuracy, accuracy, accuracy," especially when it comes to spelling names.

A perfect example is a story in the local-news section today by Staff Writer John Seasly, who covered the Hackensack City Council on Monday night:

The reporter quoted a resident, and made sure to describe him as someone "who regularly attends the meetings," but misspelled his last name.

Richard L. Cerbo, whose father was a former Hackensack mayor, is the one who called for a tax cut in comments before the council approved a 2016-17 budget of $100.4 million.

Seasly wrote, "Rich Serbo" (L-3).

The entrance to Hackensack's main recreation center, the M&M Building on Holt Street, where voters cast ballots on Tuesday in the city's Board of Education election. I saw three voters ask for someone who spoke Spanish, but none of the 10 or so poll workers did. One poll worker barked in English, "Just go in there [the voting booth] and vote." Poll workers are paid $200 for the day. Most are seniors who have nothing better to do with their time than sit on their asses all day as their contribution to democracy.

School election

In addition to outright errors like misspelling someone's name, the errors of omission erode readers' trust in The Record.

At Monday night's council meeting, Seasly was asked why he didn't do a story on the Hackensack school election, especially the issues involved and the attempted political comeback by the Zisa family, which backed three of the nine candidates.

The reporter said a story was scheduled to appear on Tuesday, the day of the election, but none did.

Today, The Record's coverage of the results in 10 towns devotes the least space to Hackensack, even though the city has the most students and the biggest school budget, not to mention the most candidates.

Voter apathy

Of course, the story Seasly missed is that voter apathy and the status quo ruled the day, with only 795 of about 20,000 registered voters approving the $104 million Hackensack school budget.

A total of only 1,293 residents voted on the $79 million tax levy, which supports an overall school budget that is higher than the municipal budget.

Mail-in ballots weren't counted Tuesday night, but unofficial results show that:

Two Zisa-backed candidates, incumbent Timothy J. Hoffman and former trustee Modesto Romero, were elected along with incumbent Lara L. Rodriguez, who was on another slate (with only 727, 604 and 711 votes, respectively).

(I reported the affiliation of the candidates incorrectly when this was first posted. The Record reported Rodriguez's vote total incorrectly in Wednesday's paper.)

Seasly never reported that school taxes represent nearly half of the total property tax bill or that the ballot was confusing, with candidates' names appearing randomly without numbers or such identification as "Citizens for Better Schools" or "Team Hackensack."

Today's paper

Even though Borg and Sykes continue to ignore Hackensack, they are doing a bang-up job of publicizing medical miracles at Hackensack University Medical Center (A-1).

Borg's older sister, Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg, once served as an HUMC board member.

The sprawling medical center calls itself a non-profit, and as a result saves about $10 million a year in property taxes.