Here's a wealthy family that out-litigates the Borgs

The Great Falls in Paterson. See letters to the editor on Page A-9 today.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The sensational story of millionaires and billionaires battling over an heiress' inheritance dominates Page 1 of The Record today, as well as nearly a full inside page (A-1 and A-6).

Much is evident in this tortured tale by Staff Writer Kibret Markos, but many other questions remain.

Clearly, the Cohens and Perelmans spend far more money filing and defending lawsuits than Bergen County's most litigious family, the Borgs, who own North Jersey Media Group. 

Ronald Perelman may have billions, but the A-1 photo of him shows a fashion-challenged klutz in ugly shoes who couldn't find matching jacket and pants.

Breaking news

Since 2008, the litigants have been fighting over the fortune amassed by Hudson News founder Robert Cohen of Englewood, where Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg also lives.

Is it possible NJMG and The Record had no business relationship with the newspaper delivery and newsstand giant, and if they did or do, shouldn't that be in the story, perhaps to explain why so much attention is being given to this prolonged legal battle.

The Borgs and Cohens do use the same Hackensack law firm, Pashman Stein.

Markos is a lawyer and the full-time reporter assigned to Superior Court in Hackensack, one of the busiest in the state, and he can be seen taking frequent smoking breaks outside the 10 Main St. courthouse entrance.

Although the reporter is fresh off the August court recess, you'd think he'd be a lot busier than his bylines indicate.

Two things he doesn't write about are the outrageous hourly rates charged by law firms -- cutting down on public access to the courts -- and all of the age-discrimination lawsuits that were generated by layoffs during the recession.

Oh, that face

Look at the photo of state Sen. Barbara Buono on A-3 today, and tell me you wouldn't rather look at that gorgeous face for four years over Governor Christie's ugly mug.

Then listen to Buono on "the culture" that grew under the GOP bully:

"This is a culture where the rich pay less than their fair share and the rest of us struggle ... where women are told that politicians are better fit to make our health-care decisions and that we don't deserve equal pay for equal work.

"The poster boy for this culture is none other than Chris Christie," Buono said.

Beer and donuts

On the front of Local, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes celebrates the tailgating tradition of overwight, beer-guzzling football fans (L-1).

Another L-1 story reports Montvale Police Chief Jerry Abrams has no college degree, violating departmental policy.

You'd don't need a 4-year degree to find Dunkin' Donuts.

'Good' noise

On L-3, readers learn how thousands of North Jersey motorcyclists get away with routinely breaking every anti-noise ordinance on the book:

Once a year, 1,300 of them get police to close roads to cars so they can raise money for charities with a 70-mile ride that likely woke the dead (L-3).

Related articles

• The Borg siblings to Hackensack: Drop dead!
• Blurring the line between business and journalism
• Stephen Borg finally comes clean

All of a sudden, Christie is sensitive about his weight

Hackensack's new City Council at a meeting in July. Did The Record cover the council meeting on Tuesday night, and, if so, when will it tell readers what happened?

By Victor E. Sasson

Editor

In his first three years in office, Governor Christie's waistline ballooned, he was hospitalized on a hot summer day in 2011 after an asthma attack and he refused to tell the national media how much he weighed.

The Record and other state media never asked how much Christie weighed nor have they bothered reporting what, if anything, his administration has done to fight the childhood obesity epidemic.

Meanwhile, he was the butt of jokes by late-night TV comedians, and even pulled out a donut and crammed it into his mouth during an appearance on David Letterman's show.

400-pound bully?

Letterman guessed Christie weighed 400 pounds. Finally, early this year, Christie gave up pretending to control his eating, and had weight-loss surgery.

Now, the GOP bully is objecting to a seemingly innocent comment by state Sen. Barbara Buono, D-Middlesex, about his appearance in TV ads promoting the Jersey shore after Superstorm Sandy (A-1 and A-3).

"I'm very disappointed that she has decided to go down that road for me and other folks across New Jersey, many folks who are challenged by their weight," the governor told Staff Writer Melissa Hayes (A-3).

Easy choice

What a joke. Christie has been in denial for decades, as are the grossly overweight local editors at The Record who have refused to launch a series on obesity.

In the November gubernatorial election, voters have a simple choice between a fit woman who cares about the middle class and an overweight governor who does the bidding of the wealthy and other fat cats.

Going national

Editor Marty Gottlieb has fashioned another front page -- for The Times or another national newspaper -- with local stories playing second fiddle.

What are readers supposed to make of the boring ANALYSIS about Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., supposedly "on [the] world stage" during the debate over attacking Syria (A-1)?

Is The Record grooming him for an invasion of communist Cuba and the presidency of the Caribbean's biggest island?

Below the fold, a story about saving a plot of land in the Meadowlands falls into the "that's nice" category, but can readers visit and see for themselves (A-1)?

On A-2 today, 3 of the many errors that have appeared in recent days are corrected.

Go home, LG

When is The Record going to stop pretending that a new LG Electronics' corporate headquarters -- which would be an indelible scar on the Palisades north of the bridge -- will by itself lift the economy of Bergen County (A-1 and A-4)?

This is nothing more than an irresponsibly selfish grab by ratable-hungry officials in Englewood Cliffs, and a South Korean conglomerate eager to put the company logo in view of millions of New York consumers.

More local slop

Readers of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section have become accustomed to accident-photo captions supplying no information on the possible cause or other important information.

But today's sensational coverage of a Route 17 crash that killed a 31-year-old mother and seriously injured a father -- while their baby was left home alone -- is a new low for the copy desk and Production Editor Liz Houlton (L-1).

The L-1 photo caption says "a car broke into three pieces after hitting a thick metal pole on Route 17 in Lodi," but that's contradicted by the story:

"The impact of the accident and the rescue attempt [italics added] left the car mangled and broken into three pieces" (L-2).

Putting aside the awkward phrase "impact of the accident," readers are left with questions about what caused the car to break up.

Was speed a factor? Why doesn't the story address that?

Are Houlton and her copy editors doing anything more than spell-checking stories and slapping headlines and captions on them?

Back to school

Also on L-1, Road Warrior John Cichowski is so desperate to get readers interested in another column that has nothing to do with commuting (school-bus inspections), he begins with a total non-sequitur about car owners too busy for emissions testing (L-1).

Of course, readers in Hackensack and other towns without school busing just turned the page. 

Two local obituaries appear today, apparently marking the end of a vacation for Staff Writer Jay Levin (L-6).

One reader I heard from on Monday thought The Record had missed the death of former Freeholder and Midland Park Mayor William Van Dyke, but the obit appears today, albeit 8 days after the fact.

It's been a bad week at The Record

More equipment has been staged at The Record's old headquarters in Hackensack, above and below, part of about 20 acres owned by North Jersey Media Group.

Asplundh, based in Hicksville, N.Y., calls itself a tree-expert company that provides "vegetation management" to utilities and governments throughout the United States.

The city of Hackensack and its residents have been relegated to the dumpster.

Eye on The Record is receiving anonymous comments -- presumably from employees -- that refer to changes in the newsroom, including the folding of the Signature section last week.

At the same time, a construction trailer and other equipment is being staged in the parking lot of The Record's old headquarters at 150 River St. in Hackensack, possibly in preparation for demolition of the landmark building.

See a YouTube video about one of the companies involved called:

'Asplundh -- Tree Butchers from Hell' 


Newsroom changes

Here is one comment about the newsroom:

"Victor, please look up what happened. You are still missing the story and it's been a week since it was reported.

"If you were in the loop you would know why the [Signature] section was folded, why [Editor Alan] Finder doesn't have a sweetheart deal, not that you reported details, and why it wasn't a good week at The Record."

(See the previous post, Editor Alan Finder is lost and found.) 

That comment was followed by this:

"Anon[ymous] is referring to an internal memo from a week ago, but it's not online anymore. Guess you'll never know, but it's fun to watch you speculate."

When Eye on The Record asked that "moron" to fill everybody in and tell us whether cutbacks were announced, this is what he/she said:

"Excuse me? Why not do your own homework instead of passing off speculation as facts? Readers of this blog may never know what goes on there, if not for other media that cover it better."  

Another bad paper

All of this comes on a day when Editor Marty Gottlieb delivers one of the most atrocious front pages of any Sunday edition since he took over the Woodland Park newsroom a little more than a year ago.

The lead story speculates on how the billions in Sandy aid might be spent.

Another A-1 story reports on events in 1961, revealing for the first time the discovery of "mountains" in Bergen County.

And the front page is dominated by that moronic sports columnist, Tara Sullivan, who looks forward a year to the Super Bowl in snowy New Jersey.

Where are front pages that report what has just happened in our back yard -- what newspapers did well for many decades -- in contrast to speculation and endless jawboning about events and elections one, two, three or four years in the future?

Dissing Democrats 

Gottlieb continues to turn his back on Democrats, relegating the kickoff of Sen. Barbara Buono's campaign against Governor Christie to a brief on A-1, with the full story appearing on A-3.

Buono is destined to deflate the GOP blimp, and cruise to victory in November now that Christie has mismanaged the state's economy and tried to destroy the middle and working classes.

Sadly, Christie has been able to flummox the media, including his adoring columnists, Charles Stile and Alfred P. Doblin, the Editorial Page editor of The Record.

Sandy and John

Superstorm Sandy destroyed many lives in New Jersey, but it also moved The Record's lazy commuting columnist to finally pay attention to our overburdened mass-transit system.

Today's Road Warrior column on problems at North Jersey train stations (L-1) follows two earlier such columns, as well as Friday's piece on the train-truck crash in Little Falls.

Staff Writer John Cichowski's grip on accuracy is so shaky, he even got wrong -- in the first paragraph -- the day that spectacular accident happened, as a concerned reader points out in another e-mail to management:

"The Road Warrior continues to rely on and publish mistaken and exaggerated comments about road issues without checking out facts for himself, as his Feb. 1 column about unsafe rail crossings clearly shows.

"He should drive to problem areas pointed out by people to verify their comments.

"It appears he still refuses to use Mapquest or other map-search applications to easily correct mistaken locations with road problems that are given to him.

"He cannot report the correct day of an accident even though The Record reported it multiple times, and ignores other facts reported by The Record about the crash at the Little Falls railroad crossing at Main Street."

  
See the full e-mail at:

Road Warrior doesn't know what day it is 


Hackensack election

In head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local news section, a story on L-7 reports that a second slate of 5 is vying for spots on the May 14 ballot to elect a new City Council.

But the story is missing a crucial detail: Is this slate backed by Lynne Hurwitz, the Democratic Party leader behind the Zisa family's rule over a city many refer to derisively as "Zisaville"?

Last June, The Record reported Hurwitz critics call her "a fierce, no-holds-barred power broker and key strategist behind Hackensack's former police chief, Ken Zisa, and his family’s political machine."  

Kelly the sleuth

What momentous events excite that great journalist Mike Kelly?

Today, he catches up to last year's lowering of thermostats at town hall in sleepy Washington Township (O-1).

On Wednesday, he wrote about the federal re-trial of former prosecutor and defense lawyer Paul W. Bergrin, who "once tooled around North Jersey in a Bentley," according to the columnist who leaves no stone unturned (A-1).

Inside, he called Bergrin's trial "a comic soap opera that is also a graphic police drama," and "a tossed salad of long-winded testimony and chessboard strategy" (A-4 on Wednesday).

Life's a bitch

In Better Living, Sunday morning readers are greeted on B-3 by several paragraphs about dogs smelling each other's asses and genatalia from unfunny Columnist Bill Ervolno -- certainly enough to bring up their breakfasts (the readers, not the dogs).

God save us from these three columnists, because Gottlieb and Publisher Stephen A. Borg won't.

Christie is trying to bury the working class

Governor Christie says minimum-wage workers can go eat dirt.  (Wikipedia)

Governor Christie unleashed a double salvo at New Jersey's working class on Monday.

First, he asked the state's highest court to let him decide how much affordable housing is built, and then he told low-wage workers they don't deserve a $1.25 hike in the $7.25 minimum wage.

Instead, Christie wants them to beg for a dollar more over three years (L-7).

Burying the veto

The Record put the affordable housing story on Monday's Page 1, but tried to soften the GOP bully's selfishness by burying the wage veto on the first Business page today (inside Local).

The intent, of course, is to show wealthy small-business owners -- who read the Business section-- that Christie is repaying them for all their financial support.

More stale Stile

The sub-headline on the Charles Stile column today says Sen. Barbara Buono isn't the "savior" the Democrats are hoping for in a bid to defeat Christie in November (A-1).

But Democrats don't need a "savior." 

All Buono has to do is to point out all of Christie's failures in his first term, as well as the sorry state of the New Jersey economy -- which is what The Record can't bring itself to do. 

And she is a lot better looking than him.

He loves Sandy

You can bet the morbidly obese Christie will be just about humping President Obama during the signing of the $50.5 billion Sandy aid package (A-1).

After four years of mismanagment, Christie is pinning his re-election hopes on what he's done since Oct. 29, when the superstorm hit the state.

Rabbi prays for break

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, gives top billing today to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's on-again, off-again attempt to skip out of his $62,000 property tax bill in Englewood (L-1).

The wealthy city, which has a largely minority school system, could certainly use Boteach's taxes. 

After a long stretch of Dean Street through downtown was torn up to install pipes or gas lines or whatever, the city can't afford to repave the unusually bumpy road.  

A story about Teaneck also appears on the Local front, but Hackensack residents come up short for yet another day.

The weather photo on L-2 today didn't take much work:  

The snow-covered road is not far from the Woodland Park newsroom where Sykes' and Sforza's loud snores reverberated.

Wings and receivers

On the Better Living front, the report on a shortage of chicken wings doesn't explain why supermarkets charge more for them than bigger and meatier thighs and legs (BL-1).

What was the point of Monday's overlong front-page sports story reporting that pro football players who took hit after hit during their careers are now in constant pain? 

Road Warrior errors 

"The Road Warrior does a disservice with his mistaken reporting and misleading negative distortions in his Jan. 27 column about the Passaic Street train station in Garfield," a concerned reader says in another e-mail to The Record.

"Road Warrior's negative distortions about the neighborhood around the immediate vicinity of the Garfield station made it seem like an abandoned, trash strewn area when, in fact, it also has many positive features, including the Alfred J. Thomas Home for Veterans,barber shops, nail salons, a coffee shop, a popular restaurant, Barcelona's, and Platter World, a record shop, both of which had positive write-ups in The Record.

"As always, the more outrageous an unsafe or illegal practice is by a contributor to the story, the better chance it will be reported by the ghoulish Road Warrior as if nothing is wrong. 

"Big planning dreams aside, if The Record and Road Warrior can agree on how to keep his columns mistake free, maybe next year you'll figure out how to have columns focused on more relevant facts to pedestrians, drivers, and commuters."

See the full e-mail to management at:

Lots of heat but no light

 

Related article

• Christie veto on minimum wage another blow to the working poor Editorial

Will a morbidly obese Christie survive?

An obese man in the early 20th century. (Wikipedia)

The Record today and Monday continues trying to predict whether Governor Christie will win a second term, ignoring the elephant in the newsroom.

Judging from a shocking photo the paper published on Sunday (Page A-6), Christie is morbidly obese and may not survive a long gubernatorial campaign, especially during the hot summer months. 

Recall the asthma attack that put him in the hospital a couple of summers ago, when he weighed less than he does now.

Bag of chips nearby? 

In the photo by Tyson Trish, the GOP bully is shown seated with his belt hiked up in an apparent attempt to hide his enormous stomach and abdomen, swollen by fat cells. 

More fat sags under his chin. What appears to be a bag of chips can be seen on a chair to the governor's right.

When it comes to eating, nutrition and his own health, Christie is completely out of control.

He also has little regard for the health of women and the poor, who are suffering because of budget cuts he made to preserve low taxes on his millionaire supporters.

Writing off challengers

Today, 10 months before the election, Columnist Charles Stile is already writing off Christie's potential Democratic challengers, including Sen. Barbara Buono, a Metuchen Democrat who has formally declared her candidacy (A-1).

Can't you just hear the yelps of laughter in the newsroom at Stile attempting to be funny when he wrote:

"The party cognescenti who craft the conventional wisdom in Trenton says she'll get crushed by Christie" (A-7).

A woman's appeal

But the hack columnist doesn't appreciate the appeal to New Jersey voters of a Democratic woman as a welcome break from the GOP's overwhelmingly male brand of divisive politics, including its war on the middle class.

What is morbid obesity?

Here is an excerpt from the Web site of the University of Rochester Medical Center and its Highland Hospital Bariatric Surgery Center:

Morbid Obesity

is a Serious Health Condition

Morbid obesity is a serious health condition that can interfere with basic physical functions such as breathing or walking. Those who are morbidly obese are at greater risk for illnesses including diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), gallstones, osteoarthritis, heart disease, and cancer.
Morbid obesity is diagnosed by determining Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI is defined by the ratio of an individual’s height to his or her weight. Normal BMI ranges from 20-25. An individual is considered morbidly obese if he or she is 100 pounds over his/her ideal body weight, has a BMI of 40 or more, or 35 or more and experiencing obesity-related health conditions, such as high blood pressure or diabetes.

 

Voters know nothing about Christie's health, except for that time he was hospitalized, and he has refused to answer questions on how much he weighs.

Page 1 sports

Also today, Editor Marty Gottlieb chose to squander front-page space on a big photo of a football game in Miami (A-1).

That left to A-3 a report on Democrats complaining that Christie is using Superstorm Sandy to distract attention from his poor record on job creation, mass transit and so many other areas.

That's likely because the media continue to praise Christie to the sky for stepping up after the superstorm hit on Oct. 29-30 -- and to ignore the sad state of affairs since he took office.