From great local journalism to hawking 'luxury' apartments

UNDER CONSTRUCTION: The first of 5 apartment buildings planned for 150 River St. in Hackensack -- where The Record and North Jersey Media Group were located -- is under construction, below. The roughly 20-acre building site is between River Street and the Hackensack River. The rendering is from JLL Capital Markets.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Generations of the Borg family prospered in Hackensack for roughly 110 years operating The Record and North Jersey Media Group.

Then, Stephen A. Borg pushed aside his father, Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, and took over as publisher in 2006.

By 2009, he had moved printing of The Record and Herald News to Rockaway, executed the largest downsizing in the once-great local daily newspaper's history, closed 150 River St. and decamped to Woodland Park.

The younger Borg also ended separate local news sections for Bergen and Passaic counties, and often news of Paterson, Wayne and other communities would dominate the single Local section.

That saved newsprint, but alienated Bergen readers and reduced circulation.

Sells out to Gannett

Then, in July 2016, he sold the family's publishing company to Gannett for nearly $40 million in cash, and laid plans to become an apartment developer, using 19.6 acres cleared of The Record's landmark headquarters and parking lots as his building site.

Now, the Borgs' Fourth Edition Inc., with a nearly $49 million construction loan and two partners, has begun work on the first of 5 buildings with a planned total of 654 units.

The first building of these so-called luxury apartments is sited roughly where The Record's executive offices were located, as well as circulation, advertising and the 4th-floor newsroom.

Think of this: 

Tenants of luxury apartments will be moving their bowels on the site of a great local daily newspaper Stephen Borg helped turn to shit.

Read: Japanese conglomerate

 is ultimate owner of The Record, (201) magazine

Read: Shit in my driveway: 

The Record was delivered to us by mistake

Read: Malcolm A. 'Mac' Borg

 settles porn-suit allegations

Cartoonists are having a field day with Trump transition

President-elect Donald J. Trump's nomination of Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State raises potential conflicts in Russia and other countries where the oil giant does business. This cartoon, "Scrabble Connection," is from R.J. Matson. Go to Cagle.com to see this and many other political cartoons.

"Nyet" is from cartoonist Dave Grunland.

"Trump's Cabinet Picks" is from cartoonist Daryl Cagle.

"Rex and Vlad" is from cartoonist Taylor Jones.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Now that the nasty battle with Governor Christie over public notices has subsided, The Record returns to peddling front pages filled with soft news.

Meanwhile, the transition of President-elect Donald J. Trump continues to set a record for potential conflicts of interest, but readers have to search the paper for them (7A). 

Bergen County readers looking over the Local front today find that three out of four stories are from Passaic and Hudson counties (1L).

USS Ling

Stephen A. Borg, former publisher of The Record, is denying any moral responsibility for saving the USS Ling from an ignominious end.

An editorial and a news story allow Borg to bow out of any role in saving the World War II submarine, which is literally stuck in the mud of the Hackensack River (8A today and 1A on Wednesday).

Borg -- whose grandfather negotiated the 1974 deal to lease land to the New Jersey Naval Museum for $1 a year -- ended the arrangement this year, apparently in anticipation of selling The Record and other North Jersey Media Group newspapers to Gannett. 

The Borg family reportedly received $40 million for NJMG, but retained the publishing company's retirement and pension funds, as well as nearly 20 acres along River Street in Hackensack, where the Ling is tied up.

Abandons Hackensack

The younger Borg has formed a new company, Fourth Edition, and calls himself a developer. 

The land, which is believed to be worth more than $20 million, is in a flood zone.

Nevertheless, the city of Hackensack has approved it for apartments and possibly a hotel as part of a sweeping downtown rehabilitation plan.

After he took over from his father, former NJMG Chairman Malcolm A. Borg, Stephen Borg worked quickly to cut The Record's ties to Hackensack and the USS Ling.

Borgs always first

Still, the younger Borg made sure to line his own pockets with a $3.65 million NJMG mortgage for a Tenafly McMansion, and drew a salary of about $350,000 a year.

He moved printing of The Record and Herald News to Rockaway Township nearly a decade ago.

In 2008 -- several months after he received the $3.65 million mortgage -- he put into the motion the biggest newsroom downsizing in the paper's history.

And in 2009, in a royal F.U. to Hackensack, he closed NJMG's headquarters, moving the newsroom to Woodland Park.  

The Record had prospered in Hackensack for more than 110 years.

Borgs take money and run, staffers brace for Gannett's ax

Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, former chairman of North Jersey Media Group, may be spending a lot more time at home on the East Hill of Englewood, above, now that Gannett Co. acquired The Record, Herald News, NorthJersey.com and other assets. To keep active, he might consider volunteering at the nearby hospital and medical center, as so many idle seniors do.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

It may go down as one of the fastest disappearing acts in the long, checkered history of American print journalism.

Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg angered North Jersey Media Group employees by skipping "the all-hands meeting on Wednesday where it was announced that ... The (Bergen) Record, Herald News and other papers were sold to Gannett, ending four generations of family ownership," Keith J. Kelly of the New York Post reported.

"Borg, in a memo, said it was a 'bittersweet' ending for 86 years of family ownership of the 121-year-old daily," said Keith, who on June 16 broke the story of the sale to Gannett.

"Although Gannett assured ... staffers that they were all retained in the acquisition, most employees fear it is only a matter of time before pink slips start flying," Keith noted.

"Gannett already owns the Asbury Park Press and five other [daily] papers in New Jersey and is infamous for cutting costs and staff locally and centralizing operations to boost [profit] margins," the Post story concluded.

[The New York tabloid reported months later that Gannett paid nearly $40 million in cash for North Jersey Media Group, the Borgs' newspaper publishing company.] 

Stephen A. Borg

The Post reported only Mac's son, Stephen A. Borg, who was president and publisher of The Record, "attended and spoke at the meeting," but I couldn't find a media account that actually quoted the younger Borg.

When the marketing whiz took over from his father in 2006, he called every employee to Hackensack for a meeting to introduce himself.

The first words out of his mouth were: "I'm not in this for the money."

Then, in a puzzling move, he showed a slide of his $2 million home in Tenafly. That house soon was replaced by a $3.65 million McMansion bought with an NJMG mortgage several months before the biggest downsizing in company history. 

Later, he also was overheard saying no employee in the newsroom should be making more than $40,000 a year, and in recent years, he imposed a freeze on raises.

Clearly, the Borgs, including older sister and former Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg, have taken the money and run -- perhaps to their summer home in the Hamptons.

Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg of Englewood in 2014, left.

Reaction

Reacting to the absence of the elder Borg at Wednesday's staff meeting in Woodland Park, former employee Lou Lumenick wrote on Facebook:

"They [the staff] certainly have every reason to be angry!"

Lumenick recalled Mac Borg's botched attempt to buy the Asbury Park Press in the 1980s, and how the millionaire's "boorishness turned off the family that owned it. They eventually sold to Gannett."

"And now the bruised and battered Record has been absorbed by the job-choppers at Gannett. My sympathies to my friends at The Record, where I toiled for 18 years before my return to The [New York] Post in 1995."

Disappearing act

The day after the sale was announced, Thursday, the Woodland Park daily contained no mention of North Jersey Media Group. 

Nor did readers find the usual editorial page listing of Borg family members past and present, including Publisher John Borg (1922-48) and Editor Donald G. Borg (1932-75).

Now, on A-2 and the editorial page every day, the words "part of USA Today Network" appears under The Record's stylized masthead type.

Tom Donovan, a Gannett Co. employee, is listed on the editorial page as "Interim President" just above longtime NJMG employees Deirdre Sykes, editor of The Record, and Alfred P. Doblin, editor of the paper's editorial page. 

Coverage of sale

In the Woodland Park newsroom, employees read and re-read Thursday's front-page story in The Record, especially the sentence reporting the "acquisition will bring about $90 million in annual revenue to the [Gannett] company."

Why would the Borg family, which has always put personal gain before the health and welfare of their employees, sell a publishing company that was bringing in $90 million a year?

They wouldn't and it wasn't.

That $90 million in revenue can be realized only if Gannett gets rid of a substantial number of the 700 to 800 workers that remained at NJMG, which once employed more than twice that number before the Borgs abandoned Hackensack, where they prospered for more than 110 years.

Down the shore

Gannett executives can start accomplishing that by moving production of The Record to Neptune -- former headquarters of the Asbury Park Press -- where the company is already putting out its six other New Jersey dailies.

That could mean pink slips for six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, Copy Desk Supervisor Vinny Byrne and an unknown number of news, layout, copy and photo editors who have been working in an office building overlooking Route 80 in Woodland Park since 2009.

Many of those employees have been at The Record for two or three decades or more.

Governor Christie

The acquisition also leaves unresolved the conflict between The Record and the six other Gannett dailies and The Star-Ledger, the state's biggest newspaper.

All but The Record demanded the resignation of Governor Christie after he endorsed wacko racist Donald J. Trump for president. 

The Record's editors even refused to mention in their news columns or editorial page that those seven dailies had condemned the GOP bully.

The Woodland Park daily's favorable coverage of the worst governor in state history may be rooted in the close family and business relationship between the Borgs and Jon F. Hanson, the real estate mogul who was chief fundraiser during Christie's two gubernatorial campaigns.

Ali's battles against racism, war deserve a banner headline

Appropriately, the family that owned Harley's Irish Pub on River Street in Hackensack, above and below, chose Friday the 13th last November to close after 37 years in business. The pub was the scene of many boozy going-away parties before The Record newsroom moved out of the city in 2009. MyBergen.com published a tribute to Harley's.

On Saturday, worked continued to replace the pub building at 366 River St. with the second location of Chicken Supreme, a fast-food restaurant in Paterson.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

One glance at The Record's front page today shows how the once-great local newspaper continues to allow advertising revenue to shape news coverage.

The legacy of Muhammad Ali -- who spent most of his life fighting racism and an unjust war in Vietnam -- is denied a banner headline to make room for another piece on the greedy real estate industry (A-1).

Starting a highly promotional Sunday Real Estate section to boost advertising revenue, and folding the award-winning Food section, were among Publisher Stephen A. Borg's major moves when he took over a decade ago.

Editor Deirdre Sykes wasted more space on A-1 today by running an awful Tara Sullivan column on Ali's "magnificent boxing form."

You'll have to turn to an inside page to see President Obama's tribute:

"Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it" (A-8).

House Warrior

Readers wondered whether Staff Writer John Cichowski -- the so-called Road Warrior commuting columnist -- was offered a real estate commission in return for two front-page pieces last week that tried to sell a house without a driveway in Midland Park, where overnight parking supposedly is "banned."

Sykes and six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton didn't bother publishing an A-2 correction after Cichowski screwed-up and inflated the size of the property on Friday to 12,000 square feet from Tuesday's 3,000 square feet.

Today, Cichowski devotes his entire column to an incorrect street sign and other trivia (L-1).

Two of the many vacant storefronts on Palisade Avenue in Englewood once housed a Wendy's fast-food restaurant and Victoria's Secret. The Record has largely ignored the struggles of downtown merchants in favor of heavy coverage of shopping centers that advertise in the Woodland Park daily.

Downtown news? 

For many years, the business editors have directed the paper's retailing reporter to devote her time exclusively to covering North Jersey malls and luxury stores, which are among the biggest advertisers.

Today, the Business front carries a rare story on Main Street in downtown Hackensack, where a half-dozen wireless stores are competing for customers (B-1).

Staff Writer Joan Verdon describes Hackensack's Main Street as a "downtown retail street with strong traffic, from cars and pedestrians."

Really? The street has struggled since the publisher of the Woodland Park daily closed the landmark building at 150 River St. nearly seven years ago, and pulled out more than a thousand employees.

Governor Christie

In Opinion today, readers find an idiotic Mike Kelly column on the killing of that zoo gorilla in Ohio (O-1).

Has Kelly really run out of ideas for his New Jersey column?

Readers find the strongest disapproval of Governor Christie -- New Jersey's worst governor ever -- in Margulies' Sunday cartoon (O-2), not in opinion columns or editorials.

That's a sad commentary on the paper's Editorial Board, the only one attached to a major New Jersey daily that didn't call for Christie's resignation after the GOP bully endorsed racist Donald Trump.

When incompetence is rewarded, readers are biggest losers

On weekdays, the parking lots at 150 River St., the old headquarters of The Record, are filled with cars from Hackensack University Medical Center, continuing the cozy relationship with North Jersey Media Group first established when Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg sat on the hospital board. It's unclear how The Record can be objective about HUMC, a huge non-profit that increases the tax burden on every home and business owner in Hackensack. 

These booths for attendants were built after NJMG landed a two-year $777,660 contract through July 2015 to accommodate the cars of jurors, attorneys and visitors in the River Street lots during construction of a Justice Center and parking garage near the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Less than a week before North Jerseyans have to make hefty quarterly property tax payments, the pages of The Record are filled with anything but local news.

Editor Deirdre Sykes' front page today has readers choking on state and national politics, sports and $2 gas (A-1).

And only a day after Page 1 reported the unexpected death of Teaneck Mayor Lizette Parker at 44, Sykes is so bored with the story she demotes the tributes and outpouring of grief to the Local front (L-1).

There isn't much else in the local-news section today except Law & Order news (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

You have to wonder why after the death of Parker on Sunday and Prince at 57 just last Thursday, the clueless Sykes hasn't assigned a story exploring why so many blacks die young.

In fact, why hasn't the paper's chief medical writer, Lindy Washburn, proposed such a story instead of wasting nearly two full Sunday pages on a man who is awaiting his second heart transplant in 20 years?

The damage of focusing on such medical freaks is that readers never learn tens of thousands of people who have cardiac surgery every year feel better than ever and go on to leave productive lives. 

Promotions

As head assignment editor, Sykes and sidekick Dan Sforza ran Local for years, scrambling to fill holes in the local-news report with accident photos, minor fires, crime and court news, and the Dean's List. 

As if to reward their incompetence, Sykes and Sforza were promoted in January, she to editor of the entire paper and he to managing editor, though all he seems to be "managing" is his free time.

Their promotions followed the elevation of Liz Houlton to six-figure production editor after she left a trail of typos and errors in Food and other sections when she was running the features copy desk.

Gannett bid

On the first Business page today, the editors censor a story on newspaper publisher Gannett offering to buy some of the nation's biggest newspapers (L-7).

Gannett owns six daily newspapers in New Jersey, and is rumored to have made offers to the Borg family for The Record.

Today, the editors don't mention those Gannett papers, just like the Woodland Park daily never reported they and the Star-Ledger called for Governor Christie to resign after he endorsed racist Donald Trump for president.

Cost-cutting

As the business story reports, Gannett long has been associated with cost-cutting and "shedding jobs" after acquiring newspapers (L-8).

But The Record's publisher, Stephen A. Borg, has done that on his own in the past decade.

Those moves include shifting the printing of The Record and Herald News to Rockaway Township, and firing more than 50 printers; a major newsroom downsizing in 2008 and the abandonment of Hackensack in 2009.

The downsizing saw the departure of employees who had worked for The Record for 20, 30 or more years.

Those cuts were made several months after Borg got a $3.65 million mortgage from his family's North Jersey Media Group for the purchase of a Tenafly McMansion, where he lives with his wife and four sons.

Freeze on raises

In the last few years, Borg froze newsroom raises and, more recently, stopped replacing reporters who leave the paper.

All of that has contributed to a drastic decline in the accuracy, quality and quantity of local-news coverage.

A recent example was how Sykes and Sforza ignored the candidates and issues in last Tuesday's school board and budget election in Hackensack, the biggest school system in Bergen County.

Meanwhile, the Borgs anticipate selling nearly 20 acres along River Street to an apartment developer after the Hackensack City Council declared the parcel in need of redevelopment, and awarded a multi-year tax break to the buyer. 

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.

Editors cranking up Christie P.R. machine on front page

Parking meters that accept payment by credit card have arrived in Hackensack. This one is next to the Atlantic Street Park. The new rate is 25 cents for 15 minutes, two to four times the cost at some older meters.

Not far away from the new meters, several copies of The Record of Woodland Park were delivered to an Atlantic Street law office by throwing them onto the snow or sidewalk.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Like her predecessor, Editor Deirdre Sykes is doing her best to keep alive Governor Christie's doomed campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.

Today's Page 1 headline and story on the GOP bully downplaying his pathetic 10th-place finish in Iowa essentially repeats the same upbeat message readers saw in Tuesday's A-1 column from the shameless Charles Stile.

Today's story also corrects Stile, without acknowledging the veteran reporter goofed (or was it deliberate?) when he claimed Christie finished seventh in the hayseed state's caucuses on Monday.

Stile was quick to climb into bed with Christie right after he took office in 2010, and he's stuck with him, even as he waged war on the middle class and used more than 500 vetoes to get his way with the Democratic majority in the state Legislature. 

Stile's columns and today's story by Staff Writer Dustin Racioppi amount to little more than public relations for Christie, who has turned his back on New Jersey to pursue his selfish political ambitions.

Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin should be demanding Christie's resignation, not waiting for the results of the New Hampshire primary (A-10).

On Monday, only one lane was open on Main Street in Hackensack near the railroad tracks. So much utility work has been done on Main the roughly patched downtown street is one of the bumpiest stretches in Bergen County, from the state courthouse to Euclid Avenue.

Test scores

A story on public school students failing new state tests discloses the percentage of Hackensack students in Grades 3-8 and 9-12 to meet expectations was among the lowest in Bergen and Passaic counties (A-1 and A-6).

This despite the city's free-spending school board approving a $106 million budget that exceeded the city's own last year.

The graphic on test results in Hackensack is the first news Sykes has published on city schools in one, possibly two years.

And as she did when she was running the local-news section, Sykes devotes a huge amount of space to first responders doing their job, in this case saving a 9-year-old girl "trapped by smoke and fire" in Mahwah (A-1).

This story falls into the same category as endless reporting on police, fire and EMT training; and photos at council meetings where cops join the force or are promoted.

They aren't news, and have no place in a paper that does such a poor job of reporting on how well or poorly our towns are being run.

Local news?

Readers of Local haven't been told which assignment editors succeeded Sykes and Dan Sforza, who was promoted to managing editor on Friday.

But today's section, dominated by sensational crime news, is more of the same old crap the lazy, incompetent assignment editors jammed down readers' throats for years (L-1).

More Law & Order news appears on L-3, including the earth-shaking news Harrington Park is seeking a $1.48 million federal grant to replace an aging firetruck and buy gear for volunteers.

Road Warrior John Cichowski has turned his commuting column into anything but (L-1).

Instead of writing about crowded buses and trains, the hopelessly confused Cichowski churned out an entire column today on taxis outside the Secaucus Junction rail station.

Artery clogging

There is nothing like artery clogging butter to ruin a heart-healthy fish dish, but don't tell that to Food Editor Esther Davidowitz, who today promotes a smoked sablefish risotto prepared by a chef at a Manhattan restaurant (BL-2).

Extra-virgin olive oil is the smart choice, but more butter appears in a pasta recipe from clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson in Upper Saddle River (BL-2).

All but one of the items in FYI, a feature claiming to report "what's new, what's happening, what's trending in the North Jersey dining scene," appear to be taken straight from press releases put together at great expense by public relations firms (BL-2).  

The three food features on BL-2 today amount to the crumbs readers have been thrown on Wednesdays since Publisher Stephen A. Borg folded The Record's award-winning Food section.

Incompetent local editors are now running the newsroom

Behold a colorful mural by local artists on Main and Bridge streets in Hackensack, above and below, where Choripan Rodizio, an Argentinian grill restaurant, and upper-floor apartments burned down on April 26, 2015. The fire originated in the restaurant.

The mural has upset some residents, who say city codes only allow a chain-link fence around vacant land, like the one across Bridge Street, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

There were two cakes at a farewell party on Thursday for Martin Gottlieb, the veteran head-in-the-clouds editor who ran The Record's Woodland Park newsroom for the last four years.

One was to wish bon voyage to Gottlieb, who is retiring to Paris, and the other was to celebrate the birthday of Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg of Englewood, the North Jersey Media Group chairman who hired him twice -- in 1971 and 2011 -- 40 years apart.

Mac, who didn't give his age, is believed to be in his late 70s, and many noticed how the already overweight senior had added more unwanted pounds.

Cub to editor

Marty, who celebrated his 68th birthday on Jan. 10, began his long journalism career in 1971 as a cub reporter covering Bergen County towns for The Record, and ended it as top editor of a newspaper once known for its comprehensive local coverage.

At the party, Publisher Stephen A. Borg, Mac's son, had his cellphone glued to his ear, as usual.

And on Friday -- in a decision that had everything to do with money and nothing to do with journalism -- the younger Borg put the paper's failed local assignment editors in charge of the entire newsroom (Saturday's A-3).

Neither had strong  journalism credentials when they came to the paper.

Local yokels

Former head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes worked on a weekly before she was hired in 1987 as a night copy editor, one of the most thankless jobs in the current newsroom.

And Dan Sforza, who was her deputy, began as a lowly clerk in the old Hackensack newsroom right out of college in 1994.

Stephen Borg named Sykes as editor and Sforza as managing editor, and there is disagreement over whether either will be getting a raise.

The younger Borg imposed a freeze on raises for editorial assistants, reporters, copy editors and editors more than five years ago, when Francis "Frank" Scandale was the top editor.

Scandale was fired in late 2011, and Gottlieb arrived in January 2012 after taking a buyout at The New York Times, where he had risen to editor of editions in Paris and Hong Kong.

Always had Paris

That international experience proved to be a really poor fit at a local daily newspaper.

Readers in Hackensack and many other towns have seen coverage of their communities and schools decline drastically under Gottlieb, Sykes and Sforza.

The local editors scrambled every day to fill their thin, misnamed section, Local (see today's pathetic effort), as Gottlieb ran sports, politics and international news on A-1.

Searching in vain for municipal news, readers eyes rolled at all of the filler -- long Dean's Lists, sensational crime and court news, and gee-whiz photo after of gee-whiz photo of non-fatal accidents and fires.

Then, they were pelted with mindless blather from that moron, Road Warrior John Cichowski, who refused to cover commuting issues, as demonstrated by his statistics-filled L-1 column today.

Sykes was known to keep a shit list, and to form bonds with Jean Rimbach and other women on the reporting staff whose bylines are few and far between, and that isn't expected to change.

A good front

On today's Opinion front, Gottlieb's farewell column explores the fantasy world of journalism he inhabits.

Gottlieb ignores the major newsroom downsizing imposed by Stephen Borg in 2008, the move out of Hackensack in 2009; and the decline in the quantity, quality and accuracy of local news under Borg's watch (O-1).

The biggest laugh line is Gottlieb comparing The Record's Mike Kelly to streetwise, big-city columnists Jimmy Breslin and Mike Royko, as shown by Kelly's exceedingly boring take on Atlantic City (A-1 today).

He praises many newsroom staffers by name, but offends just as many by not acknowledging their hard work during his reign.

The photo with Gottlieb's column shows him on Thursday with Mac Borg and two of his children, Stephen and NJMG General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg.

Typical A-1

Gottlieb's last front page on Saturday is typical of his reliance on sensational crime news and politics to sell the paper to an apathetic readership.

Gottlieb has been hitting readers over the head with coverage of the GOP candidates, including Governor Christie, even though Iowa voters have failed to choose the party's nominee in the last two tries.

Every story in the past year or two on the so-called presidential campaign has meant one less on the mess Christie has made in New Jersey, where he has ruled by executing more than 500 vetoes.

What did local readers get on Saturday?

Another long story, this time on the Local front, about a 6-year-old boy bitten by a rabid raccoon, and lots of news about crime or the courts.

The standing photo of a minor house fire appears on L-3.

Today's paper

"Deirdre Sykes, Editor" appears for the first time on today's editorial page, and her first Page 1 is a real snoozer. 

The package on Atlantic City's future couldn't be more irrelevant to North Jersey readers, who know all too well what a disaster casino gambling has been (A-1).

They will be sure to vote down any attempt to bring casino gambling to the Meadowlands, a desperate move The Record seems to be behind.

Yet another crappy Christie column from Charles Stile, the governor's chief apologist, also appears on Page 1 today.

The veteran Trenton reporter was sent to Iowa at great expense despite the newsroom-wide wage freeze, and I'll bet that is pissing off a lot of staffers. 

Local news?

The alleged husband-wife murder that led Saturday's front page is the biggest news on the Local front today (L-1).

Just below that is the burial of Messiah, 1; and Saniyah, 4, who died of carbon-monoxide poisoning, as did their 23-year-old mother, Sashalynn Rosa.

In a Thursday story, which reported Saniyah's death, the girl was said to be 3 years old. 

The exhaust pipe of their idling car, with the mother and children trying to keep warm inside, was blocked by snow on Jan. 23 as father Felix Bonilla Jr. tried to clear the vehicle after the blizzard.

Unfortunately, the story appears next to today's Road Warrior column, reminding readers how the inept Cichowski failed to warn about that common danger as readers tried to dig out their parked cars after the storm.

Today, Cichowski, as he has done many times before, begins his column with a bewildering non sequitur:

"It's cheap enough to fill a car's tank with gas these days, but the cost of road crashes remains higher than ever" (L-1).

And the Monthly News Quiz on L-3 today shows just how desperate Sykes and Sforza still are to fill the pages of Local.

Fat face?

The best dishes Elisa Ung ate this month show the reporter doesn't flinch from sampling mystery meat and a "chocolate-covered strawberry milk shake" in the name of food criticism (BL-5).

Her contemporaries also may eat such unhealthy fare, but she is out of step with most of her readers, who are far older and watching their weight, and their cholesterol and sugar intake.

That thumbnail of her chin poised over a wine glass is close to 10 years old, and many readers are speculating that her presumably fatter face wouldn't fit into an update photo.