More misinformation?

Environmental reporting at The Record of Woodland Park should be recycled. Editors and reporters have ignored Hackensack's excellent program to accept such electronics as TVs and computers, and compact fluorescent bulbs containing mercury, and have written nothing about delays of two years or more facing homeowners who want to install solar panels.

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Now, Staff Writer James Yoo reports on the front of Local today that towns in Bergen and Passaic counties no longer accept household batteries for recycling. He quotes everyone but Hackensack officials. I wasn't able to reach Hackensack's recycling director, but the city employee who answered the phone said that as far as she knew, batteries still are accepted for recycling. So who is correct?

Hackensack, after all, is where The Record was founded in 1895 and were it prospered for more than 110 years. Now, the paper not only has moved printing and virtually all of its news staff out of River City, but it has turned its back on city's residents and most of their news, along with ignoring Teaneck and Englewood as much as possible. 

For weeks at a time, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado is missing in inaction, and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes seems not to notice or care. The Borg family? Just counting the money.

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It looks like Staff Writer Joseph Ax and Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi have been pulled out of Haiti and in the process, the incompetent editors have demoted coverage of the humanitarian crisis. In the few days they were there, Haiti again was front-page news (coat of arms is shown).

Page 1 today is filled with hard news, including Staff Writer Michael Gartland's continuing revelations about financial abuses by Bergen County school district officials. The lead story says the Xanadu shopping and entertainment complex may open after all, despite all the attempts by The Record and Staff Writer John Brennan to write its obituary.

The major element on the front reports on the state's share of the proposed federal budget, including allowing tax cuts to expire for such wealthy people as Malcolm, Stephen and Jennifer Borg of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record and Herald News. The top bracket would go to 39 percent from 35 percent. I doubt a 4% jump in taxes would crimp their lifestyle: a heady mix of mansions, vacation and city homes, a wine bar and more.

I laughed when I saw the main headline on the front of  Better Living:  "The high cost of free advertising," referring to complaints by a Ridgewood couple whose restaurant will be profiled on Chef Gordon Ramsay's "Kitchen Nightmares" reality program (photo).

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 Of course, there is absolutely no cost to restaurateurs for the lavish, uncritical coverage by The Record and Staff Writer Elisa Ung, who would make a good addition to the advertising staff. Recall her huge spread about Bobby Flay's hamburger restaurant in Paramus, her blow-by-blow reporting about the ups and downs of the South City Restaurant Group and her two-star review of Bahama Breeze, a mediocre chain restaurant on the highway in Wayne. Or how about her failure to investigate claims by the nail-biting Flay and other chefs intent on hiding the low quality of the beef they serve?


I am still waiting for a reality program called "Newsroom Nightmares," which would expose The Record and other newspapers for cutting staffs and benefits, and turning their backs on local news, while their owners continue to prosper.

 

Local news boycott continues

 Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood residents will search in vain for municipal news in The Record today. Even the two restaurants featured prominently in Better Living are in Passaic County, seemingly a reflection of the paper's move to Woodland Park.

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Although it was clear last month that legalization of same-sex marriage didn't have a chance, the former Hackensack daily kept the issue alive and today, devotes most of the front page and one inside page to its defeat. The other "big story" on Page 1 is the Cablevision-Scripps battle over the Food Network -- a non-story to tens of thousands of readers with other television services.

In the Local section, the paper assigns three reporters to the murder of a Garfield businessman and runs two large photos of law enforcement officials announcing an arrest.

For Hackensack news, you'll have to look to the weekly Hackensack Chronicle, which is also owned by North Jersey Media Group and which is delivered with The Record on Fridays. The weekly paper reports the city manager asked union workers to forgo their scheduled raises in 2010 -- a hike of about 3%.

Thumbs up to Columnist Kevin DeMarrais for acknowledging on Page L-8 that The Record is profiting from the cable TV dispute by selling full-age ads outlining each side's spin, but shame on him for gratuitously plugging Bobby Flay's hamburger restaurant in Paramus, where the chef chooses to serve lower-quality beef to fatten his bottom line.