Gannett deal has older newsroom staffers shitting in pants

The widely reported sale of the Borg family's North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, to the Gannett company raises many questions. Does the deal include 19.7 acres along River Street in Hackensack, which the city has designated for redevelopment? In recent years, the parking lots of NJMG's old headquarters have been leased to Bergen County and Hackensack University Medical Center, above.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg closed the 150 River St. headquarters of NJMG and The Record in 2009, and shifted operations to a nondescript office building in Woodland Park a few years after moving the printing of the company's daily and weekly newspapers to Rockaway Township.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The reported sale of family owned North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, likely sent shock waves through the Woodland Park newsroom on Thursday, especially among older staffers.

How readers will fare is less certain, because The Record's local-news operation has been on life support for several years.

"Gannett is famous for cutting the budget and staff of newspapers it buys; for replacing veteran journalists with younger, lower-paid employees; for doing cookie-cutter newspapers subject to tightly centralized corporate rules," a columnist for Urban Milwaukee.com wrote last October.

If Gannett replaces newsroom veterans in Woodland Park, the move would recall the major 2008 downsizing ordered by Publisher Stephen A. Borg -- several months after he obtained a $3.65 million mortgage from NJMG to buy a McMansion in Tenafly.

Then, staffers with 20 or more years of experience were shown the door or told to accept buyouts, including the director of photography, community editor and co-supervisor of the copy desk.

Before the downsizing, it was common newsroom practice for supervisors to favor younger employees for promotion, such as the replacement of the food editor with a man who was less than half her age and had none of her talent.

In 2011, Gannett was reported to have reduced editorial staffs at three of its New Jersey dailies -- Daily Record, Home News and Courier News -- to 53 from 99. 

Potential cuts in Woodland Park would include such veteran columnists as Mike Kelly, John Cichowski, Bill Ervolino and Charles Stile. 

Tabloid report

The New York Post broke the news on Thursday afternoon, reporting that Gannett "is getting ready to add to its stable of New Jersey newspapers by snapping up The Record and some weekly newspapers."

Media reporter Keith J. Kelly said:

"The news sent a jolt through the Record newsroom. Beleaguered staffers, who have survived recent rounds of belt-tightening without getting a raise in years, were stunned.

Many were said to be standing around in small groups talking after nypost.com broke the news of the impending sale Thursday."

A number of former Record reporters and editors who have been working at The Post for a decade or more may have been among the "sources" Kelly cited. 

Gannett in N.J.

Gannett already owns the Asbury Park Press and five other dailies in New Jersey, and they joined The Star-Ledger in calling for the resignation of Governor Christie after he endorsed wacko racist Donald J. Trump in the presidential race.

The Record is the only major daily in New Jersey that didn't do the same, leading many readers to question whether the Woodland Park daily still is part of a free and independent press.

The sale of The Record to Gannett has been rumored for years, especially in view of the two publishing companies' business and journalism ties.

Gannett's USA Today and other papers have been printed under contract at NJMG's Rockaway plant. 

Record history

NJ.com picked up the report from The Post, noting NJMG owns The Record and 49 community newspapers, one of which is the weekly Hackensack Chronicle. 

NJ.com is owned by The Star-Ledger, the state's largest newspaper.

The Record is second largest, but its average circulation of 170,163 on Sundays and 135,544 Mondays to Fridays probably includes copies of the Herald News, which was designated an "edition" of the larger paper years ago.

The paper has been owned by the Borg family since 1930.

The Bergen Evening Record was founded in 1895, and prospered for more than 110 years in Hackensack, where the Borgs once lived in mansions on Prospect Avenue and Summit Avenue, in the city's Fairmount section.

The younger Borg is president and publisher, and his father, Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg of Englewood, is chairman of NJMG.

Jennifer A. Borg, Stephen's big sister, is vice president and general counsel of NJMG.

The company also operates NorthJersey.com and Bergen.com, and publishes (201), a lifestyle magazine for Bergen County's wealthiest families.

Today's paper

Page 1 of The Record reports Democratic lawmakers have blocked Christie "from loosening one of New Jersey's toughest gun-control laws on Thursday, turning the tables for once on a governor known for his prolific use of the veto pen" (A-1).

In the court of public opinion, Christie was at the center of the George Washington Bridge lane closures a month before he was reelected in November 2013.

So, why is The Record again using precious space on the front page today to quote his continued stonewalling of an illegal political operation inside the Governor's Office that targeted Democrats, including the mayor of Fort Lee?

Taxpayers were forced to pay more than $10 million to Christie's lawyers for a complete whitewash of his involvement, yet Record editors, columnists and reporters long pointed to the so-called Mastro report as evidence the GOP bully had absolutely nothing to do with ordering the gridlock.

Pricey Italian

Today, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung recommends you fight traffic all the way to Ramsey, then fork over $25 for a small portion of potato dumplings at Bici, a pricey Italian restaurant where she makes the manager sound like a stalker (BL-16).

Ung complains manager Marcelo Gambarato "needs to become less intrusive," calling his five visits to her table "overkill, since most involved having full conversations."

She still managed to eat plenty of rich, artery clogging food topped off by a few gooey desserts.

"Gambarato was so over-hospitable that I was little worried he would follow us down the street and call us the next day," the reviewer notes at the end of her 2.5-star appraisal (Good to Excellent).

She doesn't mention whether he asked for her telephone number.

7 other N.J. newspapers hounded Christie 'back to work'

Light snowfall didn't slow the collection of garbage and recycling in Hackensack today.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Governor Christie pledged to get "back to work" on New Jersey's most insoluble problems, but you won't find any mention in The Record today of the role played by seven other newspapers that demanded his resignation.

In the first paragraph of a Page 1 news story, Trenton reporter Dustin Racioppi refers vaguely to "demands," and then focuses on an "intense and scathing" online reaction to Christie's endorsement of racist Donald Trump (A-1).

Still, even in his longest press conference in two years, Christie successfully "managed" Racioppi and Record Columnist Charles Stile, who wrote another boring political column on the GOP bully's ties to the "party establishment" (A-4).

Neither Racioppi nor Stile asked whether Christie intends to continue to rule by veto, as he's done more than 500 times since early 2010.

Nor will you find any mention in today's upbeat editorial of Christie's war on the working and middle classes in the state (A-10).

This week, six Gannett-owned newspapers in New Jersey, followed by The Star-Ledger, the state's biggest daily, called on our absentee governor to resign after sacrificing his duties to his personal ambitions on the presidential campaign trail.

The Record of Woodland Park has never mentioned those editorials or its own waffling on Christie's dereliction of duty. 

Rail confusion

Today's lead story on a potential NJ Transit rail strike on March 13 is so poorly edited readers are confronted with contradictory numbers on how many commuters will be affected (A-1).

A graphic just below the headline shows an average of 308,523 one-way weekday rail trips, but next to it, a sub-headline says only 65,000 may be "stranded" by a strike.

In the text, the 65,000 number turns out to be referring only to people who ride trains into Manhattan, ignoring others who take trains within the Garden State.

And the long story by Staff Writer Christopher Maag contains absolutely no information on what the 4,200 rail workers are asking for, preventing readers from judging the merits of the unions' position.

Maag does say rail employees have been working without a contract for five years, more evidence that Christie is an enemy of both mass transit and unions. 

'Lasuni gobi'

On the Better Living cover today, a photo of "lasuni gobi," a dish at Kinara in Tenafly, gives no hint of whether it is meat, poultry or vegetable.

Ditto for the caption on BL-2, and the data box that appears with Elisa Ung's upbeat review of the Indian restaurant on BL-14.

Finally, in the penultimate paragraph of the review itself, readers learn this great looking Chinese-Indian dish is fried florets of cauliflower "in a dark garlic sauce."

The sugar-, butter- and cream-obsessed Ung apparently withheld a third star, because "the dessert menu is full of duds."

Still, how can she rate the place Good to Excellent after calling the samosas the "worst" appetizer and the tandori chicken "flavorless"? 

Another sad day for New Jersey journalism

Will The Record's coverage of the Christie administration's politically inspired George Washington Bridge lane closures in Fort Lee, above, win the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize, the highest achievement in journalism? Prizewinners and nominated finalists will be announced April 14 at Columbia University in Manhattan.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Newspaper veterans rubbed their tired eyes today as they read of more drastic cuts in the news-gathering staff at The Star-Ledger, the onetime behemoth that once cast a shadow on The Record and every other newspaper in New Jersey. 

The Woodland Park daily is reporting that 40 more jobs will be lost in The Star-Ledger's non-unionized newsroom, cutting the staff to 116, down from a high of 350 before the first buyouts in 2008 (A-1 and A-3).

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Star-Ledger, hit by the newspaper industry's nationwide drop in readership and advertising, claims a circulation of 167,600 daily, compared to 473,000 in 1993.

Outsourcing

A total of 306 will be laid off at The Star-Ledger and other daily and weekly papers owned by Advance Publications Inc. in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and at the company's NJ.com Web site.

Advance plans to create a new company based in Woodbridge that will provide advertising, marketing and news content to The Star-Ledger, its other newspapers and its Web site.

Outsourcing news gathering is sort of like a school board outsourcing janitorial services: 

Both deal with a lot of shit. At New Jersey newspapers, that takes the form of bullshit from Chris Christie, the GOP monster who has turned out to be state's worst governor.

Second thoughts

The Star-Ledger has done a better job than most of seeing through Christie's bluster, and in February, the paper called its endorsement of his reelection "regrettable."

"...Yes, we blew this one," wrote Tom Moran, the former Record staffer who is now on The Star-Ledger's editorial board, mentioning both the Bridgegate and Sandy aid debacles.

The Record's story today is strangely silent on how the flagship North Jersey Media Group daily has weathered the downturn in the industry.

The Woodland Park daily has been hiding its circulation decline by issuing numbers that include the Herald News, which is called an "edition" of The Record.

After a major downsizing in 2008 and the abandonment of its Hackensack headquarters in 2009, many new reporters have been added, likely at much lower salaries than newsroom veterans.

But the merger of the NJMG daily papers' newsroom staffs in Woodland Park has resulted in a decline in the quality and quantity of local news; poor writing and editing, and a dramatic increase in errors. 

Page 1 profiles

Three of today's Page 1 stories read like profiles:

Virginia Rohan's column on David Letterman, who announced his retirement from late-night TV; a story on Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, called "a mystery" in the headline; and an obituary for Vincent Lamberti, a Lever Bros. researcher who is called the "father of Dove soap," a synthetic compound (A-1).

I just skimmed the headlines and first few paragraphs of the column about Letterman, who will be missed by insomniacs, drunks who live in bars and The Record's long-suffering news and copy editors, who work late into the night putting out the error-filled paper.

Ditto for the long, boring story on Guadagno, a non-entity who was chosen as a running mate by Christie because she was a woman, had a pulse and wouldn't dare challenge the governor in anything.

Christie was already henpecked by his overweight wife, who later got him to kill the Hudson River rail tunnels because the connection to the New York City subway was too far for her to walk.

But I read and enjoyed every word of the Lamberti obituary, saying to myself, Now, that is a life well-lived, something I'm sure I will never say about Letterman, Christie or Guadagno. 

Hackensack news

The Record's Local section today has a follow-up on Polifly Towing, a Hackensack company that has been using city owned land rent free, but has been paid $20,613 for towing illegally parked vehicles in the past three years (L-1).

The Record has had nothing so far on whether there is a school-board election this month.

But today's edition of the weekly Hackensack Chronicle reports the school board has presented a proposed 2014-15 operating budget that raises taxes $116 for a home assessed at $240,329.

Neither paper has reported the ups and downs of the elevator at Hackensack High School, where the cafeteria is in the basement, and classes are held on upper floors.

The elevator was out of service for more than two months, until a new part was fabricated, but it continues to break down periodically, stranding disabled students and an athlete recovering from a broken leg. 

Dog food

Is any reader eager to dine at The Dog & Cask in Rochelle Park, where a "pathetic" 5.5-ounce burger was "cooked into oblivion," the toast with charcuterie was burnt, and cod and pasta were oversalted (BL-16)?

Elisa Ung, the dessert-obsessed reviewer, even hated three of the four artery clogging treats she sampled. 

The poorly edited review describes the pub as "upscale ... with food that veers more fine dining," but a word is missing (data box on BL-16).

Leave it to Ung to find awful places to eat, then neglect to tell readers whether any of the meat served is grass-fed or raised naturally.

The Dog & Cask replaces Bistro 55, where former Food Editor Bill Pitcher was given a send-off several years ago.

If you eat at the new place now, good luck surviving the drunks in the parking lot or the ones racing by on Route 17.

Bridgegate subpoenas are as common as ...?

The Star-Ledger's editorial cartoon deftly links all the snow we've had with the Bridgegate scandal.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

To see The Star-Ledger editorial cartoon today, click on the following link:

http://www.bluejersey.com/diary/24728/drew-sheneman-cartoon-more-snow

The Record's editorial cartoon from Jimmy Marguies also tied the Bridgegate scandal to snowfall:

http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/245721031_Margulies__Feb__16__2014.html

Local-news readers are left out in the cold again

Hackensack officials have asked residents, including those on Euclid Avenue, above, to move their cars so plows can clear streets of snow "from curb-to-curb." Cars will be ticketed and towed, if parking is prohibited when streets are "snow covered," the city says.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

In The Record newsroom, the local editors' contempt for bus riders knows no bounds.

For decades, coverage of snow removal routinely ignored blockaded bus stops, and long lines of NJ Transit riders snaking through Manhattan's midtown bus terminal became a laugh line at news meetings.

In the months and years after Staff Writer Karen Rouse was assigned the transportation beat, she couldn't find time to report on NJ Transit's creaking local buses, patronized mostly by minorities who can't afford to buy cars.

Catching up

Now -- five days after the problem was reported on TV news -- The Record's front page catches up to dangerous snow mounds blocking riders' access to bus stops along Route 4 in Hackensack and Route 3 in Clifton.

Where was Dan Sforza, head of the local-news assignment desk, hiding out in a bathroom stall with one of the New York tabloids?

Where was Editor Marty Gottlieb, editing another one of those interminable Page 1 stories about the "bromance" between Governor Christie and some other GOP moron?

Where were Rouse and Road Warrior John Cichowski?

Christie love fest

Meanwhile, Gottlieb sent Staff Writer Melissa Hayes to Chicago to cover Christie's fund-raising trip as head of the Republican Governors Association (A-3).

Hayes, one of the governor's biggest boosters, uses a well-worn media device to blunt criticism of Christie -- putting the harsh assessment in the mouth of a Democrat:

"Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat who made the trip to Chicago, described Christie as a 'political bully,' questioning how he couldn't know what some of his closest aides were doing" when they closed Fort Lee access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, Hayes reports.

Millions have been wondering the same thing, and readers wonder why The Record's reporters and editorial writers have been so blind to Christie's many faults since he took office in 2o10.

Coming clean

Three days ago, former Record staffer Tom Moran, now a member of The Star-Ledger's editorial board, said the paper's endorsement of Christie during the fall election campaign is "regrettable."

Moran said:

"Yes, we knew Christie was a bully. But we didn’t know his crew was crazy enough to put people’s lives at risk in Fort Lee as a means to pressure the mayor. We didn’t know he would use Hurricane Sandy aid as a political slush fund. And we certainly didn’t know that Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer was sitting on a credible charge of extortion by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno."

Just awful 

Some of the worst headlines I've seen appeared today in The Record's Sports section:

Pitcher perfect

Japanese righty basks in pinstriped spotlight 

Editors take pains to hide journalists who sell out

Rocklin's on Cedar Lane in Teaneck. The convenience store first opened about 80 years ago, the current owner says. Take that 7-Eleven.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

What happened when members of the press pressed Christie press secretary Michael Drewniak for answers to pressing questions about the George Washington Bridge lane closures in Fort Lee?

The F-words flew, and they were aimed squarely at a newspaper reporter and editor.

Is that anyway for a former reporter for The Star-Ledger to act after spending many years shoving "the right to know" in the faces of reluctant or stonewalling news sources?

Of course not, but "former reporter" tells you little about Drewniak, Governor Christie's chief spin doctor, who appears to be as mean-spirited as his boss, known far and wide as the GOP bully.

Light on details

Today's Page 1 story in The Record is missing any information on how many years Drewniak spent as a reporter at the state's biggest newspaper, what he covered and how he covered it.

So, readers don't know whether he won his job as chief spokesman for Christie the crusading U.S. attorney because he could be trusted to tell former colleagues to go to hell when they got too close to the truth about his boss, as he appears to be doing in the four-month-old GWB scandal.

Or, whether the spokesman job was a "reward" to Drewniak for being the kind of journalist who could be molded by Christie to remain loyal and highly partisan above all else. 

But we can assume Drewniak gave up newspaper journalism for a far higher salary -- that he basically sold out.

Don't expect any details in The Record, which doesn't like to discuss salaries -- whether for its own reporters, Christie's press secretary or special Bridgegate prosecutor Reid Schar (A-1).

Inside journalism

Another former newspaper reporter, Carl Golden, is quoted today as saying it would be wrong to assume that Drewniak's appearance in Bridgegate e-mails "automatically indicates he did something wrong" (A-4).

The Record doesn't tell readers Golden is one of its former Trenton reporters or that in the past it ran his Sunday Opinion pieces on Christie without identifying him as onetime press secretary to two former Republican governors, Thomas H. Kean and Christie Whitman.

Really, how much value does anything written about Christie by a longtime GOP flack have, and why does The Record present Golden's pieces as insightful as opposed to just more conservative B.S.?

In fact, The Record's coverage of Christie -- in news stories, columns and editorials -- has been so kind readers can just imagine that reporters, columnists and editorial writers are competing for a much higher-paying job in a hoped-for Christie White House.

Expletives deleted

Christie's Port Authority cronies, Bill Baroni and David Wildstein, sent Drewniak questions from reporters about the controversy, which now appears to be political retribution against Fort Lee's Democratic mayor.

In one e-mail, Drewniak was asked to respond to a Star-Ledger reporter, but he "used an expletive" and called the reporter a "mutt," The Record reports on A-4 today.

He used the same expletive in response to a request for comment from a Star-Ledger editorial writer:

"[Expletive] him and the S-L [Star-Ledger]," Drewniak wrote.

Can we assume Drewniak called them "fucking mutts," and wrote "Fuck him and the S-L"?

Punitive damages

The Record also quoted Brigid Harrison, a political science professor, as saying she "also was troubled by the disrespect shown to reporters, and its reflection on Christie" (A-4).

"That tone clearly damages his [Drewniak's] reputation. They're his constituents, the people he is charged with having a relationship with on the part of the governor. It's evident that he holds many of them in disdain."

We can only guess at whether Drewniak's own questionable performance as a reporter and his leaving the profession as a sell-out is haunting him now and shaping his opinion of all of those ink-stained wretches who pester him day in, day out.

For some reason, Harrison is not identified as one of The Record's Sunday Opinion columnists.

Why only now?

Why haven't we read more about Drewniak before today, especially in view of his long service to Christie in the U.S. Attorney's and Governor's offices?

On the front-page today, he is described as "rarely mincing words, often insulting or simply dismissing anyone who fails to adopt the administration's message."

I guess The Record's Melissa Hayes, Charles Stile, Alfred P. Doblin and others have nothing to worry about in view of their adoring coverage of Christie until the Bridgegate scandal broke last week.

Hackensack news

Today's A-1 report doesn't say whether the $2 million settlement with two former Hackensack cops and two others will be covered by insurance or come out of the city treasury.

About a third of the $2  million is expected to go to the plaintiffs' lawyers.

Thomas Aiellos and Vincent Riotto are among two dozen cops who sued the city.

They detailed "shocking allegations of corruption and civil rights violations" under former state assemblyman and Police Chief Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa, who is appealing a 5-year prison term for criminal misconduct and insurance fraud (A-1). 

Riotto will be reinstated as a lieutenant under terms of the settlement.

Thumb sucker

In Local today, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza buried a story on a lawsuit alleging a gunman entered Westfield Garden State Plaza on Nov. 4 past "careless" security and opened fire before killing himself (L-6).

Swaddled in his own security blanket, the snoozing Sforza has refused to investigate whether the state's biggest mall has any effective security beyond cameras and unarmed guards directing traffic -- lest he alienate the retailers who are among the paper's biggest advertisers.

The suit by Alexandra DiMarco, 21, of Tappan, N.Y., alleges she "fell to the ground, broke her elbow and suffered cuts and bruises" during a stampede of shoppers (L-6).

Here comes Chris(t) Christie, our savior

Is mounting gun violence in Paterson and other cities linked to Governor Christie's cuts in state aid? Above, the Great Falls of the Passaic River. © 2004 Matthew Trump (Wikipedia)

More than 1,000 people battered by Superstorm Sandy waited on line in the rain on Wednesday for a chance to personally ask Governor Christie for help, The Record reports today.

Page 1 coverage like this obliterates his many policy failures -- from job creation to a mounting budget deficit -- but the editors seem intent on ignoring that as they promote his candidacy for another term as the state's Sandy Savior.

Gun control

A second front-page story reports New Jersey "has some of the strictest firearms restrictions in the nation."  

That's little comfort to the families of innocent people who are cut down by gun violence in Paterson, which was forced to lay off cops after Christie reduced state aid to cities.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and President Obama have moved decisively to strengthen gun control, but ex-prosecutor Christie has done noting. 

Hackensack news

Since the appointment of a new Hackensack reporter, Hannan Adely, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, seem to be paying more attention to city news.

Of course, covering the city well now won't make up for many years of neglect -- accelerated by the paper's abandonment of Hackensack in 2009.  

Today, investigative reporter Jeff Pillets says Joseph Mellone, a Zisa family ally who heads the city's code-enforcement office, has been suspended without pay (L-3).

Newsroom layoffs

On L-8, news that The Star-Ledger of Newark plans to lay off 34 employees is probably roiling The Record newsroom in Woodland Park.

In 2008, about 150 newsroom employees at The Star-Ledger,  the state's largest newsaper, agreed to buyouts.

The Record newsroom experienced a much more modest downsizing in 2008 -- several months after Publisher Stephen A. Borg received a $3.65 million company mortgage to buy a McMansion in Tenafly. 

For peckerwoods

In Better Living, the Starters feature promotes the opening of Burgerwood by three teenagers, one of whom is the son of multimillonaire restaurateur and commercial landlord Michel Bittan (BL-1).

The Record says the create-your-own burgers restaurant in Englewood is "riding the wave of one of the hottest food trends."

The restaurant's name -- Burgerwood -- suggests the meat contains sawdust, though that might be more palatable than what is actually in there -- harmful animal antibiotics and growth hormones.
 

Editors can't stomach big issues

Image by Anthony Quintano via Flickr
What would The Record do without The Star-Ledger sending over stories to fill columns in the Woodland Park daily?

The Record's continued slide into tabloid journalism may sell papers, but readers lose out when editors avoid exploring the big issues of our time.


You won't find any reporting on how Tea Party Republicans have paralyzed Congress, the unprecedented shift of wealth away from the middle class, the corrupt campaign-finance system, the obesity epidemic and many other compelling issues.


Interim Editor Douglas Clancy, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and others at the Woodland Park daily share a short attention span with many other journalists.


Their immediate concern is filling space -- anything will do, whether it's from their staff, The Star-Ledger or the wire services. There are six stories from The Star-Ledger on A-4, A-5 and A-6 today.


Unanswered questions


Today's front page is dominated by the funeral of Malik Williams, a 19-year-old Garfield man who was shot and killed by police after he fled their custody on Dec. 10.


Nearly two weeks after the shooting, the assignment desk still doesn't know what kind of tools Williams "had armed himself with," even though police cited the tools to justify firing five bullets at him.


Another front-page story -- on how tax-exempt houses of worship are hurting the city of Passaic -- fails to examine the broken system of financing local government through property taxes.


Wake up, please


In Local, Road Warrior John Cichowski presents his umpteenth column on the use of cellphones while driving, but he's never explored why manufacturers don't make a hands-free, headset-free Bluetooth system standard equipment in every car (L-1).


One of two Hackensack stories today reports the postponement of suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa's trial (L-2).


In Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung found the service so bad at the Stony Hill Inn in Hackensack she gave it the same 2-star rating she awarded a couple of years ago to a faux Caribbean chain restaurant on the highway in Wayne.


Maybe the owner, contractor Joseph M. Sanzari, should stick to fast-tracking highway projects.

The Star-Ledger 3, The Record A Big Fat 0

Image via Wikipedia

The Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal.

"I should never have listened to them! I should never have listened to them!" Editor Francis Scandale wailed as he pounded his desk in the Woodland Park newsroom, recalling 9/11 and the night he blew winning a Pulitzer Prize for The Record.

"Now, Frank, there's always next year," head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes -- Mother of All Editors -- said soothingly as she tried to comfort the boss.

Scandale was reacting to Monday's news that The Star-Ledger of Newark won its third Pulitzer Prize since January 2001, when he took over at The Record (A-7). 

'Pull It, Sir'

Instead of winning journalism's biggest prize for The Record, Scandale has become "Pull It, Sir," in the colorful vernacular of Jerry DeMarco, former Breaking News editor.

About eight months after Scandale arrived in Hackensack, he faced the biggest story of his career -- the 9/11 attack on America, which was visible from the newsroom -- and blew it big time when he put a potentially Pulitzer Prize-winning photo on a back page.

Of course, I can only guess at the reasoning of Pulitzer board members. but why give a prize to a photo even the newspaper didn't think worthy of the front page?

Unique image

Photographer Thomas E. Franklin's image of firefighters defiantly raising the American flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center would have advanced the story and made The Record's front page unique among the world's newspapers.

Bowing to pressure from the business side -- he was told it would be "too expensive" to re-make A-1 -- Scandale slunk away with his tail between his legs, marking the first of his many failures in the job.

And it was a job he probably got because he had helped The Denver Post win a Pulitzer for its coverage of the Columbine massacre in 1999.

In 2008, The Record's coverage of the EnCap golf-resort project was a finalist in the local news category of the Pulitzer competition -- in other words, an also-ran. 

Today's paper

Oh no. A verklempt Scandale allowed Staff Writer Deena Yellin to hijack the front page today for a another story and big photo about those crazy Orthodox Jews and their obscure rituals (and she's one of them). 

This reminds me of how Scandale always assigned two Castro-hating Cuban exiles to write about Cuba for The Record.

Does even 1 out of every 1,000 Jews burn bread and other chametz before Passover? And the photo of a rabbi in a fire helmet doesn't even show any bread being burned. Can Scandale get any more desperate than this?

Readers shouldn't hold their collective breath for Yellin stories on Orthodox Jews who are trying to take over municipal councils and school boards in Englewood and Teaneck, so they can cut the taxes they pay for public schools their kids don't use. 

Screwing the middle class

Despite an A-3 story on protests over big companies not paying taxes on billions of profits, the clueless Business staff fails to come up with a story on how they do it.

Also on A-3, Governor Christie is so busy trying to find new ways of destroying the middle-class way of life in New Jersey, he didn't pay his taxes on time.

Arrogant judge

Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin deserves rare praise for an A-10 editorial calling a non-custodial sentence for former baseball player Dwight Gooden "absurd" and criticizing Superior Court Judge Donald Venezia for ignoring the "public's interest."

Two Ridgewood stories appear in Sykes' Local section today, but none from Hackensack. Still, Sykes has to use another one of those gee-whiz, non-fatal accident photos to fill space (L-6).

Rubbing salt in wounds

With gasoline heading for $4 a gallon amid record unemployment and housing foreclosures, doesn't Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung's lavish meal at a restaurant in far off Red Bank sound a lot like fiddling while Rome burns (Better Living front)?