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.

Editors won't press beloved chefs on antibiotics

A workman appeared this morning at Euclid and Prospect avenues in Hackensnack, where potholes were marked with chalk, below, apparently to designate those that will be repaired weeks after they appeared.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Another slow-news Sunday and another weird story on Page 1 of The Record today, celebrating "health-conscious American consumers" who grow or raise their own food, including eggs from hens they keep in the backyard. 

Consumers, the story claims, are "increasingly crying foul about the antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides, herbicides [and] genetic engineering" in the food they eat (A-1).

But why is the small minority who raise their own egg-laying chickens getting such big play on the front page when the paper's own food editor and food writers choose to ignore all the bad things factory farms do to food in the name of quick profits? 

Free ride

Rarely does Food Editor Esther Davidowitz or Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung ever mention all of the harmful additives in the food that restaurant chefs serve, denying concerned consumers the ability to make informed decisions.

On the paper's expense account, Ung has swooned over the "funk" from aged hunks of beef for $40, $50 or $60 without ever saying whether the animals were grass fed or raised naturally.

God forbid that during the weekly "COFFEE WITH ..." feature in Better Living (BL-2), a chef is asked about how the food he serves is raised or grown, instead of the weirdest thing a customer asked for. 

Mixed messages

And the paper's monthly survey of supermarket prices -- which runs in the Business section -- doesn't include organic or naturally raised or grown food.

Today's story on chicken-raising suburbanites might remind newsroom veterans, present and former, of the wonderfully fresh eggs copy desk supervisor Vinny Byrne brought into work for copy editors from chickens he raised at home more than a decade ago.

Euclid and Prospect avenues before the work began, above.

An employee of the private contractor, M. Ingannamorte & Son of Tenafly, said he believes only potholes on Prospect Avenue are being patched, above, meaning others on the block of Euclid between Prospect and Summit avenues are not slated for repair now.

When ads are more readable than so-called news

The beach at Cape May, a jewel of the Jersey shore.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The danger of wrapping a supermarket flier around the main news section is that readers might find Thanksgiving promotions more interesting than anything a turkey like Staff Writer John Brennan has to report about horse racing (A-1).

And what is the publisher of The Record trying to say by wrapping a hearing-aid advertisement around today's Sports section?

Important news

There is compelling reading scattered throughout the paper today, starting with a dramatic Page 1 account of how three women and a girl from different walks of life were all victims of domestic violence, and another piece on the law (A-1 and O-1).

Giving a lie to the bounty promised by the ShopRite ad wrapped around the A-section today, a story on the Local front reports on a continued decline in donations to North Jersey food pantries (L-1).

Even a Business front story on the proposed ban on trans fats (B-1) has more universal appeal than all that front-page space Editor Marty Gottlieb wasted on The Meadowlands Racetrack and gambling addicts (A-1).

Veteran newsroom staffers will get a kick out of the black-and-white photo of a packed grandstand on opening day of the racetrack, Sept. 1, 1976, showing two lifers, Jim "Corny" Cornelius and Vinny Byrne, as young men eagerly pressing against the fence (A-6).

More A-1 space is wasted on Governor Christie, the new chairman of the Republican Goobers Association, and corporate campaign donations.

Tolls going up

On the Local front today, Road Warrior John Cichowski awakes from a deep sleep and finally takes notice of all the road construction that has been driving his readers crazy for several years (L-1).

But even without road work, commuting by car, bus and train is a nightmare -- a story Cichowski has ignored.

And another phase of the increases Christie rubber stamped go into affect next Sunday, when E-ZPass tolls at the Hudson River crossings go up to $11 during peak hours and $9 off-peak -- 75 cents higher than before.

The $13 cash toll doesn't increase, but the Dec. 1 hikes are only the third of five scheduled through 2015 by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which the governor packed with his cronies.

Why is the GWB cash toll $13 -- $8 more than at the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York?  

Stupid idea

On L-3, a story on Englewood officials providing free LED bulbs to downtown store owners willing to leave their lights on until midnight would be only a cosmetic fix for the city's main street.

What do officials intend to do about all of the vacant storefronts on Palisade Avenue?

Palisade Avenue in Englewood.

Downsized staff

A full-page ad on the back of the Local section shows what appears to be the entire skeleton crew running The Record, North Jersey Media Group's flagship daily (L-8).

Contrast the small number of employees shown in what I'm guessing is the publishing company's Rockaway Township press room with the 1,500 who worked for the paper at its peak in Hackensack, which the Borg family abandoned in 2009.


Sloppy editing

Poor editing continues, as confused readers can see from the Business front story on trans fats (B-1).

A photo shows Admiration-brand Pro-Fry -- liquid shortening made by the Supreme Oil Co. in Englewood -- with the words "ZERO TRANSFAT" clearly visible on the package front.

But in the second paragraph, the story reports "demand for Pro-Fry ... made with trans fatty partially hydrogenated oil ... has been on the wane and may soon disappear."

Production Editor Liz Houlton should be asked, Does it or doesn't it have trans fats?

Good neighbor?

Supreme Oil Co. is well-known in Englewood for using unusually noisy tractors to move truck trailers to an Englewood Avenue lot around the corner from its South Dean Street headquarters.

Because Dean Street is one way in the wrong direction, the noisy tractors wake up residents through the night as they use residential streets, including Grand Avenue, which is lined with apartments.

JFK and the media

The Record's three-week focus on where readers were when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, completely missed the point.

Most of that space should have been devoted to his legacy as a great president and the contrast he represents to the sorry lot of selfish, conservative leaders we have today -- from Christie to House Speaker John Boehner to your favorite Tea Party crackpot (See Your Views, O-3).

Say what?

It's hard to understand how Houlton, who is paid six-figures to supervise editing and proofreading, can allow the following sentence to get into the paper, especially on A-1.

"As of [Beth] Fabbricatore's death Monday, theirs constituted the gross majority of Bergen County's five homicides in 2013."

In other words, as of Monday, domestic violence killed four of the five homicide victims in Bergen County this year.

'I'm not going to be governor in 2014'

Image via Wikipedia

How did everyone miss this?

On Tuesday, in the last paragraph of a Page A-6 story on Governor Christie, Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson quotes him as saying he won't be governor in 2014 -- the year he would begin a second term. 

So does that mean he won't be running for governor again in November 2013 or that he'll seek to unseat President Obama as the conservative juggernaut of the Republican Party? There's no clue in Tuesday's paper or today's paper -- or even any comment from The Record on his statement.

In Washington for a meeting of the National Governors Association, Christie:

1. Told Katie Couric to shove her Times/CBS News poll results, showing that a majority opposes his efforts to cut the benefits of public employees.
2. Accused Obama of "playing politics" when he told the governors to play nice with public workers.
3. And commented on the president's so-called flexibility on health care reform.

"I'm not going to even be governor in 2014, so the fact that he's offering flexibility in 2014 is really of no moment to most governors who need to balance their budgets this year," Christie told Jackson.

The Woodland Park daily didn't even report the Times/CBS News poll results or Christie's comments about it and Couric, anchor of the CBS Evening News.

Fat of the land

The big news on Page 1 today is a report on how immigrants are healthier than native New Jerseyans when they arrive, but the longer they stay, their diets get worse, they smoke and drink more and they are less physically active.

Is that a commentary on North Jersey's dog-eat-dog mentality or on how the features staff bombards readers with stories on cookies, cakes, artery-clogging desserts and crappy hamburgers? 

But I liked the headline: "Arrival of the fittest." 

Too bad the news copy desk and its supervisors, Liz Houlton and Vinny Byrne, only manage a great headline every couple of months or so.

Dial-a-typo

The features copy desk again missed an incorrect phone number for a fund-raiser listed in Friday's A la Carte column in Better Living, according to a correction on A-2 today. 

Maybe the copy editors have lost their phone privileges in a cost-cutting move and can't call numbers in stories they are editing to check their accuracy. 

'The steamroller'

Another column praising Christie's style appears on A-11 today. 

James Ahearn, a former managing editor, concludes the governor has the Democratic-controlled Legislature boxed in on drastic cuts to public employee benefits in return for doubling property tax rebates.

"He will be one-up on them, one way or another," Ahearn says.

Why this blast from the past?

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

A cameraman focuses on a flower outside Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' office.

The 30th anniversary of the release of Americans held hostage in Iran for 444 days? Covering more than one-third of the front page in The Record of Woodland Park? Are Editor Francis Scandale and Columnist Mike Kelly kidding? 

Kelly is inconsistent, but Staff Writer John Brennan is bad all the time, and today we have two stories about the Jets' Super Bowl playoff game in Pittsburgh -- one by him on the front and one by another reporter inside.

The move of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to rehab leads the paper, as it should, but readers must be wondering why they haven't seen any photos of her since the shootings in Tuscon, Ariz., two weeks ago.

'We goofed again'

Page A-2 brings two corrections, one from Better Living, which seems to get dates, telephone numbers and other basic information wrong almost every day. 

An L-1 headline on a lawsuit story by Jean Rimbach, one of the paper's investigative reporters, also was wrong Friday -- really wrong. 

The original headline says, "Papers sealed in suit alleging coverup by prosecutor," and to be fair to the news copy desk, the story mentions a prosecutor's office -- "apparently the one in Bergen County" -- a number of times, and includes the Bergen prosecutor's name. 

The correction says, "The headline should have said that the suit alleges a coverup by the investigator's bosses in the state criminal justice system," even though that isn't clear from the story. 

The reporter worked on this sensitive story how long -- weeks or months? Did  Sykes edit it before it was sent over to the copy desk for a headline, and did she order the desk not to alter a word or challenge any vagueness, as she has done so many times in the past?

The other remarkable thing about this correction is that it's one of the few errors acknowledged by the dysfunctional copy desk under Vinny Byrne and Liz Houlton.

The front page promoted Governor Christie's charter-school initiative three days in a row this week, but an editorial today deplores his systematic attack on public schools, including vouchers (A-13).

Sometimes reporter

Does anybody besides head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes take Lou Dobbs seriously as a congressional candidate? That 2011 PEOPLE TO WATCH feature is "brought to you by" a German luxury car dealer whose ad appears above the fold on the Local front.


Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano has her first story about municipal affairs in 17 days today -- on a plan to cut the city budget by privatizing trash pickup and eliminating the volunteer ambulance corps. 

When is the last time Sykes' Local section had anything about budget deliberations in Hackensack by Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado?

Pie in our faces

Features Director Barbara Jaeger deserves a pie in her face for wasting readers' time on pies as "the latest hot food trend" (Better Living front).

Jaeger rolled over and played dead when Publisher Stephen A. Borg folded the Food section about four years ago, and food coverage has been all downhill since then. 

She also reduced how much the paper reimburses Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung -- limiting the number of dishes she can sample -- and added more photos and bigger headlines to distract readers. 

At the same time, Ung's obsession for dessert has displaced any concern over whether restaurants are serving food that is raised or grown naturally.

Get the time element right, stupid

Image by Bill on Capitol Hill via Flickr

The rim (news copy desk) and the slot (supervisor) in the old days.

Since Production Editor Liz Houlton began supervising the news copy desk of The Record and Herald News,  the quality and accuracy of headlines and captions has declined dramatically, and errors abound. 

Of course, anyone familiar with her supervision of the features copy desk could have seen it coming. Numerous errors in food copy got past her cursor, and proofing of pages routinely missed other mistakes. 

Yet, she got a big promotion, to assistant managing editor (before her title was changed); presumably a big raise and her hen-pecked husband, George Cubanski, took over her job as slot of the features copy desk. How cozy.

Houlton apparently is powerless to do anything about the news copy desk -- or rim -- which is spinning out of control under her supervision and the supervision of slot Vinny Byrne. With the departure of co-slot Nancy Cherry in 2008, the desk lost an eagle-eyed editor to whom quality and accuracy mattered.

The Record of Woodland Park today struggles to get the time element right, and columns and other stories are strangled by overwriting. For a daily newspaper, accuracy is essential when describing when something happened or will happen, and yet the former Hackensack daily often misses the boat.

What year is it?

Political Stile Columnist Charles Stile must have been told the column that appears on the front page today would run on Jan. 1 or later, but when it was being processed Wednesday, no one -- not the assignment editor, presumably Deirdre Sykes; Houlton, the copy editor or the slot -- noticed the time element had to be corrected. 

It wasn't, as his lead paragraph shows: "Governor Christie succeeded in seizing New Jersey's political agenda last year." Last year? 2009? He didn't take office until January of this year. The copy editor must have been on autopilot.

On the jump (A-6), Stile says redrawing of congressional districts, based on the 2010 Census, means an incumbent "will find himself out of a job next year [2011]." But the next election isn't until 2012, and the new member of Congress won't be seated until 2013. Autopilot again.

What week is it?

On the front of Sykes' Local section, Staff Writer Michael Gartland reports concerns about cost and accessibility of Saturday's traditional Jan. 1 reorganization of the Bergen County Freeholder Board.

One freeholder is quoted on L-6 as saying "he would rather have held the ceremony later in the week on Wednesday." But the words "later in the week" are inaccurate, because Saturday, Jan. 1, is the end of the week. Those words should have been dropped. Autopilot again.

The reporter also never explains clearly why a Saturday reorganization will cost more than one during the week, and there seems to be no basis for the main headline: "A taxpayer-funded party?"

Nexus, schmexus

Columnist Mike Kelly has been spinning his wheels for a number of years, but I have to recognize him today for being the first at The Record to question the absence of both Governor Christie and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadano during the blizzard clean-up this week.

Still, can't anyone edit this guy and put a stop to his overwriting -- to his apparent belief that a columnist doesn't have to follow the basic journalistic principle of writing simply and clearly? He fails to communicate with readers, who are left muttering, What the F does that mean? Here, try to digest this:

"The nexus between the public and private lives of elected officials is often filled with thorns, emotional fissures and weird detours into secrecy and bad choices."

Another snow job

Blizzard clean-up coverage is banished to L-3 today. Yet, three days after the storm ended, numerous corners at major Hackensack intersections remain uncleared, endangering drivers and pedestrians alike. 

This morning, I watched an FDU student bounding over a couple of feet of snow in front of the Dunkin' Donuts as he crossed Hackensack Avenue, but on the other side he decided to walk in the street rather than repeat the effort. The turn lane at University Plaza Drive was mostly covered by snow.

The Business staff must have taken an early New Year's weekend. Only one byline appears in the Business pages today. The baby boomer shown on L-7 is from Florida.

Screw the photographers

And why are the paper's talented photographers given A-8 for some of their best 2010 photos? The photos are so much more interesting than all the drivel Sykes and Editor Francis Scandale run on the fronts. 

Sykes must really hate them, judging from all the accident photos she has Tariq Zehawi and others chasing.

Who is harness racing's rabbi?

Image by grover webb via Flickr

Does Editor Francis Scandale love going to the track? How about Staff Writer John Brennan, whose sentences rattle, roll and ramble? I know Local News Editor Jim "Corny" Cornelius and News Copy Desk Slot Vinny Byrne love the horses, but those two have no pull with Scandale.

Harness racing leads The Record of Woodland Park again today, as if racing rabbis Scandale and Brennan think readers are sitting on the edge of their seats for word of its fate. And the fate of New Jersey Network -- the only in-state source of televised Jersey news -- is relegated to Page A-3, again, instead of making the front page.

The headlines on the main, A-1 element fail to communicate immediately how violent a suspected purse snatcher allegedly was and the lead paragraph fails to clearly state bags were snatched from a moving SUV. The phrase "purse snatcher on wheels" would have worked well in the headline and the lead, but it doesn't appear until the continuation page, A-8.

Chief withholds report

In Local, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Staff Writer Joseph Ax continue to allow Teaneck Police Chief Robert Wilson to manage release of information on the death of Officer John Abraham nearly two months after he died in his police cruiser, which went violently out of control and slammed sideways into a telephone pole across from headquarters (L-3).

Abraham wasn't wearing a seat belt in his Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor -- a car with a long history of safety problems -- but Wilson refused to release a copy of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office accident report or the autopsy results.

Blast from the past

For a change, there is a lot of local news in Local today, but of particular interest on L-3 is the byline of Staff Writer Joseph Gemignani. He wrote a story about how Tenafly was in the early 1900s, when residents in the rural village raised animals and grew their own food. 

(That was long before Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who lives in a $3.65 million Tenafly mansion he bought with a company mortgage, folded the Food section.)

In the mid- to late 1980s, the veteran journalist worked at night in the Hackensack newsroom in the menial job of layout editor. When Gemignani wasn't at his desk drawing lines on his layout sheets, he could be seen at the copying machine -- his face expressionless, his life draining away -- the embodiment of the paper's age-discrimination policy.

Gemignani spent more than 15 years at The New York Times before returning to what is now North Jersey Media Group. It's not known whether Gemignani is on The Record staff or working at one of NJMG's many weeklies.

Witnesses for the 'prosecution'

Image by Citizensheep via Flickr

On March 29, when the Superior Court trial of my lawsuit started, the parties exchanged trial binders -- containing motions, witness and exhibit lists, exhibits, proposed jury charge and verdict sheet. Normally, the binders are exchanged a week before trial, but North Jersey Media Group asked to do so on March 29, and me and my lawyer agreed. Big mistake.

I soon learned the judge could easily bar any witness or exhibit I, as the plaintiff, didn't list. The defendants, on the other hand, listed many more witnesses than they called and included exhibits that widened the scope of the case beyond what I was prepared to address and rebut immediately.

NJMG listed 17 potential witnesses, including The Record's news copy desk chief, Vinny Byrne, one of my former bosses; Kim Kline, a former colleague and friend; Tim Nostrand, the ineffectual projects editor; head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, a former defendant; Vivian Waixel, the previous editor; NJMG Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg; Theresa Forsman, former copy desk co-slot; Editor Frank Scandale (should be Scandal), also a former defendant; and Managing Editor Frank Burgos, perhaps the most hated man in the newsroom.

None of these witnesses appeared. When I scanned the list for the first time, I wondered whether Vinny Byrne and Kim Kline had been told they had to testify against me -- or else. Of course, I knew Scandale, Burgos and the other incompetent editors needed no incentive to testify -- eager as they are to retaliate for my criticism of them.

If Kim Kline did appear, I was planning to ask her how many years she had been working without a raise, and what reason she was given for not getting them.

I recalled how Scandale had ignored a note I slipped under his office door one night with some of the food fronts I had written, suggesting an expansion of food coverage. I also remembered his silence during a meeting in his office when I speculated that my age put me at a disadvantage for a promotion to assistant assignment editor. He just looked at me. 

He and Bob Cunningham, then head of the news and copy desks, scolded me for asking three reporters I had worked with as a copy editor to send e-mails to Sykes, if they thought I was qualified for the assignment desk. Cunning(ham) also insisted that as a copy editor, I was the reporters' "supervisor," and they would fear not recommending me. What a joke.

As for Burgos, he walked over to the copy desk on April 9, 2008, and asked me to come to a meeting with Jennifer Borg, in a voice loud enough for my colleagues to hear. When I protested later, he said he didn't think I knew where her office was. How could I not know after working at 150 River St. for nearly 30 years?

Burgos, according to the witness list, lives on Prospect Avenue in Hackensack during the week and in Wynnewood, Pa., on weekends -- this after how many years at the former Hackensack daily? I guess he doesn't feel too secure in his hatchet man's job.

What effect has the separation from family had on him? Does he eat alone every weeknight? Why does he like to call in veteran reporters and chastise them over their productivity or threaten them with termination if they don't return to work from a disability? How pathetic.

Not on list of Pulitzer finalists this year

Image via Wikipedia

The Asbury Park Press and Star-Ledger were finalists this year in the Pulitzer Prize journalism competition, but The Record of Woodland Park wasn't -- despite sacrificing local news to carry on investigations that stretch on and on under the unsteady guidance of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, whose weird and constant  laughter in the newsroom drives coworkers crazy. (Photo: Pulitzer Prize.)

The 2010 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting went to a series that sounds suspiciously like an investigation The Record did in 2005 or 2006 about a privately run preschool program for minority children led by Jean Rimbach, a reporter whose byline appears infrequently -- a two-year gap in not unusual. (Rimbach led the pathetic, Sykes-inspired vendetta against Michael Mordaga that took nearly three years and resulted in a single, weak L-1 story.) Here is the citation:

Awarded to Raquel Rutledge of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for her penetrating reports on the fraud and abuse in a child-care program for low-wage working parents that fleeced taxpayers and imperiled children, resulting in a state and federal crackdown on providers.

 I was on the news copy desk and edited Rimbach's series. The first of three parts ran under my headline:

"PUBLIC MONEY, PRIVATE GREED"

I had to make the headline strong because the stories were so weak and full of holes, despite the many months devoted to them. I recall going to Sykes with questions and concerns about the stories, and her replying, "We didn't get that." or "We're not going there."

When the series won a minor journalism prize, a story in The Record never gave me credit for my role -- typical of how Sykes and her assignment desk treated copy editors like shit. Even my supervisors, Vinny Byrne and Nancy Cherry, failed to mention my several days of work on the series in my performance review.