How much does Stephen Borg make?

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How much does North Jersey Media Group pay President and Publisher Stephen A. Borg, son of company patriarch Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg? 

How much does NJMG pay Editor Frank Scandale, who was promoted to vice president -- after Stephen Borg repudiated many of Scandale's news policies? How much does Stephen Borg's assistant publisher, Mala Lawrence, make? What about Features Director Barbara Jaeger, who hounded many of her most experienced staffers out of her department?

The better question is how much are they really worth, and did anyone of them take a salary cut during a company downsizing that included lower salaries for many new positions or unilateral cuts of as much as $10,000 for veteran newsroom workers?


$40,000 ceiling

Recall Stephen Borg's statement -- overheard by a sports reporter -- that his goal was a newsroom where no one made more than $40,000. Obviously, he wasn't talking about the editors.

Stephen Borg called Scandale's initiative on news and gossip to attract 20-year-old readers "a failed strategy." Borg also started "every day" coverage of education (except during summer recess). Frank just kept asking young female reporters to lunch.

Stephen Borg folded the Food section, moved printing to Rockaway Township and decentralized news gathering -- as he licked his chops over the tens of millions he could bring in by selling 150 River St. and surrounding acres. Unfortunately, the recession put a kabosh on that plan, and Mac insisted on keeping a presence in Hackensack, even if it's only his office.


Low morale

Scattering reporters and editors probably ended any sense of shared purpose the news staff had in Hackensack. Has moving the paper's headquarters to Woodland Park been responsible for the lack of Bergen County coverage? Only the lazy, incompetent editors can answer that one, but readers look in vain day after day for news of their towns.

The recession didn't stop Stephen from selling his $2 million home in Tenafly and buying a $3.65 million estate in the same town. As with the first house, he got a mortgage from NJMG.

So how much do Stephen, Frank, Mala and Barbara make? I know, but can't say. Their salaries were disclosed in depositions given under oath in the pretrial stage of my age-discrimination lawsuit, and anything said was covered by a confidentiality agreement. You can be sure Stephen and the editors are paid a lot more than they are worth.


'I don't know'

Vice President and General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg refused to disclose her salary and other executive compensation when she was deposed nor would she say whether any of the vice presidents took a salary cut. 

When Stephen was asked how much he is paid, he said he didn't know -- three times. He was prodded by my attorney until he gave an estimate. Despite his unkempt look -- messy hair and wrinkled white, open-collar shirt  -- you can be sure it is a ton of money.

Utterly alone in the courtroom

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

During the eight days my age-discrimination suit was tried in Superior Court, I sat alone at the table reserved for the plaintiff, and no one showed up to sit on the benches in a sign of support. I noticed the eight jurors watching me on occasion as I sat by myself, taking notes, looking for documents or just listening. Now, I wonder whether they drew any conclusions from my isolation.

The defendants were represented by Samuel J. Samaro, head of the employment practice at Pashman Stein in Hackensack; Dina L. Sforza, the in-house attorney for North Jersey Media Group; and Jennifer A. Borg, NJMG vice president and general counsel.

I objected to Borg's presence, because she was scheduled to testify and would gain an advantage from hearing other witnesses, but the judge said that as a defendant, she had a right to be there. Normally, witnesses are sequestered.

Samaro was hired during the discovery phase and took two of the three depositions I gave in my lawyer's office in Morristown. He acted tough at times, taking off his glasses, staring right into my eyes and  telling me I had to answer all of his questions. He joined the defense after NJMG apparently lost confidence in Sforza to see the case through to the end. Sforza didn't attend the entire trial.


Borg took copious notes, spoke to Samaro frequently, suggested questions and possibly motions, and made numerous calls to her office. At other times, she spoke to her fellow lawyers unselfconsciously about children, her nephews (Stephen Borg's four sons), her orange Land Rover sport-utility vehicle, which she referred to as an "Orange Beast" that attracts police like a magnet; her driving record, a speeding ticket she received and other subjects.

None of my former colleagues appeared in the courtroom (besides Patricia Mack and Aaron Elson, both of whom testified). Nor did Joshua L. Weiner, the attorney who helped me prepare for trial and who had represented me along with his father, Paul, since last summer. My 12-year-old son, Roshane, was off from school, but he threatened to shout out at the defendants' witnesses, "Lies! It's all lies!" He stayed home. A couple of times, I saw and spoke with Kibret Markos, the paper's courthouse reporter, but he didn't write a word.

When Stephen A. Borg testified in front of the jury, he wore a dark suit and tie -- in contrast to the wrinkled white shirt, open at the collar, and slacks he wore to his deposition on Dec. 7, 2009, at 1 Garret Mountain in Woodland Park. His hair was a mess. He spoke about his grandfather on his mother's side, Charles Agemian, who was born in Aleppo, Syria, and how he was writing a story about him for (201) magazine.

Of course, Stephen Borg wasn't aware that my both of my Jewish parents were born in Aleppo, or that the day of his deposition also was the anniversary of my mother's death in 1993.

At the trial, he testified that Dec. 7, 2009, was the first time he had met me, despite all the e-mails I had sent him for many months before I left The Record in May 2008, or as he put it, This is the first time I can pick him "out of a lineup." Asked to explain to the jury what he meant by lineup, he said it was merely a figure of speech.

The weird front page returns

Image by Rachel from Cupcakes Take the Cake via Flickr

 











A week or more of natural and unnatural events drove The Record of Woodland Park to publish a series of hard-news front pages. Today, the lazy, incompetent editors commit such poor news judgment on Page 1 and elsewhere, it's clearly a return to journalism as usual.


What's with the lead A-1 story by Staff Writer John Brennan? He gets Governor Christie in front of the paper's "editorial board," but doesn't even ask him if the return of the so-called millionaire's tax on Christie's rich friends could generate enough revenue to prevent a battle over Bergen County blue laws, or why he doesn't agree to even a modest hike in the low gasoline tax.

Then, what's this story with the photo? The Navy is bringing back an airship program? Why is this on A-1?  What about the judge who rejected the deal to compensate 9/11 workers? Isn't that worth more than a few paragraphs outside?


On A-11 -- the editorial page -- why does it take a letter from reader Chuck Bailey, a former Closter resident, to expose Republicans' desperation and lies in the battle over passing health care reform? Isn't it the job of the media, including The Record, to sort out fact from fiction? But it's clear the former Hackensack daily's editors and owners are interested only in selling newspapers.

In Local  today, Teaneck reporter Joseph Ax has two education stories, but Deirdre Sykes and the other desperate editors resort to using the Dean's List again to flesh out "every day" coverage, ignoring schools in Hackensack, Englewood and many other Bergen County towns.

The L-6 story on an age-bias lawsuit by a Washington Township police sergeant speaks volumes about the folly of home rule and the buffoonish officials who run our lives and set our property taxes. The mayor apparently admitted to a "local newspaper reporter" he wanted to promote younger officers to "stabilize the long-term succession of leadership in the department."

Finally, why did the editors bury on L-7 an update about the Teaneck mom who saved her home from foreclosure by baking cakes? Like the original, no other paper had this success story from one of the core towns in Bergen County (photo: Zoe's Cupcake Cafe).