Simply put, The Record can't deliver

A sign on door of The Record's Circulation Department.

AnonymousAugust 20, 2012 6:59 PM

I am having trouble with my home delivery of The Record. There was a mix-up with the delivery the days I went on vacation. I received Sunday's paper, but not Monday's. The customer service rep. explained the carriers have been switched around in some areas. I know because I have a new carrier.

AnonymousAugust 19, 2012 4:29 PM

Anyone have any clue what's going on with home delivery? My neighbors are complaining about non-delivery...something about a change in distribution...

As you can see from these comment, The Record has trouble delivering the newspaper -- let alone delivering decent local-news coverage. 

Last week, subscribers received a letter from Bob Konig, one of the many highly paid vice presidents at North Jersey Media Group, about "some changes in our home delivery operation."

Are the changes related to the editors making a greater effort to bring local news to readers? Don't be silly.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes can't break away from planning her next gargantuan meal. 

And Dan Sforza, her deputy yes man, is trying to figure out how he can assign a follow-up to all those stories he wrote years ago on "highways of the future."

Meanwhile, Editor Marty Gottlieb apparently still regrets leaving the The New York Times and his high life in Paris to take over the Woodland Park daily.

The changes are related not to more news or later sports scores, but to all those store circulars and fliers that present a recycling challenge to home-delivery customers.

"Many of these advertisers are targeting their inserts to specific ZIP codes and even smaller geographic areas," Konig wrote.

"To ensure delivery of the proper inserts, and to provide inserts and circulars to maximize your savings, we have made some changes in our home delivery operation.

"As carriers learn their new routes, your newspaper may have been placed in a slightly different place on your property, deliveries may be slightly later, or we may even have missed a delivery."

This past Thursday, my newspaper was delivered in an unusual white bag emblazoned with this message:

"LOOK INSIDE OF TODAY'S AND EVERY THURSDAY'S PAPER FOR THE CIRCULARS OF ..."

Below that, the logos of a dozen supermarkets and other food outlets were shown.

But I found only one flier, from A&P, and nothing from ShopRite, Fairway Market and other food stores I patronize.

There also was no explanation for why the supermarket inserts were being sent on Thursday and not on Wednesday, the traditional day for food sections and sales fliers.

The Record's dysfunctional Circulation Department long has been a thorn in readers' sides.

Since I moved to Hackensack in 2007 and began subscribing to the paper the following year, I've lost count of how many times the plastic bag was left open, despite pouring rain, and my paper was sopping wet.

I have to say a dry paper was delivered eventually in almost every case.

Today's paper

On A-1 today, a blurb paraphrases Governor Christie as saying "he remains confident the state's economy is inching forward."

But I don't see those words -- "inching forward" -- in the A-3 story on Christie defending his "Jersey Comback" long after it became a "Jersey Setback."

The GOP bully is so used to screwing middle class taxpayers that he may be measuring his "come" in inches or the reference may be to all those inches he has added to his waistline.

Zisaville stories

Hackensack news today and Monday continued to be about the city's Police Department (A-1 column on Monday and L-1 news story today).

Today's story on provisional Police Chief Tomas Padilla discusses his deposition testimony about incidents "dating as far back as two decades ago."

Putting on the ritz

On the front of Better Living, readers learn that what they really need is another expensive Italian-American restaurant (Starters on BL-1).

Northern Italian entrees are $15.95 to $33.95 at Zana D in Tenafly, the town multimillionaire Publisher Stephen A. Borg calls home.

What do you get for $15.95 to $33.95? The highly promotional story doesn't say a word about naturally raised meat and poultry.

Judging from the photo of the owner, Arben "Alberto" Dautaj, you'll get the usual conventional fare raised on harmful animal antibiotics and growth hormones, and he'll get more beautiful suits for his wardrobe.

Borg is flying high

What do you get if you sell a private jet to Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg of Englewood?

If you're Rebecca Posoli-Cilli, you get another lavishly promotional story about you and your company on The Record's first Business first page (A-10 0n Monday).

The woman, a wealthy dealer of $10 million to $50 million business jets, sold one to Borg and his best friend, real estate tycoon Jon Hanson.

In early 2011, a Your Money's Worth column about Posoli-Colli appeared in The Record. Here's a link to the Eye on The Record post:

Did the Borgs meddle in the news? 

 

Circulation's royal F.U. to the editors

The Achilles' heel.

The Record's Circulation Department, which is headed by one of those overpaid vice presidents, has long been an Achilles' heel.

It wasn't until I retired and started paying for a home-delivered copy -- instead of picking one up in the newsroom -- that I learned more about how Circulation is working at cross purposes to the editors and reporters who knock themselves out every day.

If your paper is wet -- as mine was this morning and has been on too many mornings in the past -- you have to call before 9:30 a.m. to ask for a replacement.

Skip today's paper

Usually, you'll deal with an automated system, and when you follow the prompts, you are offered two days' credit instead of a dry replacement copy.

Can you imagine how little regard the people running the dysfunctional Circulation Department have for all of the editors and reporters who race to meet deadline and put out a paper every night?

To them, journalism and this once-great newspaper are reduced to little more than sopping wet newsprint that isn't even worthy of replacement.

This morning, my paper was in two plastic bags, and the ends were knotted. But the bags are so flimsy, they often tear when they hit my concrete driveway, and allow water in. 

Early deadlines

When I worked nights on The Record's News Copy Desk, we often were told the deadlines were being moved up because Circulation needed more time to deliver the paper when it was snowing or raining or even when precipitation was forecast.

Among other things, that meant late municipal meetings couldn't be reported and late sports scores couldn't appear. 

And when we proofed the first good copies off of the press, errors we caught often went uncorrected. 

After years of this, I felt that even if someone spit on the sidewalk, the ragtag Circulation Department would need more time to deliver the paper.

Then, one night, Co-Slot Nancy Cherry told us that even though the deadline was moved up 30 minutes on so many nights in the past, the papers sat in the warehouse, because the independent drivers who delivered them hadn't been told to come in 30 minutes early. 

Mixed messages

Cherry left The Record several years ago, and the copy editing standards she fought so hard for went with her.

Today, with error-prone Production Editor Liz Houlton in charge of the news copy desk, the quality of editing and headline writing continues to decline.

One rule I see violated is the one against "echoes" -- the use of the same or similar words in different headlines on the same page.

On Page 1 today, the echoing words -- "Historic," "Historical" and "History" -- are in headlines over three stories, from the top to the bottom of the page. 

Unbelievable.

More disturbing is the A-1 story about the arrest of a 26-year-old Clifton teacher accused of having sex with a 16-year-old student -- a day after Page 1 glowed about a kinky but fictional relationship between a wealthy businessman and a "virginal" college student.

Editorial Page

Margulies' desperation is clear in the A-22 editorial cartoon about the primary battle between two Democrats in the 9th Congressional District.

In what fantasy world has he ever heard a candidate pushing free-range chicken and hybrid cars over that crap from Perdue and gas-guzzling SUVs?

Hackensack news

Hackensack readers are pleasantly surprised by a story that has nothing to do with the trial of suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa (Local front).

In other momentous city news, a two-car accident knocked down a light pole on Main Street (L-1 photo).

Stop the presses.

It's a holiday from serving readers

Image by eddiecoyote via Flickr

Should any business have a message that begins, "Please listen ..."?

My copy of The Record was in its usual place on the sidewalk a little before 8 this morning.

But the crack circulation department apparently didn't listen to the forecast of rain, and the paper was soaked through three or four sections in its single plastic bag.

When I called the home delivery number, the automated system hadn't been activated, so I heard a message in a male voice that began, "Please listen ...." It told me the hours of the department and thanked me for calling.

You could almost see the employee's clenched teeth. 

Image by OZinOH via Flickr

I called the newsroom in Woodland Park and also got a recorded message that no one was there to take my call. And I couldn't leave a message.

Sure, I know it's Memorial Day. It comes around once a year. Is circulation aware of that?

A few minutes after 8, home delivery's automated system began working, but after following all the prompts to report a wet paper and request the delivery of a dry one, I was informed that because of the holiday the replacement won't be delivered until Tuesday.

I've laid out the sections to dry them. 

Today's paper is all wet

Most of Page 1 and all of the Local front is devoted to the same Memorial Day coverage readers see every year, especially since 9/11.

Of course, Editor Francis Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes know perfectly well all this recounting of heroics and how young men were blown to smithereens fills the space of local-news stories they don't have.

It also lets Columnist Michael Kelly off the hook. He can just reshuffle the words of a past Memorial Day column, knowing the editors aren't paying any attention (L-1). 

Sure this is news?

The routine shore-outlook story on A-1 today likely will be followed by a mid-summer update and a Labor Day wrap-up.

Also on the front page, Staff Writer Harvy Lipman reports a North Jersey resident went to help out after a natural disaster in another part of the country. Why is this even news?

On A-12, a column by Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin suggests Governor Christie will run for the presidency in 2016.

Doblin is counting on the national electorate ignoring, as he has, how Christie is trying to destroy the middle-class way of life in New Jersey, while selling out to his wealthy supporters and other special interests.