NJMG unit focuses more and more on making news

Seen at a highway rest area in New York State.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

North Jersey Media Group -- publisher of The Record -- is no longer hiding the promotional activities of one of its units, Exposure.

This is how the publishing company describes Exposure:

"Exposure is a specialty area within North Jersey Media Group (NJMG) that produces unique, local events with mass appeal. Utilizing the marketing strength of NJMG products in North Jersey, Exposure offers advertisers and partners complete marketing and promotional services enabling them to reach the widest audience possible."

The Record is one of the NJMG "products" that have been used to promote Exposure events in notices and feature stories.

Using the Woodland Park daily to spread the word about Exposure further blurs the line between news and marketing that began with the ascendancy of Stephen A. Borg to president and publisher.

Hidden in past

In July 2013, Exposure's role in a poorly organized food-truck event at Overpeck Park wasn't acknowledged until a lack of parking forced hundreds of people to turn away or abandon their cars on highway exits and streets.

Now, a link to the Exposure Web site can be found on NorthJersey.com, and its ads appear prominently in the weekly Hackensack Chronicle and other NJMG publications.

The weekly's thin Aug. 29 edition carried four ads promoting Exposure events:

(201) Brides' Night Out, North Jersey Test Drive Experience, North Jersey Career Fair and Octoberfest Food Truck Mash-Up.

The unfortunate use of the phrase "truck mash-up" may remind The Record's readers of recent fatal accidents involving tractor-trailers and a dump truck.

In fact, this week, three people were literally cooked alive when a dump truck smashed into their car in congested traffic on Route 280 in East Orange, and the vehicle was engulfed in fire.

Today's paper

Page 1 today has lots of soft news -- whale sightings at the shore, a rare story about Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, and the low price of gasoline as Labor Day approaches.

The last story is likely to encourage owners of gas-guzzling SUVs to keep their wasteful vehicles, which they usually drive at high speeds, terrorizing other drivers.

The Local section is a mix of police news and features.

Drug care

The big Hackensack news is the arrest of a city man for allegedly possessing a duffle bag of marijuana in his car on Saturday (L-1).

He tried to flee, leaving his 10-month-old daughter in the back seat. 

Not to be undone, a Paterson man, who was charged with delivering cocaine "across North Jersey" on Thursday, had his 3-year-old son with him (L-6).

The two arrests may suggest to head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes or her deputy, Dan Sforza, the need to do a story on the lack of day care.

Second look

In his Sunday column on driving under the influence, Staff Writer John Cichowski again appears to be Reporting Under the Influence, with numerous omissions and errors about penalties, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers.

See:

Leave the Road Warrior at home this weekend

Will River Street be vacant for 2 more years?

Since The Record left 150 River St. in Hackensack, this marker has resembled a tombstone for local journalism. Now, Bergen County is leasing 540 parking spaces in the old Record lot from the Borg family's North Jersey Media Group.

This is one of the trucks and other pieces of equipment parked in the NJMG-owned lot near the U.S.S. Ling, generating more income for the Borgs.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

After Publisher Stephen A. Borg abandoned the Hackensack headquarters of The Record and North Jersey Media Group in 2009, city officials anxiously awaited word of redevelopment.

The Borgs were rumored to be flirting with Wal-Mart for one of its super-duper stores peddling low-quality food and other goods, and paying its workers slave wages.

But that fell through and, in June, NJMG announced that about 20 acres along River Street would be sold to a developer who promises to build hundreds of luxury apartments, retail and even a hotel.

A bad deal

However, nothing apparently will change until at least July 2015 and expiration of a $777,660 lease for 540 parking spaces at 150 River St.

Bergen County will use those spaces to provide free parking for jurors, attorneys and others during construction of a Justice Center and parking deck on the old parking lot opposite Pep Boys (Sunday's L-2).

But this is a bad deal for taxpayers in Hackensack and the county:

Besides paying NJMG more than three-quarters of a million dollars for the spaces, the county will give up tens of thousands of dollars in parking fees generated by the old lot.

In 2010, the publishing company -- which prints The Record of Woodland Park, Herald News, weeklies, (201) magazine and other publications -- paid these property taxes to the city of Hackensack: 

• 150 River St. -- $628,560 

• 80 River St. -- $36,084 

• 76 Bridge St. -- $12,238

The 2-year delay might give Hackensack officials time to figure out where to put schoolchildren from hundreds of new apartments on River Street, as well as a new residential building on State Street that is under construction.

Chris and Sandy

The lead story in The Record today reports that Governor Christie is funneling more Sandy aid to lower-income residents (A-1).

That's a real slap in the face to other low- and moderate-income residents in New Jersey, where Christie has tried and failed to abolish the state Council on Affordable Housing, and use $142 million in housing funds to balance his mean-spirited budget.

Leave it to readers

The GOP bully can do no wrong, according to The Record's editors, but readers like Bruce de Lyon of Dumont know better:

In a letter to the editor (A-11), De Lyon notes Christie has presidential aspirations and is "looking to firm up his standing with the extreme right of the Republican Party."

Contrary to being able "to work with adversaries," Christie cut state education aid "across the board" and "vilified teachers as 'drug mules' and public workers as the reason for the state's problems," says De Lyon, a retired superintendent of schools.

Readers in a funk

Editor Marty Gottlieb waste a huge amount of front-page space today on another silly piece from sports Columnist Tara Sullivan, the paper's own vagina monologue.

The sub-headline notes a "homer helps lift Yankees out of their funk."

Who will lift readers out of their funk?

Junk food on wheels

Certainly not the paper's food writers, who have been pulling out all the stops to promote a conclave of food trucks at Overpeck Park on Wednesday afternoon (Better Living cover).

Lots of unhealthy food will be offered -- strange, considering the main sponsor is Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck.

One of the trucks, Bacon on Wheels, appears to be offering fatty pork filled with harmful preservatives, antibiotics and growth hormones.

Maybe the hospital is trying to fill empty beds by luring unsuspecting people to the food trucks in the park. The trucks are  barred by many towns.

Fine food?

Food Editor Esther Davidowitz wrote today's cover story, claiming the mobil food vendors serve "fine food" and are "the rage ... in the new-rage-every-minute foodie world."

And that's just the first paragraph. 

Davidowitz, whose online photos appear to show a fit woman in her 60s, actually uses the phrase "like, duh," in her article.

More sloppy editing

Another food article -- the STARTERS feature on Pier 115 Bar & Grill in Edgewater -- was poorly edited.

Freelancer Joyce Venezia Suss describes a "miso Chilean sea bass featuring beer-battered cod fillet" (BL-3).

That's two fish in one dish, but the restaurant said today the specialty contains only oven-roasted Chilean sea bass -- which experts say is overfished and high in mercury.

Is cod on the menu?

Second look

Road Warrior John Cichowski appeared to be promoting NY Waterway ferry service in his column on Sunday.

But in his first paragraph, he associates the ferry with a sinking ship by comparing commuter Holly Wilson of Cresskill to actress Kate Winslet in "Titanic."

LOL.

Ung is back

Elisa Ung, The Record's restaurant reviewer, has ended an extended leave with a post on the Second Helpings blog about a new Italian restaurant in Midland Park.

Readers should brace for Ung's multiple orgasms over all of those artery clogging desserts she loves to sample at restaurants.