More on the layoffs at The Record of Woodland Park

Louis Street in Hackensack's Fairmount section, above and below, is one of many city streets that have fallen into disrepair, and it's far from the worst. As property taxes continue to rise, residents are asking city officials where is all the money going?

 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

At least two newsroom employees at The Record of Woodland Park have taken the buyout offered to staffers over 60 years of age, and five others were laid off to cut expenses.

Justo Bautista, a police reporter; and Charles Saydah, editor of letters to the editor, accepted the buyout, with severance capped at 12 weeks of salary.

Many companies pay one or two weeks of salary for each year of service, meaning a 20-year employee would receive 20 weeks to 40 weeks of salary, far above the ceiling at North Jersey Media Group.

The newsroom includes employees of the Herald News, which long ago was designated as an "edition" of The Record to allow NJMG to report a combined circulation that props up advertising rates.

Editor is 'sincere' 

In addition to award-winning Cartoonist Jimmy Margulies, layoffs include Staff Artist Lance Theroux, who is 59, and three sports reporters, who are in their 30s and 40s, according to an Anonymous comment received by Eye on The Record. 

This same source also said:

"I heard that Editor Marty Gottlieb held a staff meeting this past Tuesday, and talked about the layoffs.

"People felt he was sincere in regretting having to let some people go whose work was of good quality and made The Record a better paper."

Readers' reaction

Here is reaction to the forced departure of Margulies on HackensackNow.org, a community message board:

"That is a real loss. He was one of a dying breed," said Homer Jones.

"I agree about Margulies, he's great," Regina chimed in. 

The Editor of HackensackNow said:

"Jimmy was doing caricatures of children at a county fair at Overpeck Park last summer in a booth for The Record.  He did one of our daughter and captured her smile just right. He seemed like a focused, caring sort of person.  I wish him all the best."

A contributor -- who calls himself or herself  "just watching" -- recalled:

"Part of my daily routine every morning was to log on to The Record's Web site, and look at the political cartoon of the day.  I often disagreed with his slant on things, but I always enjoyed them."

Today's paper

The obstinately conservative Republicans in Congress and Governor Christie, New Jersey's own GOP bully, are making a mess of the cleanup from Superstorm Sandy (A-1).

Did anyone besides me awake this morning and wonder how North Jersey survived the "budget sequestration" -- given the end-of-the-world hype by The Record and other media?

Four stories about Englewood or Englewood Cliffs appear in Local today, but there is nothing from Hackensack, Teaneck and many other towns.

Law & Order stories take up much of L-1 and L-3. 
     

Coverage of black community ends today

An abandoned home is framed by Overlook Avenue high-rises in Hackensack. Residents have a bird's-eye view of noisy business jets that skim rooftops on the way to Teterboro Airport. Is there any reason they can't approach at a much higher altitude? 

With the end of Black History Month today, head Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, breathe a sigh of relief, knowing they can turn their backs on North Jersey's African-American community for another year.

Now, they'll only have to run stories about black people who get in trouble with the law, sue or get sued, or die in one of those drive-by shootings in Paterson.

Sykes has consumed enormous quantities of Jamaican black-rum cake in recent years, but has completely ignored the hard-working, God-fearing Jamaican-American enclaves in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood.

If I didn't know better, I'd guess Sykes and Sforza had something to do with assigning black history to the shortest month of the year.

Even the Woodland Park newsroom mirrors the lack of coverage. There are no black editors with any authority and only a couple of black reporters.

More bad writing 

More bad news writing appears on the front page today, this time in the photo caption for Pope Benedict XVI (A-1).

We know the pope has great spiritual powers, but the caption informs readers he can travel "through" 150,000 people without harming them.

Is it too much to ask six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton to read every headline and caption that appears on the paper's premier page or at least to have them read to her?

With her proofers' eyes riveted on the TV screen during the David Letterman show, how else is she going to prevent such embarrassing errors from appearing on Page 1?

After Mike Kelly's latest flop appeared on Wednesday's A-1, the long-winded columnist was taken to the hospital with a case of bad writing.

Bad reporting 

The Record and other media continue to cover the battle to avoid the sequester as if President Obama and his policies didn't win a decisive victory over the Republicans in November (A-1, A-10, A-20). 

The big Hackensack news today appears on L-3 -- a non-fatal, two-vehicle accident near ShopRite, in another brilliant photo from chief ambulance chaser Tariq Zehawi.

The is clearly filler. As usual, no attempt is made to report the possible cause of the accident or whether any of the drivers received a summons.

And God forbid the paper actually identifies the drivers.  

Obesity is ugly

Look at the two beautiful, "plus-size" women on the Better Living cover today -- the latest attempt by The Record's editors to hide the ugly obesity epidemic in New Jersey, as epitomized by Governor Christie.