Make room amid the doom and gloom

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The Hackensack River as seen from Teaneck.

The only ray of sunshine on The Record's front page today reminds readers of how the editors make no special effort to tell us stories about our neighbors.


The update on Angela Logan -- the Teaneck woman who baked her way out of foreclosure -- is a rare find in the Woodland Park daily.


Instead, Editor Francis Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes specialize in profiling and promoting politicians, entertainers, celebrity chefs, restaurant owners and fat-cat friends and business associates of the Borg family.


Sykes' assignment desk -- the laziest in the Northeast -- covers local news by covering meetings, so the only people reporters meet are gadflies and town officials. 


Never mind


Corrections don't get any more embarrassing than the one on A-2 today, declaring that the lead story on Sykes' Local front on Tuesday was totally erroneous. 


The reporting and the lead paragraph were wrong, and so were the headlines:

Feds pull plug on aid program

North Jersey to lose

millions for police

What is really lost is the credibility of the paper. 

Road kill

The same can be said for Road Warrior John Cichowski, who has been beating the same dead stories for years.

Cichowski appears to have formed an auto-erotic relationship with his car, as he notes in his L-1 column today: "When my Honda and I made our own inspection...."

Never mind the shredded truck tires on the highway. What about the trash his column peddles every day?

Borgs sound death knell for unions

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On WNET, Governor Christie told a caller it is none of her business that he sends his kids to private school while cutting aid to public schools.

The Record puts a positive spin on Governor Christie's end run around collective bargaining laws, labeling it "reform" in a big, black headline on Page 1 today.

Just below the A-1 fold, Political Stile Columnist Charles Stile celebrates a funeral Mass for public unions, and on the OpEd Page, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin piles on (A-23). 

Are their strings being pulled by the Borg family, whose disdain for unions is well-known?

Christie said on a WNET call-in show that the deal with lawmakers to cut public employee benefits will make the state pension system solvent again in 30 years. 

Is that how long we'll have to wait for him to cut property taxes? 

Rape and shame

The off-lead story on the front page reports the arrest of two students in the rape of a 15-year-old girl at Clifton High School.

But surely, there is more important and relevant news than the story at the bottom of the page on the resignation of Rep. Anthony Weiner, who doesn't even represent anyone in New Jersey?

Can't Editor Francis Scandale get his mind out of the gutter?

Another embarrassing correction from Better Living  appears on A-2 today.

Road kill

With standing-room-only on the morning rail or bus commute to Manhattan and disappearing E-ZPass discounts, can't Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski find anything else to write about than a man who got a speeding ticket in Florida and points on his New Jersey license (L-1)?  

The lead story on the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section is about a new athletic field for Wallington High School. You can't get any more compelling than that.

Sykes also makes sure she runs another story by Staff Writer John Brennan on privatization of horse racing -- in response to the thousands of calls to the news desk (L-3).

Stomach-turning

Those food photos with this week's restaurant review -- Taphouse Grille in Wayne -- are an instant turnoff (Better Living centerfold).

Let's rename the place Tapped Out Grill.

In contrast, Staff Writer Elisa Ung positively gushed last Friday in her appraisal of Bibi'z, a Westwood restaurant from Ida Assaf, who was born in Lebanon. She rated it only a half-star away from perfect.

Ung still bores readers with the owner's and chef's resumes, but she appears to be coming around to the realization that reviewing restaurants is more than just telling readers what tastes good.

Something is missing

Her Bibi'z review has lots of detailed information about menu items that are organic and which dishes come with vegetables or fruit, but why does the restaurant uses wild fish only some of the time? 

The swordfish entree pictured on the Better Living cover is an especially poor choice, because it is endangered and contains a large amount of harmful mercury.

And Ung is silent about the meat served at Bibi'z. Are readers to assume it is conventionally raised with antibiotics, growth hormones and animal byproducts? 

And what does "Bibi'z" mean?

Of course, the headlines can't make up for all that's missing in Ung's reviews, but they've been excellent in recent weeks. "Bibi'z feast" appears to be a play on the 1987 film "Babette's Feast," a lavish celebration of food.

Taking Zisa out of Zisaville

Image by wallyg via Flickr

When is the last time you saw almost the entire front-page of The Record devoted to a story about Hackensack, where the paper was founded in 1895 and where it prospered for more than 110 years? It's been many, many years, and even today, anyone who glanced quickly at the headlines and photos might have trouble figuring out where this 'new day' is occurring.

I'll have to say one thing for Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa. He's well-groomed. That mug shot is priceless. 

Too bad the reporters who have been chasing allegations about him for years aren't the cream of the crop. It's the prosecutor -- not the former Hackensack daily -- bringing to an end Zisa's 15-year reign in Zisaville.

And to think, just about all the other news about Hackensack for several years was sacrificed to this effort, guided by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, whose signature shrieks of laughter must have echoed across the Woodland Park newsroom at word of Zisa's downfall. Or was she wailing over how the authorities had beaten her team to Zisa after the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in news staff salaries?

Two other reporters join the effort today -- Staff Writer Tom Davis, a transportation reporter, and Mike Kelly, a know-it-all columnist.


Davis, with Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado, describes the Zisa family's rule under a Page A-6 headline:

Dynasty of public service, iron-fist politics

This story could have appeared weeks ago, months ago, years ago. The Zisas have ruled Hackensack for decades, but The Record and the Borgs didn't seem to have a problem with that. As for Kelly, I didn't bother reading more than a few graphs of his warmed-over drivel.

The "iron fist" reference reminded me of my years in the Hackensack newsroom, where Sykes,  Frank Scandale and the other lazy, incompetent editors ruled their respective turfs like so many petty dictators -- with carte blanche from the Borg family.

In the Local section today, it's business as usual: No education, development, municipal or any other news about Hackensack, the Bergen County seat and one of the most diverse communities in North Jersey.

Throwing good money after bad

Hackensack and Bergen County.

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By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

How much more evidence do we need that head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes is squandering the time and salaries of three reporters at The Record of Woodland Park, chasing allegations against Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa but never publishing the blockbuster everyone expects?

This recalls the nearly three-year pursuit by these same reporters (the paper's three blind mice) of Michael Mordaga, who was chief of detectives for Zisa before he took a similar job with the Bergen County prosecutor. 

What did the expenditure of an estimated $500,000 in staff salaries on the Mordaga vendetta produce? A single story Dec. 16 -- not even good enough for the front page -- more than two years after Mordaga's alleged conflict ended.

The Zisa story -- charges of insurance fraud leveled by the prosecutor -- also comes more than two years after an accident invovling the chief's then-girlfriend. 

And former Breaking News Editor Jerry DeMarco makes a good argument that his CliffviewPilot.com beat The Record to the story and ensuing developments Thursday and Friday.

With three reporters chasing Zisa, the actual story by Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado was botched in typical Record fashion: 

It was crammed into Page 1 under a clunky, two-column headline that didn't even contain Zisa's name -- next to a gee-whiz photo of a toppled crane that was cropped so tightly, it was difficult to make out. 

A photographer should have accompanied the reporter who spoke to Zisa, and gotten a photo of the chief leaving police headquarters Thursday evening.

And the story should have been spread across the top of A-1. Only the lazy, incompetent editors -- Sykes is chief among them -- can say why it wasn't.

Maybe it would have cost too much to remake the front page -- just the reason cited when boneheaded Editor Frank Scandale relegated Thomas E. Franklin's incredible 9/11 flag-raising photo to a back page -- likely sinking Franklin's chances for a Pulitzer Prize.

A paragraph that should have appeared on Page 1 (high in the Zisa story) doesn't appear until the end on Page A-8 -- above tag lines for Staff Writers Shawn Boburg and Jean Rimbach, two of the least-productive reporters in the newsroom:

"[Ken] Zisa is a member of a Hackensack political dynasty. His family members have served, at various times, as mayor and deputy mayor, deputy police chief and city counsel."

Why hasn't The Record -- even during all its years in Hackensack -- ever published an expose of the Zisa family, the nepotism and the police chief's alleged use of police officers to conduct his private business?

Did the powerful Borg and Zisa familiies come to some understanding? Is this the kind of "responsible journalism" North Jersey Media Group claims to be so proud of? (Map: Hackensack.)