What The Record does best

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The Record of Woodland Park today is both an example of what the former Hackensack daily does best and what it does badly.

For a change on Page 1, there is an old-fashioned, hard-hitting expose about a Bergen County loan program that lured some towns into paying high fees and interest -- all in the service of another pay-to-play scheme. One bank overcharged Rutherford $715,000. Hackensack and Rutherford paid more than $200,000 in "unnecessary interest and fees." The county agency that runs the program "put money in the pockets of big campaign donors."

Though this investigative piece is laudable, it only serves to remind readers of how the paper stops short of condemning a home-rule system that seems to foster such malfeasance, and how a much longer, far more expensive investigation into moonlighting by former county Chief of Detectives Michael Mordaga appeared to be a vendetta, not real news, judging by the single story published this month.

Now to what the paper does badly. On A-4 today, readers get three filler stories from The Star-Ledger shoved down their throats -- on an ex-Bridgewater judge, a quake in Dover and a fire in Belleville -- all out of or on the edge of The Record's circulation area. There is yet another heart-tugging story about a Monmouth County custody case, but not a word on an equally compelling Bergen County case (photo above shows courthouse).

In the Local section, where readers used to find municipal and education news about Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood on a regular basis, there are eight -- eight -- crime, court, accident or fire stories or photos. This kind of coverage is now considered "local news."

Editor's note: In the past several days, not a single current or former employee of The Record has come to the defense of the paper, in contrast to the vocal complaints I heard in the earlier days of "Eye on The Record." Again, you can make your views known by clicking on "comments" at the end of this post, and you can do so anonymously.