Selling the front page to the highest bidder

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Remember John P. Ferguson, who left as president of Hackensack University Medical Center after a scandal over the hiring of a state senator as a consultant? Well, with a second home on Martha's Vineyard, he apparently is not rich enough, and has enlisted The Record of Woodland Park to publicize his new venture with a Page 1 story that has negligible impact on North Jersey residents.

This is another example of how, under Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale, the front page seems to be for sale to the highest bidder -- just two days after the paper's so-called Washington correspondent crafted a preposterous A-1 story to give a million dollars worth of free publicity to Angelina Jolie's new movie.

Ferguson is president and CEO of a company that plans to open up to 20 upscale hospitals outside the U.S. to cater to affluent travelers and residents, the first in wealthy Dubai, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn reports. (Inexplicably, the sub-headline says, "Asian health chain." )

So, who cares, especially with all the health-care problems in New Jersey? Have readers written in asking what happened to Ferguson? Does the former Hackensack daily owe him something? Did his lawyer contact head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes and claim the stories about Ferguson and then-state Sen. Joseph Coniglio were unfair? 

Or is there a possibility Jennifer A. Borg had something to do with this Ferguson story ending up on A-1? Borg, vice president and general counsel of North Jersey Media Group, once held a seat on the HUMC board of directors.

This is another story that damages the credibility of the paper, which seems unusually concerned with the lives of the rich and powerful, people like the Borgs, owners of NJMG, while minimizing coverage of minorities in Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and other communities.


In fact, a better choice for A-1 would have been three North Jersey hospitals' survival rates for patients with heart attacks (L-1). 

Today's Local section has no news about Hackesnack, except for the ninth-straight day of coverage of the parking-garage collapse. But there is a photo and story of an 82-year-old woman who drove up three steps and through the front doors of Wendy's in Clifton, mistaking them for the drive-up window, then ordered a healthy burger and fries to celebrate her survival. Jerry DeMarco of Cliffview Pilot.com uses the accident to launch a discussion about elderly drivers and the possible need to retest them, while The Record merely prints the gee-whiz story and photo -- like hundreds it has published over the years.


In Opinion, an editorial (0-2) discussing Latiea Boyer only reminds readers how, on July 20, Scandale used a huge photo of a non-fatal boating accident in Belmar on Page 1 instead of the slaying of this young, black mother and Navy veteran from Garfield.

The thin Travel section tells us Editor Jill Schensul continues her journey in an RV. It's a wonder this woman, who has long portrayed herself as dysfunctional, can drive anything bigger than a Toyota Corolla. Maybe the driving chores are being handled by her husband Paul, whose job as newsroom library director was eliminated during the 2007-08 downsizing, when he was 50.

The job reductions came only months after Publisher Stephen A. Borg bought a $3.65 million Tenafly mansion with a company mortgage. Borg had also eliminated Food and all the other feature sections except for Travel. Neither Features Director Barbara Jaeger nor Food Editor Bill Pitcher put up a fight over the folding of Food. Now, food coverage is a mere shadow of what it once was.

In 2008, when I asked Schensul why her section was spared, she speculated Stephen Borg didn't know of Travel's existence.