Image via WikipediaWhen there was more than one edition of The Record of Woodland Park, Bergen County residents might think a paper with a lot of Passaic news -- like today's -- was delivered to them by mistake. But today's Passaic-centric edition is no mistake. With the local Bergen editors off in La-La Land, this single edition is all the desperate weekend staff could come up with.
For those subscribers who still call the paper The Bergen Record, here is The Passaic Record.
The front page needs not one but two filler wire-service stories to supplement the main North Jersey element -- more on DuPont pollution in Pompton Lakes (map). One of them, a doomsday AP piece on Social Security payouts and revenue during the recession, omits any information about the system's huge reserves. No attempt was made to localize either wire story.
The Pompton Lake clean-up story appears to be of wide interest -- this lake serves as backup to reservoirs that supply drinking water to many North Jersey towns-- but the focus is on technical aspects of removing soil. My eyes glazed over. Could this story get any more boring?
At the same time, the reporter never answers the question of whether mercury has tainted drinking water in those reservoirs.
It's bad enough North Jersey Media Group and other companies stampeded hundreds of thousands of workers into early retiement, but why is its flagship paper leading today's edition with a Social Security story that amounts to a fraud? Reserves of $2.5 trillion -- that's right, trillion -- plus payroll taxes are expected to cover full payment of benefits for 33 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The front of Local is filled with more Passaic County news -- from Wayne, Clifton, and Woodland Park. Inside, you won't find any news of Hackensack, Teaneck or the 'Woods (Englewood, Westwood, Wood-Ridge and Ridgewood), but you will find a story from Ringwood.
Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale lives in Glen Rock and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes lives in Harrington Park. You'd think they could get more Bergen County news into the paper, wouldn't you?
On days like this, the Passaic County bias is so blatant, it must have to do with more than the move of NJMG and The Record newsroom to Woodland Park, and the move of daily newspaper printing to Rockaway Township.
Just about the only Bergen thing left at the old Bergen Record is Old Man Borg slowly walking the empty hallways of the former headquarters at 150 River St., Hackensack. He's probably muttering to himself, What the f--- did my two spoiled brats do to my beloved paper?
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