Rank commercialism with a heart?

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Business at the mall translates into more advertising revenue for North Jersey Media Group.

Does Editor Francis Scandale really expect readers to believe The Record of Woodland Park's intensive shopping coverage today is all about the rebuilding of our economy? Or is the spread on Page 1 the usual naked grab for more retail advertising revenue as the former Hackensack daily  struggles to stay afloat under his incompetent leadership?


After all, didn't the paper help destroy North Jersey employment and deal a blow to Hackensack's Main Street by downsizing and abandoning the city where it was founded in 1895? 

Could greedy Publisher Stephen A. Borg have chosen a worse time to suck out $3.65 million from North Jersey Media Group's reserves in the form of a mortgage at an undisclosed interest rate on a Tenafly McMansion?

Is the mortgage related to the layoffs of 20- and 30-year newsroom employees that followed several months later, in the first half of 2008?

When I opened today's paper to see how much A-1 space was given to the Black Friday story, I was surprised to see a touching sidebar by Staff Writer Leslie Brody, who still is mourning the December 2008 death of her husband, Elliot Pinsley, whom she met at The Record, where he was an assistant assignment editor and she was one of the reporters he supervised.

What are Brody's reminiscences about Pinsley doing on the front page with shopping news? She says she couldn't bring herself to move his sweaters out of his dresser drawers until a co-worker gave her a reason -- a church collection. The connection to shopping? The economy? 

Or it it bloodless Scandale's desperate way of trying to hook readers? 

On the continuation page (A-8), Brody reports: "The five children we brought to our marriage have shared some happy milestones lately." But she says nothing about how her ex-husband or his ex-wife are doing.

Another former staffer shows up in a prominent position on the front of Travel, which is delivered with the Saturday paper. That's Rich Rainey, onetime graphic artist and an accomplished banjo player, shown in Seattle in a promo for "Record on the Road." Inside on F-3, as usual, you won't find any African-American travelers pictured. 

The story on the front, by Travel Editor Jill Schensul, is accompanied by a badly outdated photo. But she admits her visit to Philadelphia was a "press trip" -- a junket that cost the paper nothing. I guess that's another way The Record is cutting costs. 

That raises the question of whether last Sunday's odd Travel cover story on "glamorous camping" in Montana also was a junket for The Record editorial assistant who wrote it? Or did the paper pay her way, as its ethics policy dictates, because thousands of readers are lining up to take vacations at that expensive resort?

On the front of Local, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes finally confronts the obesity epidemic with a story-and-photo roundup of towns that have joined the Mayors Wellness Campaign.

On L-7, you'll find the dark side of all that shopping coverage on A-1. A woman returning from shopping is confronted in her Alpine driveway and bound before the suspect steals items from her home. 

There is no local food coverage in Better Living today. 

The Record's limp editorials

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In the growing confrontation over state budget cuts, readers are criticizing Governor Christie for, as one put it today, "preserving the wealth of the wealthy at the expense of the poor and middle class." Where is the editorial condemning this approach in The Record of Woodland Park?


Preening Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin is fastidious about his clothes, but he doesn't appear to be spending as much time on his editorials and columns, most of which sound like he is taking direction from the wealthy Borgs.

Doblin is no fan of the Democrats' millionaires tax, and I got the feeling he condemned Christie's cuts to mass transit only because the editor's train fare went up.

Today, an editorial on O-2 urges a new windfall tax on retirement payouts for unused sick and vacation time, but don't public employees already pay income taxes on this money? Why not just cap the payouts, as Hackensack did, or negotiate new contracts without them?


Maybe Publisher Stephen A. Borg should pay a windfall tax on the $3.65 million he got from his Dad's North Jersey Media Group to buy an ostentatious, custom-built  McMansion in Tenafly (his existing $2 million home, also purchased with an NJMG mortgage, must have been getting a little cramped). Maybe the Borgs should pay a windfall tax when they sell that huge pile of bricks and surrounding land on River Street in Hackensack (NJMG's and The Record's old headquarters).

Some of any windfall tax should be paid to the city, which suffered economically when the Borgs decamped to Garret Mountain, not the mention the decline in Hackensack municipal, education and development news.

The younger Borg's home is larger and more expensive than father Malcolm A. Borg's place on the East Hill of Englewood, where he had a privileged and pampered upbringing, including private schools (I guess Mac didn't want his children rubbing shoulders with black students). Is this about shelter or which Borg has the bigger nut sack?

Did Stephen's huge mortgage have anything to do with the layoffs that occurred several months later (in 2008), including the exodus of 20- and 30-year employees with barely adequate severance payments? Is that why new jobs were created with much lower salaries? And were those lower salaries designed as strong incentives for these loyal, older employees to leave and accept severances, which barred them from alleging age discrimination?

It's The Record that needs editorials with bigger balls.Why is it readers (not editors) showing the way?

The letter from Roberta Sonenfeld of Ridgewood on O-3 today puts the confrontation between the Republican governor and Democrats in perspective:  

"[Governor Christie's ] many choices of where budget cuts should be made continue this assault on the poor and middle class, as does his attack on teachers and civil servants. [His] continued reference to shared sacrifice during these tough times is at best deceptive."

Local news in today's paper? Don't look for any from Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood. Food news? One cake recipe (with fruit) from Bill Pitcher, the exhausted food editor, who can't seem to muster enough energy to write a Sunday column while his restaurant reviewer is on leave.

The front of Local is dominated by a story on how difficult it is for ex-cons to get jobs, written by Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano, who is assigned to cover Englewood and Leonia. This assignment apparently hurt her town coverage, and you have to wonder why an even less-productive reporter wasn't given this job by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes or one of her minions.