Does big cutback in food coverage serve advertisers?

The old headquarters of North Jersey Media Group and The Record in Hackensack is now used primarily as a parking lot for attorneys, jurors and visitors to the Bergen County Courthouse a few blocks away ($5 per car). Many courthouse visitors are finding free parking elsewhere.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Under Publisher Stephen A. Borg, food coverage in The Record has declined drastically -- only to be replaced by highly promotional stories about the restaurants and chefs that advertise heavily in The Record of Woodland Park.

Eating Out on $50, the so-called budget restaurant review written by freelancer Jeff Page, appears to be the latest casualty, ending its monthly run in Better Living without an announcement.

Less space

The fine-dining restaurant review, written by full-time Staff Writer Elisa Ung, continues to cram photos and text into half the space it once commanded in the Better Living tabloid on Fridays, and Ung is restricted to taking one guest, instead of three, to the two dinners she buys.

Even if she were inclined to, Ung has little room to discuss whether restaurants are serving wild-caught fish and naturally raised or grown food.

Organic, shmorganic

Similarly, The Record's monthly Market Basket survey of supermarket prices continues to ignore the revolution in organic food that began with the opening of Whole Foods Market more than 30 years ago.

Doesn't this serve the majority of supermarket and restaurant advertisers who fatten their bottom lines by selling or serving cheaper conventionally grown food or farmed fish filled with harmful antibiotics and preservatives?

Wasted space

Ung continues to waste space in the data box that appears with every review, listing what the restaurant is "good" or "appropriate for," instead of whether it serves naturally raised or grown food.

And on Friday, she wasted two of the 11 paragraphs in her review of Solaia in Englewood on the lousy desserts, even though the vast majority of her readers don't touch the artery clogging, cloyingly sweet stuff out of concern for their waistline and their health (BL-18). 

Ung said Solaia "would be good for relaxing dining in downtown Englewood," but "less appropriate for big, loud groups."

She must think her readers are morons who can't figure that out on their own, and wouldn't the restaurant owner encourage diners to order wine and spirits from his full bar, rather than try to keep them quiet?

Raw or cooked?

Inexplicably, Ung used "sushi-quality fish" -- a term applied to fish served raw -- to describe a pricey grilled sea bass served at Solaia for $29.

As one of his first acts as publisher, Borg signaled an end to serious food coverage when he killed The Record's weekly Food section, promising daily stories about food that the editors were unable to deliver.

It's been all downhill from there.

Today's paper 

The Record doesn't bother with a full story about the third phase of Port Authority toll hikes that kick in on Sunday -- just four paragraphs on Page 1.

Nor does it report a statement from state Assembly Deputy Speaker John S. Wisniewski.

He called the bitstate agency "dysfunctional" and one that operates with "minimal accountability" -- an indirect slam at Governor Christie, who rubber stamped the toll hikes on the George Washington Bridge and other crossings.

Wisniewski said higher tolls come at a time "of stagnant wages and negligible inflation."

The Record also doesn't mention that the heavily discounted E-ZPass off-peak toll for hybrid cars with a Green Pass is going up on Sunday to $5.50 and the carpool discount, available at all hours, increases to $5 -- both are 75 cents more than before.

High-tech traffic system

The major element on today's front page reports on a high-tech traffic management system in the Meadowlands, but doesn't explain whether it can handle the influx of cars expected when American Dream, a huge entertainment and retail complex, opens (A-1).

In Hackensack news, Staff Writer Hannan Adely reports that more than $9,000 has been raised for James Brady, the former homeless man who was penalized for his honesty (Local front).

Developers still have their hooks into Hackensack

NJ Transit's Jersey Avenue local left New York's Penn Station a few minutes after its scheduled 2:29 p.m. departure on Friday. Seats on this older rail car freed up only after the train stopped at Secaucus Junction and Newark Penn Station. The discomfort of many rail and bus rider is of little concern to The Record.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Even after a reform City Council slate is sworn in on Monday -- as reported today by The Record --Hackensack will be burdened for years to come by insider deals with developers.

A 226-unit development on Hackensack Avenue is now renting, a 222-unit building on State Street has broken ground and other developers have announced plans to replace The Record's old headquarters with hundreds of new high-rise and mid-rise apartments.

None of these developers have been asked to help ease the expected impact on Hackensack's badly crowded schools.

Ruling by veto

A heading on Page 1 today reports Governor Christie signed a "bipartisan" budget, but the full story on A-3 contradicts that with news of several vetoes the GOP bully used to get his way.

One of the vetoes killed $7 million in funding to Planned Parenthood and other women's health organizations. 

That's very "bipartisan" of Christie, just like his earlier vetoes of a hike in the minimum wage or a tax surcharge on millionaires.

Eat this

On Friday, in Eating Out on $50, freelancer Jeffrey Page managed to review a rare restaurant that uses antibiotic-free chickens, Flames Rotisseria in Ridgefield Park (Better Living, BL-24).

But when The Record reduced the number of people fed for $50 to 2 from 4, the review lost all value to readers.

If Page's cheap editor allowed him to spend $70 -- a little under $18 per person -- he could tell readers about plenty of places where they can get a decent meal for 4.

And even with only $50, he could make the money go further if he stopped wasting money on fattening, artery clogging desserts (BL-25).

Worshiping animals

Sunday's Travel section, delivered with today's paper, reflects Editor Jill Schensul's worship of animals over humans.

In her cover story, Schensul, a vegetarian and animal lover, reports on trips of a lifetime, complete with photos of some of  the four-legged and slithering creatures travelers can commune with.

I guess her way of dealing with all of the human misery in Africa is simply to ignore it.

Even though Schensul's section is down to only 4 pages on most Sundays, she continues to run vacation photos of readers in The Record on The Road feature -- a huge waste of space.

'Dangerous' Road Warrior

The Road Warrior column finally is starting to report that a lack of enforcement has resulted in growing abuse of cellphone use while driving -- not to mention speeding and numerous other traffic violations (Friday's L-1).

Red-light and speeding cameras may be the ultimate solution for the police.

The column, written by Staff Writer John Cichowski, no longer pretends to deal with commuting issue. 

It should be renamed to reflect an almost total focus on driving and reliance on reader e-mails.

In his Wednesday column, Cichowski didn't let a reader's question stump him; he simply  made up the answer, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his June 26 column, the Road Warrior continues to endanger his readers with his contradictory, confusing, incomplete and inaccurate accounting of crosswalk laws.

"Readers are frightened and confused by his clear lack of knowledge about the confusing and poorly written, revised crosswalk statutes, which he has championed.

"He inferred that drivers would rarely be held accountable under the revised crosswalk laws for hitting pedestrians outside of crosswalks. 

"Unfortunately, the laws clearly state that it will be assumed the driver did not exercise due care for the safety of the pedestrian in the event of a collision between a vehicle and a pedestrian within or outside of crosswalks.

"In his responses to readers' questions about the requirements of the crosswalk laws, the Road Warrior simply made up answers, which are in contradiction to the crosswalk laws, or failed to provide key relevant information about the laws."

See the full e-mail a concerned reader sent to management:

'Our Dangerous Road Warrior'


A short break

Eye on The Record will return at the end of next week. 

Desperate editors hype the news

Image via Wikipedia
A young Bruce Springsteen performing in Norway. A ticket-selling "disaster" for his New Jersey concerts is front-page news today.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!


Would you get a load of today's Page 1 comparison between "horrific incidents seared in American memory" and two attacks, plus a third planned attack, on Bergen County synagogues.


"A loner from Lodi" has a certain alliteration, but does suspect Anthony Graziano, 19, really deserve mention in the same paragraph as "the Unabomber, the Virginia Tech shooter and the Anthrax attacker"? 


I stopped reading there, but the story goes on and on.


The hard sell


Half the front page in The Record is devoted to bias crimes that killed no one, clearly showing that head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes is out of control, desperate to fill space and sell papers. 


Three reporters worked on the story about new charges in the firebombing case, including Staff Writer Stephanie Akin, who has neglected her Hackensack beat for the last 10 days.


And if that isn't enough, part of the front page is devoted to a story by three more reporters on fans who had trouble buying tickets to Bruce Springsteen concerts. Now we know the world is ending.


Page A-2 carries another embarrassing correction -- for the second day in a row.


Flawed reporting


An editorial on A-13 today incorrectly blames a proposed $515,000 budget cut for the Englewood Public Library on the city manager, as did earlier news stories.


But the idea to cut the library budget -- which would hit minority families hardest -- was floated first in November 2010 by a group of wealthy residents from the East Hill, where Chairman Malcolm A. Borg lives. 


They were members of a budget-review panel that called itself  "Englewood F.A.S.T or Fiscal Accountability Starts Today Coalition." 


Here is a link to an Eye on The Record post: In Englewood, whites know best


Muni tunes


I searched for municipal stories in Sykes' Local news section, but had a hard time finding any among even more Law and Order reports on L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6.


Maybe most of the assignment minions took Friday off to make it a three-day weekend.


Mixed message


Contrast today's Better Living cover story on "stocking a healthy pantry" to the unhealthy food described in Friday's Eating Out on $50 restaurant review (Better Living, Page 20).


Why did free-lancer Jeffrey Page chose Stacks Pancake House and Cafe in Paramus for dinner and why did he spend only $27.42 on two meals, including tax and tip?


Page is The Record's original Road Warrior columnist. With his strong point of view and command of the language, he wrote circles around most of the reporting staff, including John Cichowski and Mike Kelly, two of the paper's weakest staffers.


Page also was obese for most of his working life. What kind of example does he set by ordering an artery clogging dessert to split with a friend that was composed of "two large scoops of ice cream and four large dollops of whipped cream with a brownie"?