The Borg siblings to Hackensack: Drop dead!

The Record's eyesore property in Hackensack, above and below, stands in stark contrast to the flattering photo that appears on Page 1 of the Woodland Park daily today.

A developer likely will pay more than $20 million for North Jersey Media Group's 19.7 acres along River Street. The terms of the deal weren't disclosed in The Record's story.

No dumpsters in this view, similar to the A-1 photo.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

If developer Fred Daibes follows through on plans to raze The Record's old headquarters and build apartment buildings, Hackensack's public schools won't be able to accommodate the children who live there (A-1).

The residential development would be the third to be built in the city in three or four years, and the schools are already bursting at the seams.

Avalon, a Hackensack Avenue complex, is now renting, and another developer just broke ground on a 222-unit State Street building.

The Borg family's North Jersey Media Group gave Hackensack a good screwing in 2009, when it abandoned the city where The Record had prospered for 110 years.

Now, the Borgs are telling city and school officials to drop dead.

Better uses for land

The wealthy publishing family could have offered the 19.7 acres to another developer, Richard Pineles, defusing a huge legal battle over a 19-story acute-care hospital  proposed for a small Prospect Avenue parcel.

Or, they could have sold the land to a retailer, such as Costco Wholesale, which is rumored to be leaving Hackensack to build a larger store in Teterboro.

Questionable deal

Instead, they are selling to Daibes, a restaurant owner and bank founder who has allegedly violated numerous state and federal regulations, and who has been treated gently by The Record. 

Publisher Stephen A. Borg claims in today's story,  "There always has been, continues to be, and always will be a separation between the business side and editorial" (A-7).

But that doesn't go for friends, lawyers and others who do business with the Borgs, judging from all the promotional stories about them in recent years.

Just the other day, Jon F. Hanson was identified as Governor Christie's chief adviser on the retail-entertainment monstrosity known as American Dreams Meadowlands (Sunday, A-7).

Hanson also is a real estate mogul who co-owns a private jet with his best friend, Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg.

Apartment plan

Daibes will need all the public relations skills of his politically connected spokesman, Alan Marcus, to market what today's story describes as "upscale high-rise apartment buildings along the Hackensack River."

The Record's old 4th-floor newsroom afforded a sweeping view of the Manhattan skyline in the distance -- as long as you overlooked a hulking industrial building and oil tanks in the foreground, and the elevated New Jersey Turnpike in mid-distance.

No pollution?

Also in today's story, Jennifer A. Borg, NJMG's vice president/general counsel, pledges there are "no environmental issues that will prevent redevelopment."

Christie budget

The $33 billion state budget approved by the Legislature doesn't include expanded preschool acess, women's health care or a tax credit for the working poor (A-6).

Sandy's tears are flooding Hackensack

River and Kansas streets in Hackensack were under water before noon today. The flood waters from the nearby Hackensack River prompted Costco Wholesale to close its warehouse store early. A Subaru driver who may have shopped at Costco stalled after mistakenly believing his all-wheel-drive car could float.

Water from the Hackensack River blocked the service entrance to Hackensack Toyota.

The rain and wind couldn't suppress the need to pick up a few things at Costco.

Residents of Clinton Place in Hackensack -- between Summit and Prospect avenues -- took down most but not all of their Halloween decorations. The block is known far and wide for the show it puts on for the trick-or-treat holiday at the end of October.

More than 100 utility company trucks and other equipment, including spare utility poles, fill parking lots at Garden State Plaza in Paramus, above and below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I jumped into the car and drove around Hackensack and Paramus before noon today to see what I could see as Hurricane Sandy approached New Jersey.

I visited the staging area for crews from Public Service Electric and Gas Co. at Garden State Plaza in Paramus, where all the stores were closed.

On the other side of the highway, near IKEA, several drivers didn't bother stopping for red lights.

All that PSE&G equipment is a hopeful sign, given how the utility blew the job of repairing damage from the freak snowstorm two days before Halloween in 2011.

A year ago, as the days wore on with tens of thousands of people still without power, the anger of customers grew and there were reports of people threatening PSE&G workers with bodily harm.

What was the response at The Record of Woodland Park?

The paper's own poor job of covering the storm led to the firing of Editor Francis "Frank" Scandale at the hands of Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who finally pulled his head out of his pampered asshole.

However, Interim Editor Doug Clancy was uncomfortable with readers' anger at PSE&G, and consistently buried it deep in stories about storm recovery.

Even when many thousands were without power for a week or more, Clancy made sure stories prominently featured PSEG's excuses for why it couldn't move faster. 

This from the newspaper that once boasted in its motto: "Friend of The People It Serves." 

See previous post on media hype

 

Hey, Frank, who the F cares?

Image by Fibonacci Blue via Flickr

The biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history isn't enough of a front-page story for Editor Frank Scandale, who is more jock than journalist. Today, The Record of Woodland Park glorifies the Russian fat-cat owner of the hapless Nets basketball team with a huge A-1 photo and story by one of its biggest hacks, Staff Writer John Brennan.


Brennan likely helped talk this story onto Page 1, as he did obsessively with all the nonsense he covered when I was still at The Record, and found a sympathetic audience in Scandale, Tim Nostrand and other desperate editors. Meanwhile, readers looking for essential information about their towns were ignored, as they are now.


Greedy BP's blunders in the Gulf are shoved down below the fold on A-1. The oil platform disaster is on the cover of Time magazine and leads the CBS Evening News every day, but Scandale's Record bounces the story onto and off of the front page without rhyme or reason. Of course, we know how flawed Scandale's  news judgment is after he relegated Tom Franklin's incredible 9/11 photo to a back page.


Yet, after taking over from Mac Daddy, Publisher Stephen A. Borg not only kept Scandale on, but promoted him to vice president. Did anyone in the news meetings Borg attended see him and Frank slap each other on the ass after placing yet another sports or business of sports story on A-1?


Meanwhile, coverage of the World Cup in Sports has been lackluster.


Local leads with a Star-Ledger story on a $2.5 million settlement for a hotel clerk, but the reporter leaves readers in the dark on how much of that will be going to the lawyer (probably a third, plus expenses). Don't look for substantial Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood news in the section.

Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado's sole contribution today is a too-long story on a ruling to withhold pay from suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa. She has yet to report details of the proposed city budget and tax hike, which are going before the City Council tonight for the second time. You can thank head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who has been pulling Monsy's strings for years.

There is also a short story on the closing of the Court Street Bridge for two years to refurbish the span, too weak for trucks over 3 tons. The project will make the Borgs' nearly 20 acres on the Hackensack River a lot more valuable, especially to a big box retailer that wants as much access as possible.

Looking at the 2003 photo with the obituary of singer Jimmy Dean on L-1 today makes me think he ate too much of the mystery meat that went into his breakfast sausage. I also realize how little impact Dean (Tenafly), Eddie Murphy (Englewood) and other celebrities who lived in North Jersey had on neighbors or their towns.


There is no local food news in Better Living today. A story from the Contra Costa Times on "shopping healthfully" completely omits any mention of avoiding food with antibiotics, growth hormones, animal byproducts, pesticides and other harmful additives.

Challenge to Mother Hen Deirdre?

Image via Wikipedia

Mac Borg, who stayed behind at The Record's Hackensack headquarters after his two spoiled brats downsized the paper and scattered just about everyone else to Woodland Park and other offices, has resurfaced in connection with plans for the nearly 20-acre parcel on River Street.


Business finally got around to reporting on the future of stalled development near the Hackensack River in Hackensack -- a story that has long been neglected by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado, who is supposed to cover River City.


On Page L-10 today, former Publisher Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg is quoted as saying North Jersey Media Group plans to complete the move out of 150 River St. by March 2011, "relocating within Hackensack to maintain a strong presence in the city." The reporter goes on to paraphrase Mac, who adds that many editorial and sales personnel will work out of the company's new office.

I wonder what Mac, now chairman of the NJMG board, means by many. If he moves too many reporters and editors to the new Hackensack office, it likely will be seen as a challenge to Mother Hen Deirdre, who likes to keep Alvarado, Staff Writer Jean Rimbach and many others close at hand to do her beck and call.

Was the sensational trial of the nanny ever on Page 1 before she was cleared by a Superior Court jury of having sex with a 12-year-old boy? Why put it on the front today? Did coverage of this Passaic County trial so damage the woman's reputation the desperate editors felt only the lead story could clear her name?

The rest of A-1 is covered by the fourth part of the way-too-long youth baseball series -- when the paper should be devoting that kind of space to the obesity epidemic, which every editor has ignored.

Despite Page 1 stories about the right-wing Tea Party by Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson, its candidates did little in yesterday's primary elections to justify that coverage.

In Local, the only Hackensack news is yet another story about Police Chief Ken Zisa, and a hearing on whether he should be paid during his suspension. There are stories about the Tenafly and Ramsey municipal budgets, but still nothing about the proposed tax hike in Hackensack.

In Better Living, Food Editor Bill Pitcher tells readers he's "wandering the region's farmers' markets" and will have "a new dispatch" every Wednesday. Dispatch? Are we to imagine him on horseback? In view of his size, can he even mount a horse?

Newspaper is rotting away

Image by alex.ragone via Flickr

Thank God for infrastructure. What would the lazy, incompetent editors of The Record of Woodland Park do for a front-page story today if it weren't for the steady stream of transportation meetings, studies, reports and contracts Staff Writer Karen Rouse uses as fodder for her coverage?

Bridges rotting away

That headline is meant to scare readers, though a lot of bridge work she discusses won't get under way until next year. What's really scary is how the former Hackensack daily is rotting away right before our eyes.

And the copy editing on her story today is atrocious. What is the "easterly" Hackensack River bridge? The graphic on A-6 says a "repainting project is under construction." How about just "under way"?

Rouse was an education reporter when she was hand-picked by Editor Frank Scandale to come to The Record from The Denver Post, his old newspaper. Unfortunately, two reporters already were covering education for The Record (never mind that their productivity is among the lowest on the staff). 

So Rouse was given the job of transportation reporter and assignment desk trainee (the hybrid job was never posted in the newsroom); she proved ill-suited for the latter. Now, she writes almost exclusively about infrastructure -- under the guidance of her knuckle-headed assignment editor.

When I was still a news copy editor in Hackensack, she resisted my suggestion she write about deplorable local bus service, saying her assignment editor wouldn't allow her the time to look into anything unless it definitely was going to produce a story. In other words, she said, she couldn't  board a decrepit No. 780 bus at the bus terminal across the street and ride it to Passaic for lunch to see how most of the riders were minorities -- contrasting their ride to the new buses used by mostly white commuters to Manhattan.

One of those white bus riders also lands on Page 1 today, though he and other bus patrons have been virtually ignored by the assignment desk and the transportation writers, including Road Warrior John Cichowski.

Most of Local today is devoted to events that were covered Sunday -- Armenians marking the 95th anniversary of a genocide; a vigil for crime victims in Paterson; a Bergen County recycling day for pack-rats too cheap to buy a home shredder for sensitive documents.

Where is the vigil for readers who have watched coverage of their towns, including Hackensack, Englewood and Teaneck, wither and die? When will the editors, including Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, have to answer to the public for the decimation of local news?

I know the Borgs -- or their legal representatives -- read "Eye on The Record" carefully, because they've renewed threats to file a lawsuit against me. But I'd like Malclom, Stephen and Jennifer Borg to pay more attention to how badly the editors are handling their crucial responsibility of informing the public about what is going on in their communities. After all, that is how The Record became a great newspaper -- before Scandale, Sykes, Frank Burgos, Tim Nostrand, Jim McGarvey and their minions tore it down.

Better Living Staff Writer Sachi Fujimori, who I have praised frequently, stumbles badly today with the lead paragraph on the scheduled closing of the Peking Duck House restaurant in Closter. She writes the signature dish "helped grease the wheels of friendship between the U.S. and China" -- a jarring description given how virtually all the fat in Peking duck is removed before it is served.

Where was Food Editor Bill Pitcher or the copy editors on Feature Editor Barbara Jaeger's desk when it came to catching this awkward and inaccurate play on words?

Sloppy reporting and copy editing

Image via Wikipedia

Shoddy reporting and clueless copy editing and headline writing -- when will readers of The Record of Woodland Park get any relief?

The heads on the lead A-1 story -- "Killings a mystery" and "Two found dead on quiet Teaneck street" -- are redundant (killings and dead) and don't tell you the bodies were found in an SUV. Police solve few murders instantly -- so why waste the main head on that?

The sloppy, cowardly reporting on Page 1 is by Columnist Mike Kelly, who questioned the disgraced Bernard Kerik in Kerik's home office before he was sentenced yesterday, but couldn't bring himself to ask the former New York City Police commissioner if he was motivated by greed when he broke the law or thought he was above the law. Kerik and the pompous Kelly must be pals; the reporter refers to him as "Bernie" and calls the convicted felon's wife by her first name.

Even an aide or handler couldn't paint a more sympathetic portrait of Kerik than Kelly has. Is this journalism or public relations?

"I'm glad it's over," Kerik said before he was sentenced in federal court. "I want to try to remake my life." Kelly's writing gets real sloppy -- to the point where he has the White House "returning from Baghdad," and the copy editor and the copy editor's supervisor didn't catch it. (After Publisher Stephen A. Borg moved printing of The Record to Rockaway Township, copy editors in Hackensack could no longer read the first copies off the press for typos and other errors, and correct them, as they had from time immemorial.)

"After returning from Baghdad," Kelly writes, "the White House, citing Kerik's anti-terrorism record, nominated him ....."

Who is Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin trying to fool?  The lead editorial on A-20 claims that everyone -- including the "wealthy" -- will feel the effects of Governor Christie's budget-cutting, but that isn't documented. In fact, Christie refused to reinstate the so-called millionaires tax and plans to allow a corporate business surcharge to expire. Did Stephen Borg write the editorial?


The wrong-way dolphins in the Hackensack River -- a story that was all over Page 1 yesterday -- ends up inside Local today, a mere brief. Instead of development, education or municipal news of Hackensack and Englewood, readers get four verdicts or sentences in major cases. Teaneck news? Only the double murder on Page 1.

Why would anybody want to go to the Italian restaurant given two stars by Restaurant Reviewer Bill Pitcher, who recommends only three dishes? As food editor, Pitcher guided the expansion of reviews to the point where they seem promotional. Whether a restaurant is poor or outstanding, reviews feature plenty of photos and deceptive close-ups of food -- even lousy food looks good in a color photo. Squandering space means that the restaurant health inspections list is cut, depriving readers of essential information.

Stephen Borg, who lives in a $3.65 million McMansion in Tenafly, must have written this line in the review: "The dining room isn't much larger than your home dining room -- the first of 32 seats ..." Thirty-two seats in a home dining room? Where was the copy editor here? Where was George Cubanski, his supervisor, who is supposed to catch such preposterous errors?