Gannett to lay off more than 200, go after younger readers

The moving notice of North Jersey Media Group and The Record still is visible at the public entrance of the landmark headquarters at 150 River St. -- seven years after they abandoned Hackensack. The building and nearly 20 acres of the land were not part of the sale to Gannett, the nation's biggest newspaper chain.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Gannett, the payroll-slashing newspaper publisher, is delivering bad news to about half of the 426 employees left at North Jersey Media Group and its flagship daily, The Record.

More than 200 of them "will see their jobs end in mid-November," according to a story on the first Business page today (L-7).

News of the so-called restructuring appeared on NorthJersey.com on Wednesday morning.

NJMG includes The Record, Herald News, NorthJersey.com, 50 weekly newspapers, (201) magazine and "an Events Group," Gannett says.

The New York Post, which reported Gannett paid the Borg family $40 million for NJMG, has said layout, news and copy editors would be getting pink slips by mid-October after production of The Record is moved to Neptune.

That's where Gannett has been putting out the Asbury Park Press and five other New Jersey dailies the company publishes.

Now, it seems, those layoffs have been pushed ahead to mid-November.

Digital, schmigital

Today's story also delivered bad news to The Record's older readers -- who are believed to be the majority -- especially those who don't own smart phones or text or use computers.

In fact, many believe "app" is short for "appetizer" on an early bird dinner menu.

According to Gannett, the goal of the restructuring is to make the "newsroom and sales department more responsible to the growing digital demands of readers and advertisers" (L-7).

Sure to sail over older readers' heads is Gannett's pledge to deliver "a broader array of story-telling techniques and advertising solutions" to "the sophisticated and increasingly digitally minded New Jersey audience and advertisers." 

No. 1 source?

"We are proud to be North Jersey's No. 1 local news source," one Gannett executive boasts in today's story.

But it's clear from the looming layoffs, Gannett's main goals are lower labor costs, more ad revenue and higher profits.

Readers don't see any "local news" on Page 1 today, only mindless coverage of New York baseball teams under this headline.

"BASEBALL BACK FROM THE DEAD"

Yet it's doubtful Gannett will be able to resurrect The Record, once a leader in delivering municipal news to readers.

Editor touts 'quality' journalism -- readers aren't convinced

On Friday night, downtown Ridgewood was filled with restaurant and movie goers, and others stopping at Starbucks Coffee on East Ridgewood Avenue, above. This Starbucks gives away used coffee grounds for the garden.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers interested in how The Record has changed in the past few years shouldn't miss Editor Martin Gottlieb's appearance on a weekly cable show produced by Montclair State University.

Most notably, Gottlieb boasts of "quality coverage," "quality of the product," "a sense of quality"  and "quality of reporting and editing" when referring to the daily he has guided since early 2012.

The interview for the half-hour show, Carpe Diem, was conducted by another journalist, Merrill Brown, director of Montclair State's  School of Communication and Media.

Brown only lobs softballs at Gottlieb, a former New York Times editor and reporter, and sounds as if hasn't read the Woodland Park daily recently or noticed all of the errors -- corrected and uncorrected -- and serious omissions in stories.

Corrections

Today, for example, four corrections appear on A-2 of The Record, including a major problem likely caused by the inattention of Liz Houlton, the six-figure editor in charge of production.

It seems the entire page of Memorial Day listings in Friday's paper was "incorrect," and the correct page was run today (L-3), including a story by Mary Diduch.

Another correction noted a Page 1 story incorrectly reported Elmwood Park police were considering body cameras for officers; the department has already purchased them.

Cub reporter

Gottlieb noted he got his start in journalism at The Record in the early 1970s, covering Oradell, River Edge and New Milford, and was mentored by Susan Servis-Scilla.

As an example of the paper's "quality," Gottlieb cited circulation figures, noting that when he left in 1973, The Record was selling 150,000 copies daily.

When he came back in 2o12, Gottlieb said, the circulation was 148,000 daily. 

But he didn't mention that figure includes the Herald News, which long ago was made an "edition" of The Record, apparently for the purpose of padding the flagship daily's circulation and keeping advertising rates high.

Today's paper

Let's hope Gottlieb's "quality" boasts didn't include the many flawed accident and pedestrian fatality stories The Record publishes, including the one on L-1 today.

The story reporting an off-duty Fort Lee police officer was ejected from his vehicle in a head-on collision on Friday is missing an essential detail:

Was Police Officer Laki Pothos, 32, wearing his seat belt, and if not, will he receive a summons?

The story carries the bylines of the overworked police reporter, Stefanie Dazio, and Staff Writer Nicholas Pugliese.

Still, there is not a single word on the cause of the accident, although the reporters seem to blame the cop, saying his Jeep Wrangler "collided with a ... Nissan Altima" being driven by a 65-year-old man (L-3).

Was Pothos, the cop, using his mobile phone or texting? Did something break on his vehicle, causing him to cross over the line and hit the poor old guy's car?

Stay tuned. The Record may or may not answer any of these questions.

Marty Gottlieb has little to show for 2 years at the helm

This morning, a path had been cleared so commuters wouldn't have to climb over the snow at a bus stop across the street from Sears in Hackensack, above, but that wasn't the case at another bus stop around the corner on Anderson Street, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

This month, former New York Times editor Marty Gottlieb is celebrating two years at the helm of The Record of Woodland Park, and readers can only guess at what he lists as his accomplishments.

Most of the lazy editors and burned-out columnists he inherited are still in place, including the error-prone Road Warrior, Staff Writer John Cichowski.

Except for a renewed focus on Hackensack's municipal affairs (L-1), the Local section often is dominated by police news and accident photos, no matter how minor.

If it wasn't for the Bridgegate scandal, the paper would still be acting as if it had been hired by Governor Christie to do his public relations.

Today's paper

The GOP bully was sworn in for a second term on Tuesday after winning the Nov. 5 election -- the lowest turnout of any gubernatorial contest in state history (A-1).

Given how Christie has waged war on the middle and working classes, isn't it sweet that an "intense winter storm" canceled "the image-building ball at Ellis Island" (A-1).

Longer stories

Gottlieb is known for often handling Page 1 stories, which have grown in length and complexity, not unlike what appears in The Times.

But the level of editing by The Record's assignment and copy desks is so low that the front-page has become known for tortured, poorly written paragraphs that have more twists and turns than an old river.

Mediocre editors

The merger of The Record and Herald News newsrooms brought on board a number of mediocre editors who have dumbed down content, including photo captions and headlines.

Fact-checking is almost non-existent, and for every correction published on A-2, readers know there are five or six more that will never be acknowledged.

Day after day, news and feature stories are published with huge holes, and even basic information is missing.

Today, for example, an interesting story on spices that appears on the Better Living front discusses AK Market in Paterson, but readers can search high and low and not find the shop's address or telephone number (BL-1 and BL-5).  

Are Borg's circulation numbers all smoke and mirrors?

For drivers, the safest times at Euclid Avenue and the railroad tracks in Hackensack are when an NJ Transit commuter train is passing, above, and maniacs in cars can't run the four stop signs controlling the intersection, endangering pedestrians and other drivers.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Some "frenzy."

The day before The Record's editor reacted hysterically to Governor Christie's appearance on a magazine cover and TV shows -- Friday's A-1 headline called it a "frenzy" -- members of his own party ignored his choice for speaker of the state Senate.

But you won't find Christie making headlines on the front page of The Record today -- as he has for weeks.

The snub by Senate Republicans on Thursday is covered in a Page 1 blurb, with the full story on A-3.

Truth or dare?

Still, that's not the most eye-opening story in the Woodland Park daily today.

For that, you'll have to turn to A-12, where a headline declares: 

Record's Sunday circulation up 5.6% 

This story is far less than it seems -- because it fails to mention the circulation figures cited are for both The Record and Herald News, which was made an "edition" of the flagship daily years ago to inflate the number of readers.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg is quoted as saying the boost in Sunday circulation is credited to "a solid news product."

Talks to advertisers

Of course, the story is aimed directly at retailers, auto dealers and other advertisers who pay ad rates based on readership -- the higher the circulation, the higher the rates.

Borg has been putting on this dog-and-pony show at North  Jersey Media Group since he took over from his father, Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, but can his figures be trusted?

"The Record's Sunday circulation, which includes its branded editions and digital replica edition, increased by 9,342 copies, or 5.6 percent, to 176,985," according to the story.

The numbers for The Record and Herald News aren't given separately, and "branded editions and digital replica edition" go unexplained.

Even if The Record's Sunday circulation is about 150,000, that is far below the high of about 225,000.

"Our increase shows that print circulation remains vibrant when you have a good newspaper," Borg says.

What about daily circulation? Are we to assume it's down?

Homeless population

Hackensack's homeless problem was generally ignored until James Brady turned in to police $850 that he found on Main Street, and then was given the money when no one claimed it.

Now, Brady, who is no longer homeless, has been denied General Assistance and Medicaid benefits by the city's Human Services Department, "because he failed to report new income he received," Staff Writer Hannan Adely reports today on Page 1.

Why is an online auction of Penthouse magazine founder Bob Guccione's collection of erotica on the front page today?

The avalanche of corrections continues on A-2 today. Keep in mind that for every error that is acknowledged, five to 10 more are ignored.

Pork barrel

Better Living and Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung continue to promote new restaurants, this time the opening of New Jersey's first Shake Shack in Paramus.

Isn't this unabashed promotion a conflict for Ung, whose main job is to critically evaluate food and service at restaurants?

At least Shake Shack serves hamburgers and hot dogs free of harmful antibiotics and growth hormones, according to her story (BL-1).

But in her weekly reviews, Ung rarely tells readers whether that dry aged steak, pork chop or other meat she is swooning over was naturally raised.

NJMG restricts readers' comments

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North Jersey Media Group, which publishes The Record and Herald News, is restricting comments on northjersey.com to readers who use social media and identify themselves.


The unannounced change was made last week. Before that, readers who registered with the online news site could comment using a pen name or other alias.


It's unclear whether readers without a Facebook account can comment on stories and columns.


Eye on The Record can only speculate on why the change was made.


In the past, criticism of Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski has been withering. 


Critics have focused on his often inaccurate reporting and advice, and on how he has strayed far from his column's mission of going to bat for all commuters, not just drivers.


In general, comments on northjersey were civil, but there were a number of unhinged individuals who attacked each other viciously.


The Record of Woodland Park and other newspapers will only print letters from readers who provide their full name and town, and provide a telephone number for confirmation.


Eye on The Record received this comment last week:

Anonymous said...

What is the story with the NorthJersey.com site and it's new set-up for posting comments? Please let your readers know about the facts and your opinions of this issue in one of your future articles. It appears the old Comments posting system was eliminated this week sometime around Wednesday. It appears that all comments, which were posted with previous news articles, are no longer viewable. It appears that one can no longer log in to NorthJersey.com with their existing username, which typically was anonymous, in order to post comments. When clicking on the "Most Commented" tab, it no longer shows a list of articles. The "Most Read" and "Most E-mailed" tabs still bring up a list of articles. It appears that the new system requires you to have a Facebook account and log in to Facebook before you can post a comment. Currently, all comments appear to be only from Facebook users. Obviously, posting anonymously is much more difficult since most people with Facebook accounts use their own names, along with their pictures. It seems that the Record may have gotten tired of allowing some of the anonymous posted comments, which in some people's opinions may have been objectionable or controversial. While this new policy may be politically correct and an attempt to weed out the "controversial" anonymous individuals, who posted, I believe that it is a bad policy since it will restrict free speech and the free flow of information, will invade people's privacy by opening their Facebook accounts to unwanted public scrutiny by others, and force people, who have absolutely no interest in joining Facebook or any of the other social media sites due to concerns about privacy and identity theft. The number of posted comments with this new system has dramatically decreased. If you happen to find out anything that dramatically contradicts the facts that I have stated, I would appreciate an individual response to me. Otherwise, feel free to take the lead and alert your readers to this new situation.

August 26, 2011 11:11 AM

Getting it all wrong on Page 1

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Then-Gov. Christie Whitman frisking a suspect in 2004. The Record's "Political Stile" columnist today actually calls her one of  "Jersey's groundbreaking heroines," right up there with Molly Pitcher, Clara Barton and Althea Gibson.

Parting leader pays up

"Pays up." Doesn't that sound as if Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney owed a debt or faced a fine, and paid it? 

But that's not the case, as you learn in the drop headline and story on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park today -- he gave big raises to non-union employees as one of his parting shots before he leaves office. And what's with the awkward "parting leader"? Do you really need the word "parting"? Just call him what he is: "Dem pol spends big."

Also, if McNerney has the power to give the 3.5 percent raises to about 200 employees, doesn't incoming Republican County Executive Kathleen Donovan have the power to rescind them? Staff Writer Michael Gartland, who has been reporting on all the political cronies being hired by the defeated Democrats, doesn't even ask Donovan that question.

As if the lead head isn't bad enough, the headline on the second A-1 story -- on DWI arrests -- is about as inaccurate as they get. Although the graphic and text show drunken-driving arrests were down 3 percent in 2009, the headline declares:

Penalties aren't reducing DWIs

Well, something is reducing DWI arrests, and the headline should have said that. The story says "drunken-driving arrests last year were the fewest recorded in the past decade."

Breaking ranks?

Columnist Charles Stile appears to be breaking ranks with all the Governor Christie apologists at The Record, but his L-1 "Political Stile" column is so poorly written and so poorly organized today, it's hard to tell just what he is getting at.

His lead paragraph says the woman Christie nominated to replace John E. Wallace on the New Jersey Supreme Court could be a heroine "for the next generation of New Jersey girls if she ever joins" the court, becoming its fourth female member.

What he doesn't do is mention Wallace or criticize Christie for not naming a black man or woman to replace the court's only African-American justice, who was denied lifetime tenure by the governor, in defiance of decades of precedent. Then, Stile lists Christie Whitman, one of the worst governors ever, as among "groundbreaking Jersey heroines."

At this point, Stile veers  off and starts attacking two  female Republican senators -- who back the nomination of Anne Patterson to the court -- for refusing to help overturn Christie's veto of $7.4 million for family planning clinics, which serve poor, uninsured women.

He blasts Christie as "the party's brook-no-dissent leader." C'mon, Charlie, you can do better than that.

Another bad head

On L-3, a story on Hackensack residents finally returning to their Prospect Avenue apartments more than five months after they were evacuated carries a real puzzling headline:

Residents return to scene of garage collapse

It's probably time to acknowledge the news copy desk's sharp decline in quality and accuracy since copy editors from the Herald News replaced veteran Record copy editors, who left when Publisher Stephen A. Borg merged the two news staffs. 
 

What is the paper really worth?

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What's worth more? A copy of The Record of Woodland Park or toilet paper?

At 8:30 this morning, my wife went out to our driveway to pick up our copy of The Record of Woodland Park, but the familiar light-blue plastic bag wasn't there.


I called. The announcement said I had reached the circulation department of the Herald News and The Record at the headquarters of North Jersey Media Group. Why is Herald News mentioned first? Isn't The Record the "flagship" of NJMG? 


Then, you're told a representative isn't available, but you can use an automated system.


Since mid-2008, when I started subscribing to the paper, I have never been able to speak to a "representative." Are there any representatives on duty or is this another fiction perpetuated by the Borgs, such as saying The Record was "published" at 150 River St. in Hackensack for a couple of years after printing was moved to Rockaway Township?


I won't bore you with the rest of the call, but if your paper is wet or missing, the circulation department isn't eager to rush another copy to you. Never mind the effort put into the paper by editors and reporters, and advertising people, and editorial employees whose stories sound like advertising.


No. First, you're offered two days' credit, and, of course, they'll "register your complaint." I always ask to have a copy delivered.


I pay a preferential rate for former employees that works out to 14 cents a copy. So, is the paper worth only 28 cents -- less than its cover price?

Lock him up, throw away the key

Image via Wikipedia

The New Jersey blue-plate special. It's often seen on cars that are driven conservatively.

 Editor's note: This post was published prematurely, then taken down to complete it.

Trains and buses into Manhattan are standing-room-only during rush hours, the local bus system is on its last legs and traffic congestion is choking the region. So what does commuting columnist John Cichowski write about on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park today? How the state hopes to raise extra money through the sale of special license plates.


If this Desk Warrior actually went to Leesburg state prison to interview two inmates who make New Jersey plates with NASCAR and sports-team logos, it apparently was one of the few times he left the office on a story in recent years. 

Chick, as he's known around the office, mostly writes about the problems of hundreds of drivers who send him e-mails that keep him  riveted to his office chair, while head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes pats him affectionately on the head. 


His column today is another crime against readers. Someone should lock him up and throw away the key.

What about local elections?

The big element on A-1 today is a wire-service story forecasting the outcome of today's midterm congressional elections. But is their any word in the paper about crucial local elections, including the Bergen County executive and sheriff's races? Editor Francis Scandale is so bored with them.

What on earth is education reporter Leslie Brody doing writing about burglaries in Tenafly, where Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives in a $3.65 million, 8,500-square-foot McMansion? Police report six break-ins and four attempted burglaries in roughly two months likely are related. 

I guess the burglars got uncomfortably close to Borg's Churchill Road home or he recalled the brazen heist of hundreds of thousands of dollars in antique jewelry from his father's East Hill mansion in Englewood. Have you ever seen a story leading the Local section on burglaries in Hackensack, Teaneck or any other town?

More police news

Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado breaks her nine-day silence by writing two stories about the Police Department, just about the only city agency she has covered in the past two years. In Teaneck, an Orthodox congregation has come to the rescue of an historic tree on Cedar Lane. Mazel tov. 


There is no Englewood news nor anything on the issues-driven municipal races in Ridgewood and other communities.




Buried on L-3 is a story on Governor Christie's effort to slash and cap the pay of the hundreds of pampered school superintendents in New Jersey. Why isn't this on A-1? Oh, then there would be no room for Chick's drivel.

Sleight of hand

But there's more. Check out the story on the L-8 business page on how The Record has outperformed competing dailies, including The Star-Ledger and the New York papers, with the smallest circulation decline of them all for the six months ended Sept. 30 over the year-earlier period. 


What the story doesn't say is that The Record's circulation figures include the Herald News (total of 137,269 daily and 171,348 Sunday). Borg always manages to leave that out.


Borg is quoted as saying The Record has been able to "maintain its circulation because of its continued dedication to the editorial product." This from the marketing whiz who gave us "The Trusted Local Source" as the paper's motto, replacing, "Friend of The People It Serves."


"Every day, we evaluate the product looking for ways to make it better," Borg said. 

Can't you hear the howls of laughter from readers, who see less and less local, education and food coverage, not more?


Finally, bad headlines continue to confuse. "Day jobs in the way of vote to limit raises" -- the A-1 lead today -- successfully avoids the right word, "conflicts," as in: "Conflicts in the way of vote to limit raises."


On L-1, the headline says, "5 laid-off officers hired to city force after retirements." Hired to? Shouldn't it be "hired by"?

No real news on Page 1 today

Image by Shaun Greiner via Flickr













The three stories on the front page of The Record of Woodland Park today could have run yesterday, tomorrow or never, and readers would have been no worse off. They don't amount to more than holiday weekend filler in the absence of any real news.

The main element on A-1 isn't a story at all, but a graphic on the bleak New Jersey job picture. That's not news, as the tens of thousands of jobless residents know, and with companies like North Jersey Media Group around, it's not likely to get better anytime soon.


What does a company do with its millions of dollars in reserve? Should it hire more editorial workers to improve its product, in this case local news? Absolutely not. 

It forked over $3.65 million in the form of a company mortgage to dim-witted Publisher Stephen A. Borg so he, his wife, and their kids can escape the confines of a $2 million mansion in Tenafly, then downsized The Record and Herald News, bidding adieu to dozens of loyal and hard-working employees.


The lead story today is a speculative one about politics and the November elections. These are among the most-boring topics in The Record or any other medium -- so far removed from most readers' concerns with paying the mortgage and their property taxes, and sending their  kids to college.


Will the media ever stop reporting every bill, every law, every government program in terms of its impact on the next election? Why not write more about the victims of recession -- not charts with up and down arrows, but profiles of people facing their biggest challenges?


The third story on the front page today is on the hot-button issue of illegal immigration, and deportations in New Jersey. I have yet to see a story as extensive on the need for reform of the legal immigration system, which is the cause of much illegal immigration.


In Local, Mike Kelly is back for a second day in a row, like a bad case of indigestion.

His L-1 column on the Ground Zero mosque controversy reads like a news story. He quotes both sides and an expert, but refuses to venture an opinion of his own. Why is this a column? He breaks no new ground. He calls himself a journalist, but as a columnist, he doesn't have the balls to take a stand.


Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado has her second story in nine days on L-1 today. The Police Department, it seems, may hire experienced officers laid off by other towns. Hey, Monsy, don't overwork yourself.


Alvarado quotes City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono on police hiring, but apparently doesn't take the opportunity to ask him about the new property tax rate, plans for solar panels on public buildings, a proposal to change the zoning of downtown to encourage development along Main Street and other pressing issues she has ignored for more than a year.


Monsy, I know you're just obeying head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, who always tells you: "We're not interested in Hackensack, anymore. It's so passe. It's so far away [from Woodland Park]. It's so tres, tres fey."

As are Teaneck and Englewood, it seems, two other diverse communities that are ignored for yet another day. 

(Photo: Labor Day parade.)

Did I miss the part on property taxes?

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Did you know Governor Christie made 88 campaign promises, as reported today all over the front page of The Record of Woodland Park? Only 12 of them -- about one-seventh -- are addressed in a story on how well he has kept those pledges, but I don't see anything about his promise to cut property taxes. He did promise to cut that levy, didn't he?


This is one thin Sunday paper. After I shuffled through the sections and recycled those of little or no interest to me, I was left with the main news section and Local, a total of 18 pages. Travel was a throwaway. The Business front featured perks for workers at small companies in New Jersey, without betraying how poorly employees are treated at North Jersey Media Group, owner of The Record and Herald News, and many weekly newspapers.

Under the leadership of Publisher Stephen A. Borg and big sister Jennifer A. Borg, who is NJMG vice president and general counsel, the popular Food section has been folded, dozens of veteran workers have been shown the door, salaries and severance have been cut, newsroom productivity has plummeted, retirees have faced benefit cuts and highly profitable commercial printing has been jettisoned (leading to the layoff of 55 press workers).

Local has no news from Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood or a bunch of other towns, but there is a roundup leading the section on residents' anxiety over property tax hikes this year and next. Gee, how come there was no refer from the A-1 Christie story, the one that omits any mention of his promise to cut those taxes? 


At least the roundup story finally tells me and other Hackensack readers we will be paying "around 7 percent" more in property taxes, double the projected hike in Englewood. Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado, who is assigned to Hackensack, hasn't written a word about the city budget or tax hike, under orders from head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, whose grand plan for local news is not to cover it.


Also on L-1, Road Warrior John Cichowski apparently comes out against vision and road tests for older drivers, based on statistics showing drivers over 65 rank last among those killed in crashes from 2004 to 2008. Ah, but where are the statistics on how many people older drivers kill? 

Did he leave them out, because they would have weakened his argument? On the continuation page, there is a photo and story about an 89-year-old driver who plowed into a vacant storefront while trying to parallel park.


You can find a far more reasoned approach to the issue on Cliffview Pilot.com, where former Breaking News Editor Jerry DeMarco urges testing of drivers 65 and over:


Test elderly drivers before someone is killed

(Photo: Hackensack River as seen from Teaneck.)

Corporate B.S. artist hogs Page 1

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BP CEO Tony Hayward said so little of substance before Congress -- and continued to throw around bullshit about the massive Gulf oil spill -- you have to wonder why his photo is all over Page 1 of  The Record of Woodland Park today.


You have to question the news judgment of the editors, who ordered huge, black type on A-1 to trumpet Hayward's apology, despite its insincerity and despite its redundancy -- coming just two days after his boss, BP's chairman, issued a heartfelt apology to the American people in the White House Rose Garden and backed up his words with a $20 billion fund for victims.


Doesn't Hayward's British reserve, captured best by TV news, drive you crazy? Why doesn't someone revoke his visa? Why doesn't Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin take a break from praising just about everything Governor Christie does and write a withering editorial about this corporate buffoon (photo above)? 


Do the editors and Publisher Stephen A. Borg see a kindred spirit in Hayward, whose corporate bullshit parallels the journalistic bullshit they've thrown at readers? Is anyone convinced by the paper's new motto, "The Trusted Local Source," as local news becomes harder to and harder to find in the thin, former Hackensack daily?  Borg ordered that marketing phrase to replace the decades-old "Friend of The People It Serves."


Why does the AP story on A-1 omit Hayward's $6 million annual salary, which he disclosed in his testimony on Capitol Hill? At least he didn't try to fool lawmakers by telling them, "I'm not in this for the money," the preposterous statement Borg made at his first meeting with the paper's employees in mid-2006.


Of course, a year and a few months later, Borg sucked out $3.65 million from North Jersey Media Group to buy a bigger mansion in Tenafly, then apparently started putting together plans for the downsizing of The Record and Herald News, including the exodus of 20- and 30-year newsroom and photo staffers and the move out of Hackensack. Yet, Borg testified before a jury in April that he's just "a salesman."


By placing the Hayward nonsense on A-1, the editors also serve to downplay Christie's plan to take away $91 million in sales taxes generated by the state's urban enterprise zones. The story, on the front of Local, clearly shows the governor, a friend of small business, draws the line when the business owners are black and Hispanic. 



Christie could raise $600 million from the millionaires tax he opposes, and tens of millions from raising the low gasoline tax. Why is he picking on minority business owners and giving a pass to the Borgs and other wealthy residents, and why aren't the paper's editorials beating up on him?


Yet another Local section contains no news of Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood (except for a Teaneck police brief).


In Better Living today, another restaurant review by Food Editor Bill Pitcher demonstrates what a minor light he is, especially when you compare him with such predecessors as Patricia Mack and Mark Howat, who died June 11. Howat, for example, wrote glowingly of dining on vegetables picked that morning and a roast from a pig raised naturally on a local farm -- and this was decades ago.

What do you get from Pitcher and Elisa Ung, the normal restaurant reviewer, who is on leave? You get little awareness of the origin and quality of the food they review, an obsession with desserts and a lot of bullshit about celebrity chefs. At least in today's review, Pitcher sampled some non-meat dishes, which is not always the case.


But he compares a locally run Italian restaurant to chain restaurants, and gives Zocco Ristorante in Hillsdale only two stars -- the same rating Ung gave Bahama Breeze, a faux-Caribbean chain restaurant on the highway in Wayne. That's the kiss of death.

Preference for younger workers

Image by JaymezB via Flickr

On the witness stand in Superior Court the other day, Barbara Jaeger denied that she prefers younger workers. But Jaeger, a lifer who worked her way up from news clerk to head features editor of The Record and Herald News, was contradicted by the evidence.

Over the years, she has had problems with such experienced newsroom employees as Trudy Walz, John Zeaman, Patricia Mack, Bob Dixon and Joe Diz. They and others left her department, including Joan Verdon. As a result, young Theoden and Amanda Janes came to work for Jaeger, replacing Joan and Trudy.

According to testimony in Sasson v. The Record, in a five-year period, Jaeger hired Bill Pitcher (replacing Mack), Marlaina Cockroft, Alfa Garcia, Robert Biesilin, Elisa Ung, Mike Kerwick and Terecille Basa-Ong, and Sachi Fujimori came into her department from the Herald News. All were in their 20s and 30s.

Yet, Jaeger denied in front of the jury that she prefers younger workers. Case law says an apparent preference for younger workers is circumstantial evidence of age discrimination. Pitcher was 31 when he got the food editor's job I had applied for.

The Record responds to hoax

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Click on the link below to read a blow-by-blow description of an April Fools Day hoax on North Jersey Media Group and the Borg family, owners of The Record of Woodland Park, Herald News, weekly newspapers and other publications.

The item appeared on nj.com, the Web site of the Star-Ledger, which has a news-gathering agreement with NJMG (Star-Ledger stories appear throughout The Record). Here is the link:


April Fool's Day Hoax

Hey, Mac, where are you?

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Hey, Mac, don't you see what they are doing to your newspaper? Don't you see how those lazy, incompetent editors have shifted the news focus away from Bergen County, alienating readers in Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck and other important towns? Don't you see how the editors let their pals go days, weeks, months and even years without a byline, causing resentment among productive members of the news staff?

Don't you see how your two spoiled brats, Stephen and Jennifer, have pushed you aside and completely taken over?

You, Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, are the chairman of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of  The Record, Herald News, weeklies and other publications, so why have you kept your office in the landmark building at 150 River St. when just about everybody else has moved to Woodland Park, Rockaway Township and other offices? What do you do all day?

I remember how full of bluster you were when, as publisher, you made your unannounced visits to the Hackensack newsroom  in the 1980s and 1990s, exchanging spirited banter with Record editors and reporters and even admonishing them about abusing the furniture.

I remember when you still had a personal chef in Hackensack and invited me to attend a lunch with Stephen Berger, then the newly appointed executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an agency I covered as the paper's transportation reporter.

You had never met Berger before, but you still drank then and you used the f-word to express your frustration with inaction on one of your pet projects -- an air museum at the Port Authority-owned Teterboro Airport. "What the f--k is going on with ....," your sentence began.

Since then, you have had big health problems and you are a shadow of the man you once were. As a reuslt, The Record is completely ruderless. Editor Frank "The Fish Stinks from the Head Down" Scandale is a failure as a leader. Head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes seems unable to inspire her local reporters, and her deputies are clueless.

The front page of The Record of Woodland Park seems to reflect the paper's precipitous decline.

Most of the page is devoted to yet another infrastructure story by transportation reporter Karen Rouse, who seems to have pieced it together from news releases, a report and a few phone calls. Scandale hand-picked Rouse from his old newspaper, but she failed miserably when given a chance as an assistant assignment editor.

She also is lazy. When the newsroom was still in Hackensack, she couldn't muster the energy to walk across River Street to the bus station and ride the decrepit No. 780 local bus, which is used almost exclusively by blacks and Hispanics who can't afford cars and which contrasts starkly with much newer NJ Transit buses for mostly white commuters to Manhattan.

The lead story on A-1 is a fascinating exploration of corrupt campaign financing based in Dumont by Staff Writer Ashley Kindergan, whose energy and unstinting leg work puts Rouse and many other reporters to shame. The story is yet another powerful argument for dismantling the home-rule system.

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On the front of Local, three of the four stories focus on Paterson, Passaic County and the Passaic River. The section has nothing but police news about Hackensack, where Mac Borg grew up, where The Record was founded in 1895 and where it prospered for more than 110 years.


 I never read The Record's sports columnists, but when I turned to Ian O'Connor's column on the incredible victory of the Saints in yesterday's Super Bowl, boy was I disappointed. This hack squanders his first six paragraphs on a detailed retelling of an interception and buries his lead -- that this was all about the triumph of the City of New Orleans, which was crapped on for so many years by the Bush administration after Hurricane Katrina.

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More misinformation?

Environmental reporting at The Record of Woodland Park should be recycled. Editors and reporters have ignored Hackensack's excellent program to accept such electronics as TVs and computers, and compact fluorescent bulbs containing mercury, and have written nothing about delays of two years or more facing homeowners who want to install solar panels.

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Now, Staff Writer James Yoo reports on the front of Local today that towns in Bergen and Passaic counties no longer accept household batteries for recycling. He quotes everyone but Hackensack officials. I wasn't able to reach Hackensack's recycling director, but the city employee who answered the phone said that as far as she knew, batteries still are accepted for recycling. So who is correct?

Hackensack, after all, is where The Record was founded in 1895 and were it prospered for more than 110 years. Now, the paper not only has moved printing and virtually all of its news staff out of River City, but it has turned its back on city's residents and most of their news, along with ignoring Teaneck and Englewood as much as possible. 

For weeks at a time, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado is missing in inaction, and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes seems not to notice or care. The Borg family? Just counting the money.

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It looks like Staff Writer Joseph Ax and Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi have been pulled out of Haiti and in the process, the incompetent editors have demoted coverage of the humanitarian crisis. In the few days they were there, Haiti again was front-page news (coat of arms is shown).

Page 1 today is filled with hard news, including Staff Writer Michael Gartland's continuing revelations about financial abuses by Bergen County school district officials. The lead story says the Xanadu shopping and entertainment complex may open after all, despite all the attempts by The Record and Staff Writer John Brennan to write its obituary.

The major element on the front reports on the state's share of the proposed federal budget, including allowing tax cuts to expire for such wealthy people as Malcolm, Stephen and Jennifer Borg of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record and Herald News. The top bracket would go to 39 percent from 35 percent. I doubt a 4% jump in taxes would crimp their lifestyle: a heady mix of mansions, vacation and city homes, a wine bar and more.

I laughed when I saw the main headline on the front of  Better Living:  "The high cost of free advertising," referring to complaints by a Ridgewood couple whose restaurant will be profiled on Chef Gordon Ramsay's "Kitchen Nightmares" reality program (photo).

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 Of course, there is absolutely no cost to restaurateurs for the lavish, uncritical coverage by The Record and Staff Writer Elisa Ung, who would make a good addition to the advertising staff. Recall her huge spread about Bobby Flay's hamburger restaurant in Paramus, her blow-by-blow reporting about the ups and downs of the South City Restaurant Group and her two-star review of Bahama Breeze, a mediocre chain restaurant on the highway in Wayne. Or how about her failure to investigate claims by the nail-biting Flay and other chefs intent on hiding the low quality of the beef they serve?


I am still waiting for a reality program called "Newsroom Nightmares," which would expose The Record and other newspapers for cutting staffs and benefits, and turning their backs on local news, while their owners continue to prosper.

 

Bad start to a new year

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The first day of the new year doesn't bode well for readers of  The Record of Woodland Park, which continues to downplay the worsening obesity epidemic and ignore local news.

The lazy, incompetent editors have stubbornly refused to launch a North Jersey obesity project, which could improve the health of readers. But they had no trouble squandering hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff salaries and nearly three years on the recently concluded vendetta against Michael Mordaga, former chief of detectives in the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. (See post of Dec. 16, 2009.)

On Page A-15 today, The Record prints its "editorial credo," as it does every year. Don't read this too closely or it might resemble a fairy tale.

For example, I wonder how readers in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood, and all the other towns that get spotty news coverage feel about this sentence in the credo: "Our function is to serve the public interest...." And in reading the credo year after year when I worked there, I always worried that the editorial and opinion staff  worked "under the editor, with occasional suggestions and guidance from the editor/vice president, president and chairman of the board (Stephen A. Borg and his father, Malcolm A. Borg, respectively, neither of whom are journalists).

Stephen Borg, a marketing guru who also is publisher of The Record and Herald News, always seems intent on stretching the truth, as in his choice of  "The Trusted Local Source" to replace "Friend of The People It Serves" under the masthead on Page 1. He also promised food and education coverage "every day," but the editors have failed to deliver. And, of course, the biggest joke he played on employees when he took over was declaring, "I'm not in this for the money," then trading up to a $3.65 million estate with a mortgage from his family's North Jersey Media Group. Cutbacks at the daily papers soon followed, including the move of virtually all of the editors and reporters out of a landmark building in Hackensack, the Bergen County seat.

About the only good thing you can say about the younger Borg is that he repudiated many of the news coverage policies of Editor Frank "The Fish Stinks from the Head Down" Scandale and called for the appointment of an obituary writer to give an eloquent farewell to notable and intriguing North Jerseyans (after years of increasingly spare coverage of locals who died). The work of veteran Staff Writer Jay Levin, a former colleague of mine on the news copy desk, has often been the highlight of the Local section. Today, Levin does a round-up of those who died in 2009.

The first restaurant review of the new year is written by Bill Pitcher, the so-called food editor, replacing Elisa Ung, who is on leave until summer, according to a note at the end of the column in Better Living. Unfortunately, Ung's two-star review of Bahama Breeze, a fake-Caribbean chain restaurant that opened this year on the highway in Wayne, will haunt Pitcher, who gives only two and a half stars to Bistro 55 in Rochelle Park, even though the chef makes an effort to serve naturally raised food.

And in view of the obesity epidemic, isn't it time for Pitcher to break the mold of how restaurants are reviewed and substitute a salad or a cheese-and-fruit course for all those gooey, artery-clogging desserts he and Ung devour and obsess over? He sampled four of them for this review alone.

Decade in review: Our paper changed

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Don't let today's decade-in-review edition of The Record of Woodland Park fool you about changes in North Jersey. You won't read a word about how the former Hackensack daily began a slow decline under the leadership of  a dictatorial editor who downplayed the importance of local news and two greedy Borg siblings who backed him.

But I want to interrupt this condemnation to praise Road Warrior John "Drivers' Best Friend" Cichowski for finally paying some attention to bus riders in today's column on the Local front, although the headline overstates the case. Now, he should ride one of the creaking local buses, such as the No. 780 between Englewood and the city of Passaic, to see a real horror show.

The lazy, incompetent editors assigned Staff Writer Mike Kelly to write the decade in review on Page 1. "It's been a weary and worrisome 10 years," he writes. Indeed, I can say the same for his columns. Kelly writes about bricks and mortar, and infrastructure, and touches oh-so-briefly on changes in the media, including declining newspaper readership, but is silent in those two bare paragraphs about The Record.

You won't find anything in his boring piece -- or the reviews on the Local front and elsewhere -- about how we've changed as a people or how the election of our first black president unleashed racism and opponents so desperate to smear him they invoked the Holocaust or simply told lies -- aided and abetted by the media.

Editor Frank "The Fish Stinks from the Head Down" Scandale came to The Record at the beginning of the decade and -- faced with his biggest story ever, 9/11 -- showed a colossal lack of news judgment by running Tom Franklin's incredible flag-raising photo on a back page. Then, in response to falling readership, he commissioned coverage aimed at 20-year-olds, and later banned one-town stories from the front page.

After the final weekday news meeting, Scandale used to send one of his subordinates over to the news copy desk where I worked to tell us what words he wanted on the front page and what words he didn't want there ("Frank wants this..., Frank doesn't want that...") One day, Chris Maurus, then the Page 1 editor, announced that Frank didn't want any mention of the Pulaski Skyway (photo) in a front-page story about crumbling infrastructure. Why?  He had never used it and he didn't think our readers knew where it was.

In 2006, Stephen A. Borg took over running the dailies from his publisher father, repudiated Scandale's 20-year-old feature coverage and nearly everything else Scandale did, yet promoted the editor to vice president. Borg, tiring of his $2 million house in Tenafly, obtained a $3.65 million mortgage from North Jersey Media Group so he could trade up to an estate in the same town.

He and his big sister, Jennifer A. Borg, NJMG vice president and general counsel,  invested money in an Englewood wine bar, a curious move for the children of a reformed alcoholic, and had a story about the place published in The Record's feature pages.

With more than $3.5 million tied up in Stephen's house, NJMG's two daily papers -- The Record and Herald News -- underwent a restructuring in 2008 and the smaller staffs were crammed into a newsroom in Woodland Park, virtually completing the company's abandonment  of Hackensack that began with the move of all printing to Rockaway Township. That forced NJMG to give up its hugely profitable commercial printing operation.

At the same time, news coverage of the city where The Record was founded in 1895 and had prospered for more than 110 years declined drastically. This year, more than a month passed on two occasions without a story about Hackensack in the former Bergen Record.

Around the time of the restructuring, Jennifer Borg capped severance at 12 weeks' salary, because payments to veterans who had left were adversely impacting the bottom line. This year, NJMG retirees were informed of cuts in their medical benefits.

Through 2007, 2008 and most of 2009, hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff salaries were squandered on an investigation of a single law enforcement official led by editor Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes, head of the assignment desk. A single story was published Dec. 16 on the Local front, and it certainly was laughable.


The "what made news" review on the Local front today touches on 36 towns -- compared to about 90 in The Record's circulation area. You want to laugh? Read the items about Hackensack and Englewood. Yet more than half of L-7 is devoted to a model train club in Paterson.

See anything good in the paper? Click on "comments" at the end of this post and let the world know.