Might as well subscribe to The Times

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A member of an East Hill group calling itself Englewood F.A.S.T., which seeks to cut city funding of the Englewood Public Library, is urging residents to attend fund-raisers to make up the difference.

Another awful paper today. Reporters and columnists seem determined to fill as much space as possible, and despite all that type, readers always are left with questions. Where do you go when you want to know what's going on in North Jersey? 

Certainly not The Record of Woodland Park under desperate Editors Francis Scandale, Deirdre Sykes, Tim Nostrand, Jim McGarvey, Barbara Jaeger, Liz Houlton, et. al.


"Why don't you cancel your subscription to The Record and read The Times," my wife suggested. 

"I want to know what's going on in New Jersey," I said. 


"Well, you're not going to get that in The Record."

We were screwed

On Page 1 today, is this the tenth, 11th or 12th major story in the past couple of years on DuPont's royal corporate screwing of Pompton Lakes and all the contaminated land residents still have to deal with?


Staff Writer James M. O'Neill relates history dating to 1886, but there is not a word on whether the company has ever been sued or whether the state and town are going to take it to court now.

"We were ripped off," one resident says of DuPont. 

Now he knows how readers of The Record feel.


The other A-1 elements are a process story on the looming 2 percent property tax cap and a former nurse's whistle-blower lawsuit against Bergen Regional Medical Center -- the latter story carrying Staff Writer Jean Rimbach's oh-so-rare byline. 

Rimbach, of course, is head Assignment Editor Sykes' pet and one of the least productive members of the news staff.

Why isn't the A-12 story on TV stations refusing to run ads on a product to enhance a woman's sexual desire on the front page? Because the Business staff has no depth, and if it gave up that story, it would have nothing else to run in its place.

More Kelly 'magic'

I've lost count of how many times I've read a few paragraphs on the death of a pedestrian or a motorist in a single-car accident and have never seen a follow. People die in The Record and we never learn anything about them.


That was the case with Graciela Cruz, who was run down and killed Nov. 12 by a landscaping truck in Hillsdale -- until weeks later, clueless Columnist Mike Kelly found himself with nothing to write about, again. (He spells her name with two l's, then with one; I believe the latter is correct.)

So today, he really gets to fill a lot of space on the front and inside Sykes' Local section, even listing just about every store the woman walked by on the way to her fatal accident. After we plow through thousands of words, we learn she was wearing a hooded sweatshirt that blocked her peripheral vision while talking on her cellphone, and the driver was blinded by the sun.


But would the woman still be alive today if she took the bus? Is there a bus running along Broadway? And will her family be suing the driver of the landscaping truck and his employer for damages -- to salvage something from her meaningless death? 

On these subjects, the columnist who pushes around words is silent.

Weekly or weakly papers?

There is just a little municipal news in Local, including three stories apparently written by reporters of weekly newspapers affiliated with the former Hackensack daily, yet they're still called "Staff Writers."

One, on L-3, reports "several" residents and Englewood Public Library workers asked the City Council at a "recent" meeting not to cut library funding again. 

Mike Curley, the reporter, quotes Simeon Lifschitz -- a member of an East Hill group that has recommended cuts in the city budget -- as praising the library, which his children use, and urging everyone to attend library fund-raisers. 

But Curley never tells readers Lifschitz's group -- Englewood F.A.S.T. or Fiscal Accountability Starts Today Coalition -- also has urged officials to cut library funding.   

Editor's note: I've corrected the spelling of reporter Mike Curley's name.

Can we vote out the editors?

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Imagine if readers could vote out the editors of The Record of Woodland Park -- such lifers as Deirdre Sykes, Tim Nostrand, Barbara Jaeger, Liz Houlton (the hag in rags) and Jim "We Can't Get Rid of Him" McGarvey, plus shameless Editor Francis Scandale, who has cheapened the front page in the past decade.

Even when they are handed a great story, they don't know what to do with it.

Look at the clunky set of headlines on A-1 today, with "GOP" used on each of the two main stories, for an echo that is a big no-no in headline writing. 

Nothing would have been wrong with an umbrella head across the page to highlight the victory of Republicans in Bergen County and the U.S. House of Representatives.

And what does the drop headline on the House story mean? The past two years have been nothing but divisive, so the head, "Anti-Obama sentiment ushers in divided era," is confusing. It refers to what the story calls "the transition to divided government," a reference to the Senate and House being controlled by opposing parties. Also, the word "era" is simply the wrong word.


Seven reporters were sent out to talk to voters, but their voices are buried on A-7.  Not much is made of how the Tea Party fell on its face in North Jersey or the role of Democrats who crossed party lines to elect County Clerk Kathleen Donovan as Bergen County executive.


Scandale, Sykes and their minions love election day. It means they can fill the paper with routine election  stories and don't have to scramble to fill all the holes left by the mostly unproductive local staff. 

Check the lost-and-found for all those jobs

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

People wait on line to speak to job recruiters at a career day program.

Is The Record of Woodland Park trying to hide its role and the role of every other employer in the dismal jobs picture -- a main issue in next month's congressional elections? On Page 1 today, a refer carries the headline:

Jobs not growing
in Garden State

Gee, if you could grow jobs like tomatoes or corn, New Jersey would be in great shape. But the text below the headline says "the state lost 20,200 jobs" last month as the rest of the U.S. added them. How did it "lose" jobs? Did anyone check the employment lost-and-found?

Of course, the Borgs and every other employer would like nothing more than if readers believe jobs could be "lost" and "found." Publisher Stephen A. Borg is especially sensitive about this issue because of the $3.65 million he sucked out of North Jersey Media Group in the form of a mortgage for his 8,000-square-foot home in Tenafly.

If Greedy Stevie had stayed in his $2 million home, could he have postponed the downsizing that followed several months later or made it less severe? 

The quality of the paper had been going downhill under the incompetent leadership of Editors Francis Scandale, Deirdre Sykes, Tim Nostrand, Jim McGarvey, Barbara Jaeger and others, but when Borg jettisoned many experienced workers and moved to Woodland Park, the decline gathered great speed.

In the employment story on L-8, the first Business page, Staff Writer Hugh Morley does not use the word "employers" or "companies" or "businesses" or "small-business owners" anywhere. Jobs are identified as "government" and "private sector." It's other-worldly. 

So, if you read between the lines, you learn that businesses in New Jersey fired, downsized, laid off or otherwise royally screwed 9,400 more people in September than they hired. How many thousands of families saw their lives turned upside down, while Stephen sipped a great Bordeaux at the Englewood wine bar in which he and his big sister have invested?

Recently, the Business pages had a Q&A with an executive from Ramsey who said it was "too expensive" to hire employees. What goes unsaid by this moron, Borg and others is that the worker who remains standing is expected to do the work of two, three or more who have been shown the door, while the executives keep more of the money for themselves.

The L-8 story reports "the state lost 10,800 government jobs." Was that because of Governor Christie's state aid cuts, which have fallen most heavily on the middle and working classes? Not a word on the cause of the jobs "loss" appears in the story.

This is Zisa's defense?

On A-1 today, the defense attorney for suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa complains  the investigation of him was one-sided and he was denied the chance to testify before the grand jury. He also proclaims his innocence, but if this is all his attorney has, he'll soon be going down in flames. 

Why is this on Page 1, in place of the debate between Bergen County executive candidates?


Monsy catches up to the weeklies

Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado has a second story in the paper today, an L-1  report on  zoning and other changes proposed for Main Street that are many months old. 

She buries on the continuation page that one of the changes sought is a return to two-way traffic, and omits any mention of how The Record's abandonment of Hackensack has affected businesses.

Better Living


Thursday's Better Living section has been missing food coverage for years, but a Starters column appears today, moved up from its usual Friday slot. Unfortunately, this first look at a new restaurant in Tappan, N.Y., completely omits prices, making the piece sound suspiciously like an advertisement.

 

Laughter amid the tears

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I've said it before and I'll say it again: Editors Francis Scandale, Deirdre Sykes, Jim McGarvey and the rest of that sorry lot at The Record of Woodland Park cannot handle The Big Story.

Today's tabloid-like front page is dominated by the sad tale of a father who killed his two young children in Ringwood, then took his own life; and the indictment of suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa on new charges. 

Both stories have problems, and near the end, the latter story provides comic relief by reporting, "Zisa....comes from a family of public servants." What a joke.

How many decades is The Record and other media going to report there were no outward signs of trouble and the neighbors were shocked or stunned after a murder, suicide or other tragedy, and never do the story on 1) how superficial our relationships with our neighbors truly are, and 2) is there anyplace a troubled person can turn for help in North Jersey? 

Instead, 11 reporters, a photographer and a graphic artist are thrown at assembling the main bar under the questionable leadership of Editor Jim McScreamy. The bodies were discovered Monday night at 8, so either the late police checks missed this important story or the cops withheld it until Tuesday.  

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Why are there no interviews with Hackensack residents on the indictment of  the police chief?

Turning to the Zisa story, why did the Hackensack reporter find it necessary to attribute the indictment to the Prosecutor's Office, and why didn't any editor catch that clunky construction in the lead story on Page 1? 

Why are there no interviews with residents, who flooded northjersey.com with comments (see previous post)? Where is the sidebar on whether Zisa's legal troubles, lawsuits filed against him and cops' disciplinary hearings have affected the morale of the department or the quality of policing? Does the public still have confidence in the department?

In short, when is Sykes and her minions going to get their heads out of their ample asses, and give some real direction to Monsy Alvarado, who has been pursuing the Zisa story for nearly two years, often to the exclusion of basic news about the city, where the newspaper was founded in 1895?

Even when the paper's employees filled four floors at 150 River St., only a few blocks from Hackensack Police Department headquarters, I cannot recall a story on the Zisa family dynasty and the nepotism, in what many refer to as "Zisaville."

Do you think Karen Rouse or any other reporter who covered the New Jersey Turnpike Authority in recent years ever asked to see the agency's budget? (See A-1 story today on "$43 million in waste.")

In Local, a story reports a Hebrew-immersion elementary school in Englewood is applying for designation as a charter school -- just what that city needs to further segregation in the lower grades.


Food Editor Susan Sherrill's "In Your Kitchen" column debuts in Better Living today (F-1) with two recipes from a French cookbook that use butter, cream and pancetta (similar to bacon). The F-2 photo is by her husband. If you're watching your cholesterol, please turn the page.

Editor Barbara Jaeger's Better Living section is always designated "F," as in F.U. to readers who want to eat healthy meals.

Summer news doldrums

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If you doubt the editors of The Record of Woodland Park are stalled in the summer news doldrums, just look at today's dreadful paper -- especially bad for a Sunday. There's nothing special here, not on the front page or on the front of Local, nor will you find any news about such important towns as Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood.


Page 1 brings us a massive story on infrastructure -- will the decades-old Route 17 bottleneck between Routes 4 and 80 be fixed? The lead is about a parolee from South Orange who stabbed his wife in Florida. Another road trip for readers. Finally, the third story speculates on a higher retirement age.


It's the editors who should retire, along with the tired Sunday columnists -- John Cichowski, Mike Kelly and Bill Ervolino -- they continue to use as filler. Editors Frank "Castrato" Scandale, Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, Jim "McScreamy" McGarvey and others are doing their best to bore readers and deprive them of the news they need.

Does Publisher Stephen A. Borg really know what turkeys he has working for him?

The so-called Sunday special on the front of Local should have been published weeks ago, before the start of the summer camp season. Was it held? The Route 17 story on A-1 belongs here, in the Local section. On L-2 and L-3, minor accidents become major photos -- to take up the space of local news Sykes' reporters didn't bother to cover.

You won't find anything on the proposed Hackensack budget or tax hike or the city's new mayor. That's too basic for Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado, who supposedly is assigned to cover the city, but with Sykes' help, covers her ass. Education news today? Just the dean's list.


In Better Living, food coverage consists of a wire-service story urging readers to eat more vegetables. Really? Vegetables are good for you? Now, that's real news. 

Readers who can't afford an exorbitantly priced second home at the Jersey Shore likely enjoyed the Real Estate front on more affordable lake homes, but the story doesn't discuss whether big boats and personal watercraft are allowed. They would certainly shatter the peaceful, bucolic scene.

Today, CliffviewPilot.com  discusses childhood obesity. Along with past entries on the challenges facing older drivers, Jerry DeMarco's Web site is taking up The Record's slack on public service to local readers.


And here is belated recognition to Cichowski, whose Road Warrior column on Friday finally listed the help available to older motorists, whose pedal confusion often leads to fatal and near-fatal accidents. But isn't this subject bigger than a single article (apparently the first in Cichowski's nearly seven years as a columnist)?


If Sykes and Scandale can chain several reporters to a so-called investigation of former lawman Michael Mordaga for nearly three years -- all for a single story last December that was so weak they had to run it on the front of Local -- then older drivers, their victims and their families deserve far more attention than they have been receiving.
 
The sorry Mordaga vendetta will forever be known as the editors' $500,000 boner (a guesstimate of the staff salaries squandered on the project).

When will the editors tell readers the real story?

Grand Avenue and Route 4 in Englewood.

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You'll find hard news on the front page that many North Jersey readers can relate to and stories from two important Bergen County towns today in The Record of Woodland Park, but still not a word about Hackensack.


The mark of a great newspaper is using a story like the fire deaths of four in a violations-filled house (A-1) as a launching pad for a series of stories on slumlords in Paterson, Passaic and other urban centers in North Jersey. The paper should name the landlords of all that rickety housing --  occupied by working class and immigrant families --  list the housing violations and call for reform. 

But I doubt The Record's editors, including Frank "Castrato" Scandale, Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes and Jim McGarvey, will do now what they have deliberately ignored for so long.


What a hoot. One of the alleged Russian spies has been linked to an Englewood restaurateur (A-7), the Daily News reports. The story only serves to highlight how reporters assigned to Englewood have completely ignored the power and influence of the businessman, Michel Bittan, along Palisade Avenue, where he reportedly owns many buildings. Bittan's pricey Italian restaurant, Solaia, is on the same block as the wine bar in which the spoiled Borg siblings have invested.


Readers will be shocked today to find two meaty stories from Teaneck and Englewood on the front of Local, then search in vain for anything about Hackesnack, which North Jersey Media Group has abandoned physically and editorially.


The story on neighbors opposed to the Englewood ShopRite's plan to expand and build affordable housing provides little background to readers not familiar with that city, which is divided economically and racially by railroad tracks (guess which side Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg is on). The ShopRite shopping center was a major upgrade for the neighborhood, and likely spurred the renaissance of Palisade Avenue.


On L-7 (Business), Staff Writer John Brennan pulls out all the stops to promote a tennis marketing executive, in his best public relations style of reporting. The paper actually spent who knows how much to send this nitwit to a Las Vegas retail-leasing convention to report whether the stalled Xanadu development was able to attract new tenants. Neither of the two stories he wrote contained that information.


In Better Living, it's no-food-coverage Thursday.

More bone-headed news judgment

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A day after giving BP's clueless CEO a huge swath of the front page to showcase his empty apology, the editors at The Record of Woodland Park downplay news that he will be replaced as the company's point man on the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.


It's bad enough that Friday's Page 1 coverage embraced Tony Hayward's crocodile tears -- instead of blasting his seeming ignorance of problems before the explosion and sinking of the oil platform. Now, these editors seem intent on doing more PR for BP on the story of his departure (Page A-5).


The Hayward story would have gone perfectly with the A-1 piece on the New Jersey congressional effort to expose oil companies to greater liability, and the photo of an oil-covered pelican (A-5) would have looked good on the front page.


Local has no Hackensack education, development or municipal news today, but there are two stories on the front about upcoming hearings in Teaneck and Ridgewood. (Municipal reporters love to write about upcoming hearings.)


In Sports, I didn't get past the front of a staff-written analysis on how the U.S. team's winning goal was nullified. I wanted the paper to tell me whether World Cup soccer has an appeals process and if it doesn't, whether there is a move to review and possibly overrule referee's decisions. Wouldn't it be nice if someone like absentee Publisher Stephen A. Borg reviewed the boneheaded decisions by editors of the former Hackensack daily.



In Better Living, a "fresh take on lettuce" by Food Editor Bill Pitcher completely omits mention of pesticides and organic alternatives, but does offer recipes polluted with added sugar, mayonnaise and an egg yolk. He's The Record's BP, after all. Does anybody still eat iceberg lettuce, featured in a "frozen" salad? And the "pickled romaine" appears to be a half-assed attempt at the Korean staple, kimchi.


I wonder what the desperate editors -- Frank Scandale, Frank Burgos, Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, Barbara Jaeger, Liz Houlton, Tim Nostrand, Jim McGarvey (Jim McScreamy?) and their minions -- have in store for readers of Sunday's paper. Let's hope it's more than just covering their asses.

(Photo: Headquarters of BP Americas)

Christie and the Borgs -- perfect together

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Isn't this rich? Governor Christie (photo)  has cut aid to towns, schools and mass transit, but is paying his staff hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Jon Corzine did when he was in office, according to a front-page story in The Record of Woodland Park today.

Doesn't that remind you of how Publisher Stephen Borg ordered his editors to create many new jobs with lower salaries or simply to slash veteran workers' pay by as much as $10,000 just months after getting a $3.65 million mortgage from North Jersey Media Group, headed by his father?

Doesn't that remind you of Stephen Borg's stated goal -- a newsroom where no one makes more than $40,000?

Even if you put Christie's explanation in the best light, his staff is being paid $600,000 more than Corzine's, the story says. The Associated Press figure is nearly $2 million more. Would that $600,000 save an after-school program in Englewood or cuts in train service slated for May 1?

Six days after the volcano erupted in Iceland and paralyzed air traffic, the story on stranded North Jerseyans shows up on the front page today. But there is nothing about the disruption of air shipments of food, fish and flowers from Europe.


In Local, there is a photo and a few words about Hackensack's recreation program, which is not being cut, unlike those in other municipalities, but that's it for residents of the former home of The Record and NJMG .I guess clueless head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions must be spending weeks at a retreat on how to cover local news.

There are six crime, court or accident pieces inside Local, including a photo and six paragraphs about a car chase and downed light pole in Paterson. Did editor Jim McGarvey, head of Passaic-Morris coverage, have to shout at a reporter to turn out that stellar piece of work?

This is McGarvey's second period of employment at The Record, and he has failed in every job he has had. Yet he seems to have found his calling -- terrorizing his staff.

Where is the Bergen County news today?

The Record today looks like a good newspaper, with a Page 1 story on a Bergen County school superintendent sure to make taxpayers howl and with Governor-elect Chris Christie returning to the front page with a pledge of bipartisanship.

But you'd better stop there, because when you see the lack of Bergen County municipal news in the Local section for yet another day, you'll be the one howling for the heads of all those incompetent editors, who the Borgs have kept on for years and years.

The main element on the front of the Local section, from Pequannock, promotes a fanatical autograph-seeker who hopes to make $2 million by selling signed magazine covers. Who cares? Next to it is a story about flu vaccines from West Milford. Is this the Bergen edition? Inside are stories from Parsipanny, Wayne and Paterson, but nothing from Teaneck, Englewood and Hackensack, which was the paper's home for more than 110 years.

As a former employee, I get a preferential subscription rate, but as a resident of Hackensack, I feel cheated by the lack of news.

Why does the Passaic and Morris staff produce so much, while the Bergen staff seems lost? It may have to do with management style. Jim McGarvey was head of the digital-news group, which produces The Record's online edition, but he didn't work out there, so in 2007 or 2008,  his bosses shipped him out to run the Passaic-Morris Bureau in West Paterson, now Woodland Park.

Soon, word filtered back to me and others in the Hackensack newsroom that McGarvey was treating even his veteran reporters rudely. He would allegedly shout at them and order -- not assign -- them to cover stories. Is that the reason we are seeing so much news from outside Bergen County in The Record?

In Better Living, the editors may be trying to tell restaurant reviewer Elisa Ung something by putting her weekly fine-dining column, The Corner Table, on the back page of the section. She writes about misbehaving children from the restaurant owners' point of view, but not from the perspective of other diners, and doesn't mention bratty children in casual restaurants, such as Greek to Me and Cassie's, two places I used to like when I lived in Englewood, until the uncontrolled din drove me away from the latter.

Ung's columns often are poorly researched. She wrote two columns about tipping, but never reported whether the standard tip these days is supposed to be 15 percent, 18 percent or 20 percent? She wrote about the risks of buying gift cards for neighborhood restaurants that might go out of business, but didn't mention that more stable chain restaurants, such as McCormick and Schmick's, offer gift cards and some of them are sold at a discount by Costco.

Her topics can be far from weighty, such as the column she did on restaurant fireplaces. She never questions why a glass of wine is approaching $10 in some North Jersey restaurants -- the price for a great  bottle of wine at retail -- or why entree prices here are often higher than in Manhattan.