Readers eagerly awaiting Gannett changes in news coverage

Three allies of the Zisa family political machine enjoying drinks at the Picco Tavern in Hackensack on Thursday night as guests arrived to attend a fundraiser for Citizens for Change, the political organization that elected Mayor John Labrosse and other members of the City Council in 2013. They took photos of guests and urged at least one attendee not to go upstairs to the gathering. They are, from left, Board of Education Attorney Richard Salkin; Lynne B. Hurwitz, head of the city's Democratic Party; and her husband, Howard, executive director of the Northwest Bergen Utilities Authority.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Two Gannett veterans, Nancy A. Meyer and Robert A. Green, took over this past Tuesday, so readers are eagerly anticipating changes in The Record's news coverage.

How long they will have to wait is anyone's guess in view of another sensational crime story leading today's front page, and a silly A-1 sports column about an athlete 90% of readers have never heard of.

Green is the new editor, replacing veteran Deirdre Sykes, who held the job for all of seven months and a week; and Meyer is the new president of North Jersey Media Group, the post held by multi-millionaire Stephen A. Borg of Tenafly.

9/11: 15 years later

Fatigue is setting in over The Record's week-long 15th anniversary coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Today, there is another embarrassing story about the original flag in Photographer Thomas E. Franklin's photo that doesn't mention the editors put the dramatic image on a back page on Sept. 12, 2001 (A-1 and L-1). 

Typical of the screw-ups that plague the Woodland Park daily under six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton is that A-1 readers are referred to the wrong page for the full story on the installation of the flag at the 9/11 Museum (it's L-1, not A-8). 

Also, after three solid days of wordy Bridgegate trial previews this week, nothing appears today, when jury selection is to start.

Wacko Donald Trump

Sadly, The Record's harshest words about wacko racist Donald J. Trump and his unsuitability for the presidency don't appear in editorials.

Instead, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin's opinion column today slams both Trump and the "bad journalism" of NBC's Matt Lauer (A-19).

This reminds you of The Record's own bad journalism in running numerous Charles Stile columns putting a positive political spin on Governor Christie's every veto, and his war on the middle and working classes in New Jersey.

And, of course, The Record remains the only major New Jersey daily that hasn't called for the resignation of Christie for endorsing Trump.

Six of those papers are owned by Gannett, as is The Record.

Have a heart

Before you tackle some of the recommended dishes at Hearth & Tap Co. in Montvale, you might want to knock back a few of the gastropub's barrel-aged cocktails to make you forget just how unhealthy they are (BL-14).

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung's Good to Excellent review promotes several artery clogging dishes, including a cheesy crab dip, egg-and-pork belly flatbread, steak and porter pie, and toffee bread pudding.

First Record pink slips reportedly will be issued on Oct. 15

The Record is reporting a proposal to move the USS Ling to Paterson presents cost and engineering challenges, but not that the World War II-era sub is stuck in the mud of the Hackensack River and listing, as this photo from April shows.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Gannett, which has owned The Record for less than two months, will be issuing pink slips to copy editors, page designers and other so-called production workers on Oct. 15, a New York tabloid says.

Those employees were summoned to an Aug. 22 meeting and told production would be moved from Woodland Park to Neptune, where six other Gannett dailies are put out, Keith J. Kelly of the New York Post reported.

Gannett paid the Borg family "an estimated $40 million for the 121-year-old paper and sister titles and websites," says Kelly, the first reporter to disclose the selling price.

The Borgs held onto about 20 acres along River Street in Hackensack, where The Record was headquartered until 2009, and the land may fetch $20 million to $30 million when sold to an apartment developer.

Kelly says Gannett executives told copy editors, designers and other production workers they would have to apply for new jobs -- the same process former Publisher Stephen A. Borg used during a major newsroom downsizing in 2008.

"They will learn on Oct. 15 if they have jobs," Kelly reported on Saturday. "No word on how many will be getting pink slips."

One of those who is expected to go is six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, who earned the title of "Queen of Errors" when she ran the features copy desk.

Kelly's story has reporters and other newsroom staffers anxiously wondering when the Gannett ax will fall on them.

The Record lost four veteran copy editors in the 2008 downsizing, as well as the co-supervisor of the copy desk who single-handedly upheld standards of accuracy, grammar and news writing.

See: Borgs take money and run

Today's paper

For the second day in a row, Governor Christie's conservative policies dominate Page 1 -- this time his explanation for why he vetoed, as expected, raising New Jersey's minimum wage to $15 by 2021 (A-1).

And for the second day in a row, State House Bureau reporter Dustin Racioppi turns out another slanted report, calling the proposal "a Democratic effort to join the nascent but politically divisive effort to mandate increased pay for entry and lower-level workers."

(Yes. The clunky, wordy first paragraph actually includes the word "effort" twice.)

Why is Racioppi politicizing the minimum-wage hike rather than reporting Christie's veto is a rebuke to tens of thousands low-wage workers in the state, including Walmart employees who are paid so little they have to apply for food stamps to feed their families?

More politics

And an editorial criticizing Democrats also supports Christie (A-8).

The editorial notes Democrats plan to put a constitutional amendment on the 2017 ballot, but urges them to try to override the veto instead.

But amending the constitution worked in 2013, when the minimum wage was raised to $8.25 an hour and tied to inflation, and will likely work again -- most voters are in favor of a higher minimum wage, and two other states already have enacted it.

Stuck with Christie?

Despite Gannett's purchase of The Record, reporters, columnists and editorial writers continue to side with the GOP bully, despite his more than 500 vetoes and his endorsement of wacko racist Donald J. Trump for president.

Yet months ago, six other New Jersey dailies owned by Gannett, as well as The Star-Ledger, called on him to resign.

The Record is alone is refusing to do so, and hasn't even reported those calls for Christie's resignation. 

USS Ling

"The Ling is looking to move from its location beside the Hackensack River on property slated for redevelopment by the former owner[s] of The Record," according to today's Local front.

But Paterson Press reporter Joe Malinconico forgot to call the Borgs, the former owners, and ask them why they don't help finance the move (L-1).

After all, they are cash rich after reaping $40 million from the sale of The Record, and are expecting another huge windfall from sale of the land along River Street in Hackensack where the sub is stuck in the mud.

Borgs take money and run, staffers brace for Gannett's ax

Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, former chairman of North Jersey Media Group, may be spending a lot more time at home on the East Hill of Englewood, above, now that Gannett Co. acquired The Record, Herald News, NorthJersey.com and other assets. To keep active, he might consider volunteering at the nearby hospital and medical center, as so many idle seniors do.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

It may go down as one of the fastest disappearing acts in the long, checkered history of American print journalism.

Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg angered North Jersey Media Group employees by skipping "the all-hands meeting on Wednesday where it was announced that ... The (Bergen) Record, Herald News and other papers were sold to Gannett, ending four generations of family ownership," Keith J. Kelly of the New York Post reported.

"Borg, in a memo, said it was a 'bittersweet' ending for 86 years of family ownership of the 121-year-old daily," said Keith, who on June 16 broke the story of the sale to Gannett.

"Although Gannett assured ... staffers that they were all retained in the acquisition, most employees fear it is only a matter of time before pink slips start flying," Keith noted.

"Gannett already owns the Asbury Park Press and five other [daily] papers in New Jersey and is infamous for cutting costs and staff locally and centralizing operations to boost [profit] margins," the Post story concluded.

[The New York tabloid reported months later that Gannett paid nearly $40 million in cash for North Jersey Media Group, the Borgs' newspaper publishing company.] 

Stephen A. Borg

The Post reported only Mac's son, Stephen A. Borg, who was president and publisher of The Record, "attended and spoke at the meeting," but I couldn't find a media account that actually quoted the younger Borg.

When the marketing whiz took over from his father in 2006, he called every employee to Hackensack for a meeting to introduce himself.

The first words out of his mouth were: "I'm not in this for the money."

Then, in a puzzling move, he showed a slide of his $2 million home in Tenafly. That house soon was replaced by a $3.65 million McMansion bought with an NJMG mortgage several months before the biggest downsizing in company history. 

Later, he also was overheard saying no employee in the newsroom should be making more than $40,000 a year, and in recent years, he imposed a freeze on raises.

Clearly, the Borgs, including older sister and former Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg, have taken the money and run -- perhaps to their summer home in the Hamptons.

Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg of Englewood in 2014, left.

Reaction

Reacting to the absence of the elder Borg at Wednesday's staff meeting in Woodland Park, former employee Lou Lumenick wrote on Facebook:

"They [the staff] certainly have every reason to be angry!"

Lumenick recalled Mac Borg's botched attempt to buy the Asbury Park Press in the 1980s, and how the millionaire's "boorishness turned off the family that owned it. They eventually sold to Gannett."

"And now the bruised and battered Record has been absorbed by the job-choppers at Gannett. My sympathies to my friends at The Record, where I toiled for 18 years before my return to The [New York] Post in 1995."

Disappearing act

The day after the sale was announced, Thursday, the Woodland Park daily contained no mention of North Jersey Media Group. 

Nor did readers find the usual editorial page listing of Borg family members past and present, including Publisher John Borg (1922-48) and Editor Donald G. Borg (1932-75).

Now, on A-2 and the editorial page every day, the words "part of USA Today Network" appears under The Record's stylized masthead type.

Tom Donovan, a Gannett Co. employee, is listed on the editorial page as "Interim President" just above longtime NJMG employees Deirdre Sykes, editor of The Record, and Alfred P. Doblin, editor of the paper's editorial page. 

Coverage of sale

In the Woodland Park newsroom, employees read and re-read Thursday's front-page story in The Record, especially the sentence reporting the "acquisition will bring about $90 million in annual revenue to the [Gannett] company."

Why would the Borg family, which has always put personal gain before the health and welfare of their employees, sell a publishing company that was bringing in $90 million a year?

They wouldn't and it wasn't.

That $90 million in revenue can be realized only if Gannett gets rid of a substantial number of the 700 to 800 workers that remained at NJMG, which once employed more than twice that number before the Borgs abandoned Hackensack, where they prospered for more than 110 years.

Down the shore

Gannett executives can start accomplishing that by moving production of The Record to Neptune -- former headquarters of the Asbury Park Press -- where the company is already putting out its six other New Jersey dailies.

That could mean pink slips for six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, Copy Desk Supervisor Vinny Byrne and an unknown number of news, layout, copy and photo editors who have been working in an office building overlooking Route 80 in Woodland Park since 2009.

Many of those employees have been at The Record for two or three decades or more.

Governor Christie

The acquisition also leaves unresolved the conflict between The Record and the six other Gannett dailies and The Star-Ledger, the state's biggest newspaper.

All but The Record demanded the resignation of Governor Christie after he endorsed wacko racist Donald J. Trump for president. 

The Record's editors even refused to mention in their news columns or editorial page that those seven dailies had condemned the GOP bully.

The Woodland Park daily's favorable coverage of the worst governor in state history may be rooted in the close family and business relationship between the Borgs and Jon F. Hanson, the real estate mogul who was chief fundraiser during Christie's two gubernatorial campaigns.

When incompetence is rewarded, readers are biggest losers

On weekdays, the parking lots at 150 River St., the old headquarters of The Record, are filled with cars from Hackensack University Medical Center, continuing the cozy relationship with North Jersey Media Group first established when Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg sat on the hospital board. It's unclear how The Record can be objective about HUMC, a huge non-profit that increases the tax burden on every home and business owner in Hackensack. 

These booths for attendants were built after NJMG landed a two-year $777,660 contract through July 2015 to accommodate the cars of jurors, attorneys and visitors in the River Street lots during construction of a Justice Center and parking garage near the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Less than a week before North Jerseyans have to make hefty quarterly property tax payments, the pages of The Record are filled with anything but local news.

Editor Deirdre Sykes' front page today has readers choking on state and national politics, sports and $2 gas (A-1).

And only a day after Page 1 reported the unexpected death of Teaneck Mayor Lizette Parker at 44, Sykes is so bored with the story she demotes the tributes and outpouring of grief to the Local front (L-1).

There isn't much else in the local-news section today except Law & Order news (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

You have to wonder why after the death of Parker on Sunday and Prince at 57 just last Thursday, the clueless Sykes hasn't assigned a story exploring why so many blacks die young.

In fact, why hasn't the paper's chief medical writer, Lindy Washburn, proposed such a story instead of wasting nearly two full Sunday pages on a man who is awaiting his second heart transplant in 20 years?

The damage of focusing on such medical freaks is that readers never learn tens of thousands of people who have cardiac surgery every year feel better than ever and go on to leave productive lives. 

Promotions

As head assignment editor, Sykes and sidekick Dan Sforza ran Local for years, scrambling to fill holes in the local-news report with accident photos, minor fires, crime and court news, and the Dean's List. 

As if to reward their incompetence, Sykes and Sforza were promoted in January, she to editor of the entire paper and he to managing editor, though all he seems to be "managing" is his free time.

Their promotions followed the elevation of Liz Houlton to six-figure production editor after she left a trail of typos and errors in Food and other sections when she was running the features copy desk.

Gannett bid

On the first Business page today, the editors censor a story on newspaper publisher Gannett offering to buy some of the nation's biggest newspapers (L-7).

Gannett owns six daily newspapers in New Jersey, and is rumored to have made offers to the Borg family for The Record.

Today, the editors don't mention those Gannett papers, just like the Woodland Park daily never reported they and the Star-Ledger called for Governor Christie to resign after he endorsed racist Donald Trump for president.

Cost-cutting

As the business story reports, Gannett long has been associated with cost-cutting and "shedding jobs" after acquiring newspapers (L-8).

But The Record's publisher, Stephen A. Borg, has done that on his own in the past decade.

Those moves include shifting the printing of The Record and Herald News to Rockaway Township, and firing more than 50 printers; a major newsroom downsizing in 2008 and the abandonment of Hackensack in 2009.

The downsizing saw the departure of employees who had worked for The Record for 20, 30 or more years.

Those cuts were made several months after Borg got a $3.65 million mortgage from his family's North Jersey Media Group for the purchase of a Tenafly McMansion, where he lives with his wife and four sons.

Freeze on raises

In the last few years, Borg froze newsroom raises and, more recently, stopped replacing reporters who leave the paper.

All of that has contributed to a drastic decline in the accuracy, quality and quantity of local-news coverage.

A recent example was how Sykes and Sforza ignored the candidates and issues in last Tuesday's school board and budget election in Hackensack, the biggest school system in Bergen County.

Meanwhile, the Borgs anticipate selling nearly 20 acres along River Street to an apartment developer after the Hackensack City Council declared the parcel in need of redevelopment, and awarded a multi-year tax break to the buyer. 

Questions swirling around police-involved fatal accident

On Euclid Avenue in Hackensack on Thursday afternoon, some of the drivers detoured by a fatal-accident investigation on Summit Avenue frantically sought an escape route, even though none existed, above and below.

A few desperate drivers ignored the Do Not Enter sign on one-way Euclid Avenue South to reach Summit Avenue, and retrace their route.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Who was the poor guy -- a senior citizen from Hackensack -- who died after his old Mazda sedan was "struck" on Summit Avenue by a police cruiser responding to an emergency on Thursday afternoon?

If another accident involving a motorcyclist on the Maywood-Hacensack border had ended, should the responding Hackensack officer have been driving at a high rate of speed to get there?

You won't find the answers -- or even the questions --in a Page 1 story on the front page of The Record or on NorthJersey.com this morning (A-1).

In fact, the 67-year-old driver who died hasn't been identified, and the reports don't say whether he stopped at a stop sign on Ross Avenue, which meets Summit at an angle that forces drivers to look over their left shoulder to see oncoming traffic.

The officer involved also hasn't been identified.

Details missing

The Record had three reporters working on the story, but so many details are missing, as is typical of a newsroom run by Editor Deirdre Sykes and Production Editor Liz Houlton, two lifers known for their laziness and incompetence.

Among details not reported in The Record are that:

The driver suffered cardiac arrest after the police cruiser T-boned a "silver sedan that suddenly pulled into its path in the 500 block of Summit Avenue near Ross Avenue, responders told Daily Voice" (Hackensack.DailyVoice.com).

See: Did driver pull in front of speeding cruiser?

Another view

A reader of NJ.com commented:

"I guess another cover-up is in the works for that fatal police accident up the block. [Driver] probably didn't see -- that's a bad spot -- but the cop was over-driving -- he did not have visual on suspect -- and the accident he was heading toward had already occurred in Maywood."

Driver retraining?

Treating an older driver as so much road kill is typical of The Record, as readers can see in today's reporting on Thursday's fatal involving a Hackensack police cruiser.

The Woodland Park daily generally ignores the challenges facing older drivers, and in fact, rarely reports on any senior who isn't institutionalized.

Road Warrior John Cichowski, himself a senior, has spent no time in the past decade telling readers whether re-training is available for drivers in their 60s, 70s and 80s.

Today, Cichowski devotes an entire column to whether there are enough parking spaces at NJ Transit rail stations (L-1).

If there aren't enough rush-hour seats on the trains and buses, commuters need more parking spaces like a hole in the head.

Dementia up?

Today, the front page reports the autism rate is up 12% in New Jersey, a story of no interest to the vast majority of readers, who are older (A-1).

When is the last time you saw a story on Page 1 about the increasing rate of dementia or Alzheimer's disease?

Good luck, Wilsons

I hope a chef and his father succeed with their gastropub in North Haledon, called Prohibition at the Rathskeller.

Most readers are watching their cholesterol, and will totally avoid a menu filled with cheese curds, fried food, short ribs-laced macaroni and cheese, and a three-dessert sampler (BL-14).

The place gets 2.5 stars out of 4 (Good to Excellent) from Elisa Ung, the restaurant reviewer who can't hide her unhealthy obsession with meat and artery clogging desserts.

The five dishes shown in photos on the Better Living cover and inside are so many heart attacks on a plate.

Christie would go to war with Russia in skies over Syria

Two images from the Aug. 6 GOP debate are said to show Sen. Paul Rand's eyeroll, right, as Governor Christie delivered "a saccharine line about how 'the hugs I remember are the hugs that I gave to the families who lost their people on September 11th,'" The Nation.com reported.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The first successful terrorist attack in the United States in 14 years was enough for The Record and other news media, along with Governor Christie, to strike fear into the hearts of Americans.

And Christie claimed at Tuesday's GOP debate he would shoot down Russian planes if they violated a no-fly zone he would unilaterally impose over Syria, according to The Record (A-6).

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky countered:

"If you're in favor of World War III, you have your candidate," Paul said, putting the threat in the same category as Christie's poor judgment in the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal (A-6).

Still, Record Columnist Charles Stile ignored much of that, eager to report in his very first, slanted paragraph that Christie "stood apart from the rest of his rivals as the lone candidate who had hunted down terrorists" (A-1).

Broken record

In his desperate bid for the White House, Christie reacted to the November terrorist attacks in Paris by talking about his experience as U.S. attorney for New Jersey after 9/11.

After the San Bernardino attack early this month -- the first successful act of terrorism since 9/11 -- he hasn't mentioned anything else, especially not how his mean-spirited budgets have struck terror into the hearts of New Jersey's middle class.

Keep Syrians out

The Record's otherwise upbeat coverage today also is the first time since Christie vowed in November to bar all Syrian refugees, even widows and orphans, from New Jersey that he is reported saying he would bar all Syrians from the rest of the country, too.

That echoes Donald Trump's wanting to bar all Muslims from crossing our borders.

Stile and The Record's editorial page haven't denounced Christie as a hate-monger or a bigot or someone who sounds exactly like all of the maniacs who have persecuted Jews throughout history. 

Instead, the paper's local editors reluctantly assign reporters to interview Syrians and other Muslims in Passaic County to show how peace-loving they are, as a front-page story by Staff Writer Hannan Adely declared on Tuesday.

Cantor murder

The guilty verdicts in the slaying of Robert Cantor of Teaneck matter most, but The Record's coverage of the love-triangle case has been filled with flawed headlines and other sloppy work, as readers can see again today (A-1).

The big, black headline is almost as bad as the one that ran on the day the jury got the case:

"Execution or puzzle?"

Today, the A-1 headline basically says a "killer" was found guilty of "murder."

"Love-triangle killer

guilty of murder"

But there is a bigger problem that was missed by six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, aka "The Queen of Errors."

Photos on both A-1 and A-6 claim to show Cantor's relatives "reacting" or "listening" to the verdicts.

But the one on the continuation page (A-6) shows a son-in-law standing next to the victim's widow and sister instead of seated apart from them, next to Cantor's daughter (A-1).

Did the judge allow the son-in-law to stand up during the reading of the verdicts or was the second photo posed after the verdicts were read?  

Local news

In Teaneck, officials rezoned land next to railroad tracks to allow AvalonBay to seek approval for a 248-unit apartment development (L-1).

In effect, the Township Council is saying that ratables are more important than the safety of tenants.

They would be living near what The Record calls "volatile" oil trains in a building prone to the same kind of quick-spreading fire that destroyed AvalonBay's Edgewater complex in January.

And people who buy shares in AvalonBay, a real-estate investment trust, will be laughing all the way to the bank with a reported 14% return.

The Local front today carries two Passaic County stories that are of little interest to Bergen County readers (L-1).

Meanwhile, the Hackensack news embargo continues.

Editor's note: After publication, this post was edited to eliminate dated material from The Nation.com, and to correct the photo caption. The images are from the GOP debate on Aug. 6, not the one held in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.

Production editor misses bad headline, reporting errors

Utility work, such as this project at Passaic and Main streets in Hackensack on Nov. 24, has kept residents guessing which streets will be closed next. Meanwhile, after the work is finished, most of the streets are crudely patched, ensuring a rough ride for drivers.

Editor's note: This post has been revised to reflect yet another major error on Page 1, this one in a sports brief. As a reader in Hackensack notes, Rutgers University's football team lost to Maryland, not Nebraska. See comments section at end of post.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's front page today explores how special interests have made a mockery of efforts to control guns and provide more mass transit in North Jersey.

But all of the jawboning from lawmakers and experts assembled by Staff Writer Christopher Maag and Columnist Mike Kelly will do little to advance those goals (A-1).

Meanwhile, below the fold, so-called commuting Columnist John Cichowski continues to ignore the lack of rush-hour seats on trains and buses, and Governor Christie's state-aid cuts, which forced NJ Transit to raise fares and cut service (A-1).

Those three stories or columns are simply way too long for time-pressed readers, and seem intended to fill space more than anything else.

Errors mount

Glaring errors in Maag's lead story today (A-1), and a bad headline on Saturday's front page have readers wondering how six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, and the supervisors of the copy desk keep their jobs.

In Maag's first two paragraphs today, meetings in May 1928 and November 2015 are said to be "86 years" apart, but if anyone bothered to do the arithmetic, they are actually 87.5 years apart.

Also on the front page, a photo caption is wrong in saying the tracks in Englewood shown in the photo are "unused." 

On the continuation page (A-12), Maag is incorrect is calling one line the New York Susquehanna & Erie railroad.

As readers can see from the graphic on the same page, it's the New York Susquehannah & Western.

And at one point, Maag says NJ Transit trains run "as far east" as Lake Hopatcong when he should have written "as far west."

The many errors in Maag's story also were apparent to reader Michael Keen, who commented on North Jersey.com:

"So many errors in this article. Tracks in Englewood are not unused, just not used for passenger service. The 1928 plan "envisioned trains running from Englewood to Jersey City?" Like they had already been doing for decades? The New York, Susquehanna and Erie? Not Western? Today, NJ Transit runs trains "as far east as Lake Hopatcong?" That's how far west they run. The "section" of the NYS&W between Paterson and Hackensack has no electricity? Neither does any other section of that line."

Bad headline

On Saturday's front page, The Record's annual story on Black Friday shopping appeared under a puzzling headline:

Spreading the wealth

The word "wealth" doesn't appear anywhere in the story, and readers must have been puzzled over just whose "wealth" was being spread and to whom.

North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, certainly hasn't been spreading any "wealth," judging from a freeze on newsroom raises that has been effect for several years.

Political appointee

On the Local front today, a story on Joanne M. Cimiluca doesn't explore how Bergen County's acting director of economic development was able to move with ease between a government job and private industry (Montvale-based Mercedes-Benz), and back (L-1).

Can taxpayers really afford to pay this political appointee $121,182 a year, with little or no evidence in the story that she succeeded in advancing economic development when she first held the job from November 2006 to July 2010?

That is especially galling in Hackensack, where hundreds of millions of dollars in untaxed Bergen County property unfairly shifts the burden onto homeowners.

Weak local daily paper is not up to reporting Paris terror

Work continues on the Bergen County Justice Center after completion of a garage at Court and South River streets in Hackensack. Both structures will be tax exempt, adding to the burden of residential and commercial taxpayers in the county seat.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When you're the editor of a local daily paper that relies on the weakest and cheapest news service around, you shouldn't try to tackle a story as big as the terror in Paris.

Yet, Editor Martin Gottlieb of The Record dares to publish a front page with an Associated Press story that calls Friday night's attacks "the deadliest violence on [French] soil since World War II" (A-1).

That's a totally ridiculous comparison between a war that killed an estimated 350,000 civilians in France and terrorism that "left at least 129 people dead and 352 injured."

The exaggerated Associated Press coverage also doesn't make any reference to the long and troubled relationship between France and the Muslim countries the onetime colonial power ruled, including Algeria and Syria.

It gets worse

Just below the fold today, Columnist Mike Kelly claims North Jersey has the same kind of "potential terrorist targets that stir some of the deepest fears among law-enforcement experts charged with protecting" residents here (A-1).

Instead, Kelly should point out that pathetic local police departments from Paramus to Paterson aren't even up to doing their job of protecting residents from everyday violence.

And Production Editor Liz Houlton still does not get the incongruity of running a dated thumbnail photo of Kelly's shit-eating grin or an amateurish headline with such a grave story.

"In U.S., ramping up 

readiness for the worst"

Local angle

The Record's staff also tried to localize the story, but the best the editors and reporters could do was to quote one North Jersey resident who was in a Paris bar during the attacks and another who grew up there.

On Saturday's front page, an entire story or sidebar was devoted to two Bergen County residents, a teenager who took a year off and an Englewood pastry chef who heard about the attacks while on a business trip in Japan.

The first is Malo Guegen, 18, a privileged Haworth resident who is living with his uncle in Paris, where he was in a bar watching the soccer match between France and Germany on TV. 

The second is Florian Bellanger, the pastry chef, who grew up in Paris, and who was worried about his two brothers, who still live there. 

Today, a front-page sidebar is devoted to "people across New Jersey and New York" who "took moments to reflect and grieve over the Friday night terrorist attacks" (A-1). 

North Jersey news

The Local section today and Saturday couldn't provide a starker contrast to the events in Paris.

Today's lead story would have us believe life in Allendale is nearly perfect, with residents having little more to worry about than how high school athletic fields are being lit (L-1).

In Hackensack, residents are breathing a sigh of relief after 111 volunteers from nine groups collected litter from across the city on Saturday (L-1).

I am still waiting for a story on Hackensack's free-spending Board of Education, which pays lunchroom aides $22 an hour.

Almost all of Saturday's Local section was devoted to crime and court news, including the sentencing of four defendants in the 2013 home invasion and robbery of multimillionaire developer Fred Daibes.

Last year, Daibes dropped a plan to build apartments on 19.7 acres along River Street in Hackensack owned by North Jersey Media Group, publisher of the The Record.

Tunnel vision

Kelly has a second column in today's Sunday edition, this one about the agreement to build new Hudson River rail tunnels, a project Governor Christie aborted in October 2010.

Basically, Kelly rewrote a Page 1 news story that appeared just two days ago, asking who will pay the estimated cost of $20 billion (O-1).

Kelly and transportation reporter Christopher Maag, who wrote Friday's story, didn't bother to calculate the societal value of expanded rail service, including greater worker productivity, and less traffic congestion and air pollution.

The headline and Kelly's text also are incorrect: Two tunnels will be built, not one.

More bullshit

Critic Elisa Ung sounds just like a restaurant owner today, arguing against the high cost of grass-fed beef, a leaner, healthier type that is raised without harmful antibiotics and growth hormones (BL-1).

Ung's lame argument is that grass-fed beef isn't as profitable for restaurants.

In today's slanted column, misnamed The Corner Table, human and animal welfare aren't even mentioned.

She also is wrong by asserting that grass-fed meat is available only in upscale grocery stores, ignoring the organic grass-fed steaks and ground beef from Australia sold at ShopRite supermarkets.