Does big cutback in food coverage serve advertisers?

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

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

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

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

Less space

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

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

Organic, shmorganic

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

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

Wasted space

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

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

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

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

Raw or cooked?

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

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

It's been all downhill from there.

Today's paper 

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

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

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

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

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

High-tech traffic system

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

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

Hey, Charlie, that's your job

Image by dougtone via Flickr

The state might save millions by privatizing toll collections, but tolls won't be cut.

Columnist Charles Stile is becoming increasingly strident in his assessment of Governor Christie -- a welcome antidote to Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin and others at the paper who have served as the governor's chief apologists in the past year.

On Page 1 today, Stile slams Christie's "hypocrisy" for being linked to the Republican-inspired Reform Jersey Now, which offered politically connected law firms and businesses a way to sidestep the state's landmark "pay-to-play" restrictions. In the next paragraph, Stile says:

"Reform Jersey Now had the reek of an old-fashioned slush fund oozing from Jersey's political sewer. It raised nearly $642,000 to do campaign hit jobs on Democratic legislators."

Stile's Political Stile column begins with his call for a new group to issue daily alerts on how "lawmakers and their naked hypocrisy have paralyzed campaign finance and ethics reform."

Hey, Charlie, that group already exists and you're in it. So are Editor Francis Scandale, The Record and the rest of the media, which have dropped the ball so irresponsibly on alerting readers to what you call "below-the-radar lobbying schemes" to defeat such reforms. 

Stile is not the only one reassessing Christie. On Sunday's L-1, Staff Writer John Reitmeyer actually juxtaposed the governor's loyalty to his wealthy supporters with his disdain for the middle and working classes, the first time I've ever seen that in The Record:

"Governor Christie ... cut education aid, picked a fight with teachers and other public workers, shelved property tax rebates, raised NJ Transit fares and came to the aid of millionaires while also taking away money from the state's working poor."

Toll lovers

Would you look at that huge front-page story on possible savings from privatizing toll collections in New Jersey. What a joke. Look at that banger head:

Road to savings? 

Oh, I hope that didn't hook you into thinking you'd get lower tolls. There's nothing in Staff Writer Karen Rouse's story about such savings for drivers. She reports that Florida -- in the fourth year after privatization -- saved $2 million and "put it back into the system." The system? 

She never explains why such savings aren't passed onto consumers.

Disorder in the court

The third A-1 story today is from The Star-Ledger, which reports Associate Supreme Court Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto has told Christie he won't seek renomination. 

Unlike recent stories by The Record, The Star-Ledger notes that John Wallace Jr., who was denied renomination last year, is black, and the departure of Soto, who is Hispanic, could make the high court a lot less diverse.

Of course, an editorial on A-8 today ignores the diversity issue completely, and doesn't even identify Wallace as black. Here's a brilliant line from it: "Although we believe Christie should have appointed Wallace to the court, he didn't." 

Huh? When and where did Doblin, the Editorial Page editor, lose his balls?

 

On A-2 today, a "Clarification" notes a Saturday article on prominent New Jerseyans who died in 2010 should have included Harold Dow, 62, of Upper Saddle River -- a five-time Emmy-winning CBS News correspondent.

That oversight is in keeping with the newspaper's report of his Aug. 21 death. The story failed to say he died of an asthma attack while driving in his native Hackensack and that his condition may have been linked to his coverage of the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan. 

Also on A-2 today, the former Hackensack daily finally corrects Friday's errors in an editorial on the size of the state budget and cuts in education aid, acknowledging they are in the billions, not millions.

Local yokels

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her clueless minions turn out a Local section with hardly any municipal news from Bergen County. Is the section still her pride and joy or is it a burden she has tired of bearing?

Besides police and fire reports, there hasn't been a Hackensack story by Monsy Alvarado in the section since Dec. 22, an Englewood story by Giovanna Fabiano since Dec. 21 and a Teaneck story by Joseph Ax since Dec. 16.

Eight days after the blizzard ended, The Record reports that angry Clifton residents are calling the cleanup effort "deplorable, pathetic" (L-2). 

Food for thought

Thirty years after the founding of Whole Food Market, The Record's North Jersey Market Basket Survey still does not track the prices of any organic or naturally raised food (L-7). Where has Staff Writer Kevin DeMarrais been?