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.

 

Editors say F.U. to Hackensack -- again

Image via Wikipedia

Take a good look at the Page 1 photo in The Record of Woodland Park today -- the one showing classmates and friends mourning the 12-year-old Hackensack boy killed by an NJ Transit train. Much has been written about his use of an electronic device, but nothing about the irresponsibility of the transit agency, which does little to keep people off the tracks.

It's right there in the photo: There isn't a fence in sight along the entire length of Railroad Avenue to prevent 12-year-old boys or anyone else from walking on the tracks that divide a neighborhood. And what does The Record do? It blames the victims.

Read the short follow on the front of Local by Staff Writer Erik Shilling. He's relatively new to the paper, but his story focuses on the distractions of cellphones and other devices, and is missing so much detail.  


Why doesn't the reporter tell readers Caeser Muloki was walking home from Hackensack Middle School, where the dismissal bell rings at 2:55 p.m. Why doesn't the reporter tell readers there is no school busing in Hackensack, and that if the boy was on a bus, he'd still be alive today? Why doesn't the reporter know Caesar always walked home with another student, but didn't Tuesday? Why didn't the reporter talk to the boy's parents?


Why? It's because Shilling and the white editors don't care one bit about this handsome African boy, and whether he is alive or dead. It's because the lazy, irresponsible editors, who spend most of their day in the office in meetings, don't care about Hackensack students and whether they have busing or about the added pollution and stress of hundreds of parents jockeying for parking spaces morning and afternoon in front of schools.


It's another royal F.U. to readers by the elitist Borg family, now represented at North Jersey Media Group by Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg's two spoiled brats, Stephen and Jennifer (Jenniphen, Stepher, Stephenfer?).


And that F.U. is delivered day after day by Francis Scandale, the editor, and Deirdre Sykes, the head assignment editor, and the minions that jump at their command. Instead of challenging authority, these editors and others at the paper roll over and play dead.


Hey, would you look at the A-1 photo and refer showing our bully of a governor getting in the face of a heckler at a political rally in California. Reporters love Chris Christie. He makes good copy. Unfortunately, he makes bad policy and has screwed more middle- and working-class residents than any New Jersey chief executive in memory, while favoring the Borgs and other wealthy residents.


But that doesn't stop The Record from quoting him in the A-3 story as telling the heckler, "We're here to bring this country together." What bullshit. He's done nothing but divide the Garden State into the haves and have-nots.

On the front of Local today, the great journalist Mike Kelly has nothing better to do than pick on an 84-year-old woman who is partially blind and deaf. Shame on you, you hack. Readers will find two stories about Emerson inside the section, but nothing about Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck.


Don't look for any local food coverage in Better Living today. So far, Susan Sherrill, the new food editor, has fallen flat on her face.

In discussing this past Saturday's paper in the previous post, I neglected to mention the A-1 story on Jewish rituals for Yom Kippur, another in a series of such stories by Staff Writer Deena Yellin, herself an Orthodox Jew. She followed that with a story on sukkahs.


The editors are so desperate for copy, they are running these stories, but neglecting other religious groups and conducting a smear campaign against the imam behind the mosque proposal near Ground Zero. That's more inspired journalism.