One year later: Best of 'Eye on The Record'

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One day, Editor Francis Scandale sent word to the news copy desk not to to use the words Pulaski Skyway on Page 1 because readers had never heard of it and he had never used it.

Today is the first anniversary of Eye on The Record, which has survived lawsuit threats from North Jersey Media Group, scammers hacking into my e-mail account and the outrage of the newspaper's current and former staffers that anyone would cast a critical eye on what they are doing or not doing -- and then tell the world about it.

In the early weeks, these staffers demanded that I recognize the good job some were doing, but I didn't see that as my role then and I don't see it as my role now. Besides, there is so much bad writing and editing, so many poor headlines and so much irresponsible journalism in the paper day after day, there isn't room for anything else but criticism.

What is happening to the former Hackensack daily is sad. Yet through it all, such incompetent, lazy and desperate editors as Francis Scandale, Deirdre Sykes, Tim Nostrand, Jim McGarvey, Barbara Jaeger, Liz Houlton and their minions have somehow kept their jobs, and in some cases, been promoted.  

And the Borg family -- a trio of absentee landlords, the father and his two Tarnished Silver Spoons -- grow fatter, literally or figuratively, as they squander the legacy of family members stretching back a few generations.

The news staff weathered a significant downsizing as well as defections, including the latest, award-winning Staff Writer Liz Llorente, and both the newsroom and local news coverage have become less diverse. Frank Burgos, the former managing editor who was newsroom enforcer, got a taste of his own medicine. 


Here are links to earlier posts that have traced the decline of this once-great daily. Don't forget to read the comments at the end of each -- they range from the sublime to the ridiculous -- or add a comment of your own:



Abandoning River City

'I'm not in this for the money'

How an editor can ruin a project

Taking Bergen out of The Bergen Record

Despite recession, younger Borg prospers

Anti-mass transit tirade

Not-so-lovable Hackensack

Were they really a jury of my peers?

The irrepressible Jennifer Borg

Help me with new nicknames

Tom Troncone throws his own going-away party

Christie credibility gap widens

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Hudson River rail-tunnel workers demonstrate.

New Jersey handed Chris Christie a resounding victory over Jon Corzine, based on his campaign promise to save middle-class taxpayers money. But since the Republican bully took office, he's refused to reinstate the millionaire's tax, he's blown $400 million in federal education aid and he told U.S. transportation officials to shove $3 billion for the Hudson River rail tunnel you know where.

Now, The Record of Woodland Park reports, Governor Christie's decision to pull the plug on the tunnel was based on false or erroneous information or he just made up huge cost overruns to justify it. The lead story on Page 1 today declares (with an embarrassing typo in the drop head):

Hudson

tunnel

was on

budget

Documents dispute

cost-overrun claim

It's clear the onetime U.S. attorney is facing a widening credibility gap. If he is so imprecise on the big things -- education and transportation funding -- how can he believed on the little things? Yet just about every move he makes brings praise from The Record's editorial page editor, Alfred P. Doblin, who sighs, "My Hero," at the mere mention of Christie's name.


Is the world ending?

What goes with the lead paragraph on the A-1 wire story about President Obama urging women to vote next month? "In a last-ditch effort to prevent electoral disaster..."

The election is two weeks away, so how would a rally on Thursday be "last ditch"? Who says it will be an "electoral disaster"? The AP reporters? (Is it The Associated Press or The Associated Mess?) 

It just goes to show you how The Record and the rest of the media are bored with any election that isn't really close, and they'll make it close no matter which facts they have to twist. 

On A-11, there's a gushing wire story on the celebrity of a Russian ex-spy who was deported, but no mention of her reported relationship with an Englewood restaurant owner, Michel Bittan, who managed to avoid comment despite the best efforts of The Record's local staff. Maybe head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes should have threatened to sit on him.

With two extra A-sections and a 10-page Local section, it's a big paper today, but there is no Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck news. Road Worrier John Cichowski has another pedestrian column today (L-1).

Restaurant follies

For comic relief, turn to the restaurant review in Better Living. On the cover, a refer says Halcyon in Montclair is "unique" and in the centerfold, it's called a "seafood brasserie," yet two of three photos above the headline show meat dishes.

You immediately don't like the owners, who told the naive restaurant reviewer they opened a seafood place because "having to drive to Point Pleasant for a good lobster was ridiculous." Huh? There is a lot of good lobster around -- at any Spanish or Portuguese restaurant in Newark, at the Sea Shack in Hackensack or Seafood Gourmet in Maywood, so it's the statement that's ridiculous.

The ingredients, we're told in the data box, are "excellent," but  Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung never says whether the salmon she recommends is wild or farmed and artificially colored. The bar is filled with "jabbering neighbors," which I guess would be true if you live in Montclair. 

Two of the best dishes are the all-fried fish and chips ($17) and brioche chocolate banana bread pudding ($8). Of the latter, she says: "Trust me. Just order it." Ah, but do you trust her three-star rating?

New e-mail accounts

I have two new e-mail addresses.

They are vsasson44@hotmail.com and vsasson7@gmail.com.

Please delete vsasson@hotmail.com from your contact list, and disregard any messages from that account.

VICTOR E. SASSON

Hotmail account compromised

If you received an e-mail asking you to send money to me, it is fraudulent. My Hotmail e-mail account has been hacked into, and a distress message has been sent out, supposedly from London. Ignore it. 

I can no longer access my e-mail, because apparently my password has been changed. I cannot reset my password because the alternative e-mail address Hotmail has for me was the one I had at The Record.

VICTOR E. SASSON