Scouring Page 1 for scraps of local news

Euclid Avenue, near Grand Avenue, in Hackensack's Fairmount section, above and below, is another street officials have neglected for decades. Residents say it hasn't been paved since 1979, yet taxes and city employees' salaries continue to rise. 

As if a week or more of stories on the so-called sequester crisis wasn't enough, Editor Marty Gottlieb unleashes two more on Page 1 today that are guaranteed to put readers to sleep.

A third A-1 story is a trend piece on free online classes that seems to suggest Gottlieb is flunking his assignment of putting out a hometown newspaper filled with local news.

Shoot em' up

But the front-page is dominated today by a wildly exaggerated column on the AR-15 assault rifle by the tired Mike Kelly.

The main headline -- "Meet America's weapon of choice" -- is hype, and isn't supported by the text or the numbers in a graphic on A-6.

The graphic says 1.626 million were produced in a 21-year period -- this in a nation of 300 million people.

Maybe, the AR-15 is the "weapon of choice" for men who wish their cocks were that big.

More sloppy work

And typical of the work of Production Liz Houlton's copy desk, the A-6 graphic drops the word "million" in two places under a heading: "Number of firearms in U.S."

More errors

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local, Road Warrior John Cichowski publishes an elaborate justification for all of the rollover-accident photos Sykes uses as filler in place of news she and her minions are too lazy to gather (L-1).

This column follows Cichowski's major boner on Friday, when he told readers toll agencies don't cross-honor E-ZPass discounts, when, in fact, they do. 

A reader concerned about Cichowski's accelerating inaccuracies sent this e-mail to management:

"Like death, taxes and rising tolls, there is another sure thing Record readers can count on: Endless mistaken reporting and misinformed responses by the Road Warrior to readers' questions without any corrections, even when notified about these gross mistakes.

"Road Warrior's glaring mistakes and made-up, uneducated answers were in evidence in the March 1 column responding to to readers' questions about E-ZPass and tolls.

"The Record should STOP the Road Warrior from misinforming its readers and publishing nonsense in response to readers' questions.

"The Road Warrior indicated that the New Jersey Turnpike Authority E-ZPass system won't accept discounts from other E-ZPass systems, including the Port Authority.

"In reality, the N.J. Turnpike E-ZPass Web page specifically states that its EZ-Pass users are eligible for discounts from various E-ZPass systems, such as the Port Authority's.

"The Road Warrior seems to be more interested in filling up column space rather than actually providing accurate answers to his adoring readers."

For the full e-mail, click on this link to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Answers pulled out of thin air 


Local snooze

Hackensack readers are accustomed to a Sunday paper without news of their city, but what about other towns?

The big news in Teaneck is a family and dog escaping a fire (L-3).

Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood are conspicuously absent in the L-1 story on towns launching health and fitness "wellness" programs.

Empty plate

In Better Living, there is no explanation to readers for why The Corner Table column is missing today.

The column -- which often promotes chefs and restaurant owners -- is written by Staff Writer Elisa Ung, who is taking a break from weekly restaurant reviewing.

How Jimmy Margulies got the bad news

In the mid-1950s, The Bergen Evening Record sponsored pistol matches, according to the plaque on a trophy displayed on the 5th Floor of the Bergen County Administration Building in Hackensack.

In an interview with The Daily Cartoonist, Jimmy Margulies, The Record's former cartoonist, disclosed how he found out he was being laid off:

"I was given no advance notice that I was going to lose my job," Margulies said in the interview with the Web site for professional cartoonists that was posted on Feb. 26.

"When I arrived at work on Thursday, the editorial page editor, my supervisor, told me we had to go to Human Resources to meet with the editor-in-chief. So I realized that this was going to be the way they tell you your job is eliminated, even before they actually said the words. I was laid off."

To read the full interview, click on the following link:

The day I found out I was fired


Margulies' boss


The editorial page editor is Alfred P. Doblin.


The layoff of Margulies recalls the firing of Lawrence Aaron, who was The Record's only black columnist.

Doblin bought a cake and threw Aaron a going-away party, as if the columnist had gotten a better job and decided to leave on his own.


A third buyout

An Anonymous comment reports that Staff Writer John Gavin, one of the few black reporters left in the newsroom, also took the buyout offered to staffers over 60 years of age.

More on the layoffs at The Record of Woodland Park

Louis Street in Hackensack's Fairmount section, above and below, is one of many city streets that have fallen into disrepair, and it's far from the worst. As property taxes continue to rise, residents are asking city officials where is all the money going?

 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

At least two newsroom employees at The Record of Woodland Park have taken the buyout offered to staffers over 60 years of age, and five others were laid off to cut expenses.

Justo Bautista, a police reporter; and Charles Saydah, editor of letters to the editor, accepted the buyout, with severance capped at 12 weeks of salary.

Many companies pay one or two weeks of salary for each year of service, meaning a 20-year employee would receive 20 weeks to 40 weeks of salary, far above the ceiling at North Jersey Media Group.

The newsroom includes employees of the Herald News, which long ago was designated as an "edition" of The Record to allow NJMG to report a combined circulation that props up advertising rates.

Editor is 'sincere' 

In addition to award-winning Cartoonist Jimmy Margulies, layoffs include Staff Artist Lance Theroux, who is 59, and three sports reporters, who are in their 30s and 40s, according to an Anonymous comment received by Eye on The Record. 

This same source also said:

"I heard that Editor Marty Gottlieb held a staff meeting this past Tuesday, and talked about the layoffs.

"People felt he was sincere in regretting having to let some people go whose work was of good quality and made The Record a better paper."

Readers' reaction

Here is reaction to the forced departure of Margulies on HackensackNow.org, a community message board:

"That is a real loss. He was one of a dying breed," said Homer Jones.

"I agree about Margulies, he's great," Regina chimed in. 

The Editor of HackensackNow said:

"Jimmy was doing caricatures of children at a county fair at Overpeck Park last summer in a booth for The Record.  He did one of our daughter and captured her smile just right. He seemed like a focused, caring sort of person.  I wish him all the best."

A contributor -- who calls himself or herself  "just watching" -- recalled:

"Part of my daily routine every morning was to log on to The Record's Web site, and look at the political cartoon of the day.  I often disagreed with his slant on things, but I always enjoyed them."

Today's paper

The obstinately conservative Republicans in Congress and Governor Christie, New Jersey's own GOP bully, are making a mess of the cleanup from Superstorm Sandy (A-1).

Did anyone besides me awake this morning and wonder how North Jersey survived the "budget sequestration" -- given the end-of-the-world hype by The Record and other media?

Four stories about Englewood or Englewood Cliffs appear in Local today, but there is nothing from Hackensack, Teaneck and many other towns.

Law & Order stories take up much of L-1 and L-3. 
     

Editors bury tough words about home rule

The owners of this house on Hackensack's Overlook Avenue refused to sell to high-rise developers, but were driven away by the relentless noise of multimillion-dollar business jets roaring overhead on the way to a gentle landing at nearby Teterboro Airport.

Buried in today's incredibly boring paper are some tough words about home rule in North Jersey -- a subject The Record has tried hard to avoid as property taxes continue to soar.

Way back on A-16, an editorial says "the state's tradition of home rule" has "become a luxury taxpayers can no longer afford."

"Oftentimes, the only people who truly embrace home rule are the officials doing the ruling," the editorial says.

Has it been two decades since The Record ran a municipal finance series on the expensive duplication of services in Bergen County's 70 communities?

In Hackensack, property taxes have gone up and city services have declined, including street paving and the enforcement of speeding and stop-sign laws.

Pray for the Syrians

The only element of any real interest on Editor Marty Gottlieb's front page today is the plight of Syrians fleeing government airstrikes.

Plugs a limo service

On the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski focuses his lame column on a single limo driver's complaint about a message board at the George Washington Bridge, and shamelessly plugs the limo service by name.

Then, the supremely lazy Cichowski fields questions from confused, disoriented and delinquent E-ZPass holders.

Hackensack news is missing for yet another day as head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, catch up on their sleep.

Where are his glasses?

In his column on Wednesday, the tired Cichowski had trouble reading a highway safety report and misstated the number of deaths in other states. No correction has appeared.

A concerned reader pointed out the error in an e-mail to managers sent on Thursday:

"Road Warrior mistakes continue to increase, as in his Feb. 27 column on the Governors Highway Safety Association report that showed teen drivers deaths going down in New Jersey in first half of 2012 while going up nationwide in comparison to 2011.

"As shown previously, the Road Warrior continues to make mistakes based on his being unable to correctly report actual data and information from reports.

"The Road Warrior mistakenly indicated that other states, such as Indiana and Tennessee, showed increases of more than 14 deaths in the first six months of 2012, despite their GDL laws.

"The report clearly indicated that NO state had increases over 13.  Increases were 13 for Indiana and 10 for Tennessee."

Read the full e-mail on the Facebook Page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

I'm on deadline, where are my glasses?