Borgs rely on Christie ally in sale of Rockaway plant

Some visitors to the Bergen County Courthouse on Main Street in Hackensack park at Costco Wholesale, 80 S.River St., to avoid the $5 fee at the temporary lot leased from North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The sale-leaseback deal with a close Borg family friend is the latest chapter in the troubled history of North Jersey Media Group's Rockaway Township printing plant.

On Friday, Stephen A. Borg, publisher of The Record, announced an agreement with a fund sponsored by the Hampshire Cos. of Morristown, but not that family friend Jon F. Hanson is the real estate companies' founder and chairman.

Hanson and Christie

Hanson, 77, a close friend of NJMG Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, also is Governor Christie's adviser on casino and sports development projects.

The real estate developer has received extensive and favorable coverage in the Woodland Park daily, though Staff Writer John Brennan never discloses Hanson's ties to the Borgs.

But in June 2014, The Guardian newspaper reported a joint venture that included Hanson's Hampshire Cos. was awarded a $105 million tax incentive in 2013 by the Christie administration for a hotel and office project in Paterson.

The Guardian said Hanson is one of Christie's chief fundraisers, and both men served as top fundraisers for the presidential campaign of George W. Bush in 2000.

The newspaper said Hanson's ties to Christie also extend to insurance giant Prudential, where the businessman retired from the board of directors in 2011.

Later that year, the company received a $250 million tax incentive from the state Economic Development Authority to move its offices a few blocks.

Hanson and Mac

In 2011, Eye on The Record reported Hanson and Malcolm Borg purchased a private jet from a woman who was later featured in a Business page story in The Record:

"A Web site listing recent sales by Freestream Aircraft Ltd. says a Citation Excel was 'exclusively purchased on behalf of Mr. Malcolm Borg and Mr. John Hanson,' though Hanson's first name is misspelled.

"The price isn't given, but Freestream sells jets that cost $10 million to $50 million.

"Borg discusses the process of buying the plane in this testimonial about Rebecca Posoli-Cilli, president of Freestream's U.S. office in Hackensack:

'Rebecca’s sales team, but especially Rebecca, was the best thing that happened to us when my friend and I decided to sell our 1984 Citation III and upgrade into a late-model Citation Excel. She had the patience of Job in dealing with me, the lead partner, in the acquisition of our Excel. Without her, we would not have made the great choice we did. She found us a plane with 1100 hours that was 95% equipped with everything desired; she took care of all the pre-buy inspections and details; and she negotiated the upgrades to our avionics with Duncan Aviation. 

'Without Rebecca, my friend [Hanson] and his family and my family and I would not be enjoying the wonderful convenience of having our own jet at our disposal. She was simply incredible on all counts, and I recommend her to any potential airplane purchaser without reservation.' 

• Malcolm A. Borg, Managing Partner – Trio Air Holdings, LLC

Rockaway plant

The Rockaway printing plant was built during a recession in the early 1990s as Malcolm Borg sought to extend The Record's reach into Morris County.

But when the elder Borg sought a loan to buy another daily newspaper, banks told him he was overextended.

The plant began printing other newspapers, including USA Today and the Irish Echo, and became a big profit center.

After Stephen Borg took over as publisher of The Record and Herald News in 2006, the four-color presses in Hackensack were worn out, and he moved the printing of those dailies to Rockaway, enabling him to lay off more than 50 pressman.

According to NJMG, the printing plant produces the company's two daily newspapers, more than 40 of its community newspapers and also prints USA Today, Greater Media Newspapers, Gannett Westchester-Rockland Newspapers and the New Jersey Herald.

Decline in quality

The move to Rockaway, a major downsizing of the staff in 2008 and the abandonment of Hackensack in 2009 appear to have contributed to a precipitous decline in the quality and accuracy of local journalism at The Record.

Today, for example, an A-2 correction notes a story on Friday identified Ridgewood Mayor Paul Aronsohn as village manager.

That's a really stupid mistake, but typical of the sloppiness since Liz "Queen of Errors" Houlton was promoted to six-figure production editor. 

The front page often reads like a national paper, thanks to Editor Marty Gottlieb, a former bigwig at The New York Times.

And the Local section reads more and more like a police blotter, as many of the stories in today's edition show, thanks to the laziness and incompetence of Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza (L-1 to L-6).

Today's paper

Typical of media hype and exaggeration is today's Page 1 headline comparing the killings of newspaper editors, police officers and hostages in Paris to the 2011 attack on America:

France 
grapples
with its
own 9/11

In two long front-page stories remembering Brendan Jordan, The Record makes no attempt to find out whether improper maintenance caused the freak collapse of a folding bench that fatally injured the 7-year-old in a New Milford school on Wednesday.

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Port Authority adds 'runway robbery' to 'highway robbery'

My purchase of a large snow blower may have been one of the factors limiting Thursday's snowfall to a dusting.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Isn't it rich?

One of the airlines that soaks travelers with fees on checked luggage and added legroom, plus charges extra for food in economy, is complaining about "skyrocketing fees" at the airport in Newark.

The Record reports today that United Airlines is asking federal officials to investigate the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for "runway robbery," similar to the "highway robbery" drivers experience at the Hudson River toll crossings (A-1).

The biggest airline serving New Jersey cites "unwise choices, inefficiencies and political influences" at the massive bi-state agency for making "flying out of Newark more than twice as expensive as trips from other major cities." 

United, which pays landing and other fees, says $2 billion has been diverted from Newark Liberty International Airport since 2004, including $181 million this year alone that went to rehab the Pulaski Skyway -- under pressure from Governor Christie.

The Record put this story on Page 1 even though the airline's complaint was reported first by The Wall Street Journal (A-10).

Christie fading

The Record's editors -- who have knocked themselves out promoting the GOP bully's White House dreams -- seem to be the only ones surprised by news that Christie is struggling in a presidential poll, even in New Jersey (A-8).

Voters favor Democrat Hillary Clinton over Christie, the worst New Jersey governor ever.

Another front-page story today reports heart attacks jumped 22 percent in the two weeks after Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey in October 2012, and the death rate was 31 percent higher within a month of being stricken (A-1).

The story doesn't say what has happened to victims in the past two years, when the Christie administration bungled distribution of billions of federal dollars for Sandy recovery and relief.

More corrections

Six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton ordered two more corrections, further evidence of her incompetence in supervising the news, layout and copy desks (A-2).

Jamie Silverman of the Elmwood Park Public Library was "incorrectly identified" in a story on Tuesday's L-2.

And an A-7 photo caption on Sunday "misidentified the substance that caused two deaths at a music studio in the city of Passaic."

The wrong caption said "carbon dioxide" instead of the correct "carbon monoxide," which appeared in the headline and caption on Sunday's front page.

Pair mourned

It took the carbon-monoxide deaths of skateboard impresario Noel Korman and girlfriend Alice Park last Saturday for the lazy local assignment editors to discover the fascinating subculture the victims once inhabited.

Today and in an earlier story, The Record reports Korman used the music studio to headquarter the Shralpers Union, an organization he founded "to promote skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing" (L-1).

Leonia suit

Attorney Rosemarie Arnold of Fort Lee calls the $320,000 settlement she won in a lawsuit filed by the parents of a molested boy "significant" money for the family (L-1).

Indeed. Also "significant" is the $100,000 or more the lawyer will receive from the settlement, though you won't find any mention of that in The Record story.  

Greek speak

With her checks paid by The Record, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung ignores the exorbitant prices Greek restaurants charge for whole fish (BL-18).

In her 3-star evaluation of Syros Taverna in Englewood, she matter of factly mentions the restaurant hits up customers for $39, if they order a wild red snapper, and $29 for a farmed branzino.

She also ignores the noise and pollution from passing cars and trucks on Palisade Avenue when she reports the restaurant has windows that can open and "make warm weather dining much more pleasant."

Smell the aroma of the Shrimp Saganaki's "rich tomato-pepper sauce laced with ... ouzo" -- then breathe in those fumes.

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See corrections, sloppy editing in another 'rape edition'

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on Sunday night.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

From The Record's sensational coverage of an alleged rape at William Paterson University in Wayne, you'd never know one in five women are sexually assaulted in college.

The Woodland Park daily's front page is dominated for a third day in a row by coverage of the charges against five WPU students (A-1).

More corrections

Meanwhile, two more corrections are published on A-2 today -- following two on Tuesday -- and sloppy editing elsewhere has readers shaking their heads.

One of the corrections notes two workers were "misidentified" in a Local front photo at J&R Lamb Studios in Midland Park.

Did the photographer, Don Smith, give the wrong information to the news editors, as photographers have been doing for decades? 

Toll confusion

In an A-3 story on the proposed Port Authority budget, Staff Writer Shawn Boburg notes tolls will go up for the fourth year in a row "after Saturday."

Does that mean Sunday or Monday or when?

And Boburg doesn't say whether the discounted car-pool and green-car tolls also are going up and by how much.

Dropped word?

I've read and re-read the first paragraph of the Q&A with Chef Jeff Kellish on BL-2 and on NorthJersey.com (COFFEE WITH THE CHEF), and have no idea what his mother used as punishment when he misbehaved.

UPDATE: On a fifth or sixth reading, I see " working in the kitchen" was the "punishment," but that doesn't sound like discipline to me.

After all, if it was so distasteful, why did Kellish become a chef?
Also, is it the newspaper's style to lower case "chef" before a name? Why? 

Or is that another typo from the overworked and under-appreciated copy desk, which labors late into the night while its supervisor, six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, laughs all the way to the bank? 

On the next page, the continuation of a story on WaffleWaffle reports they are sold "at several Whole Foods locations as well as other retailers, including Inserra shops" (BL-3).

How many readers know "Inserra shops" is a reference to 21 ShopRite Supermarkets?

Second look

On Tuesday's A-6, a photo of the William Paterson University campus shows a sign with the school's name on it and two students walking in opposite directions.

The caption says, "Activity at the William Paterson University campus on Monday [italics added]."

Give me a break.

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The Big Turkey awards from 'Eye on The Record'

Construction or reconstruction continued on Tuesday in front of Starbucks Coffee in Hackensack, which is on the ground floor of the Alfred N. Sazari Medical Arts Building at 360 Essex St. Let's hope the doctors in the building have a better record than the company that built the sidewalks and parking lot, which seem to need repair every couple of years. The garage in another Sanzari medical building across Summit Avenue was closed for more than a year while repairs were made.

Editor's note: My copy of The Record was delivered about three hours late this morning, and weighed more than 4 pounds. Most of that was advertising, and the news, features and sports sections weighed only about 7 ounces. Today, I present Big Turkey awards to the paper's staff. Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The first Big Turkey award goes to the biggest tom in the newsroom, Editor Marty Gottlieb, who seems intent on putting out a suburban edition of The New York Times, where he had a long, successful career.

That can be seen almost every day in front pages that mix soft and hard news; and international, national, state and local stories.

Page 1 stories and columns also have gotten longer in the style of The Times -- way too long, in many cases -- but the quality of the editing has declined dramatically

Gottlieb gets a second Big Turkey award for not cleaning house after he took over in January 2012 nor taking away column-writing duties from burned-out Staff Writers Mike Kelly, John Cichowski, Charles Stile, Bill Ervolino and other toms, each of whom get their own award.

Haggard hen

Production Editor Liz Houlton also gets a Big Turkey award for all of the serious errors that routinely appear in Cichowski's Road Warrior column -- and are never corrected -- as well as all of the corrections published on Page A-2.

The news editors, copy editors and page proofers under her supervision miss too many screw-ups to be taken seriously, and the paper's credibility suffers as a result.

Houlton also can be faulted for continuing to use outdated thumbnail photos for some of the columnists, including Kelly, whose unflattering shit-eating grin can be seen on Page 1 today.

Assignment turkeys

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, get Big Turkey awards for using the police blotter, court news and non-fatal accident and fire photos as crutches to fill pages that should have more local news on them.

The Record of Woodland Park is doing a better job of covering Hackensack, but not in identifying many critics of the current City Council as those who were thrown out of power and lost patronage in 2013.

Trenton turkeys

Stile, Staff Writer Melissa Hayes and other members of the Trenton staff each get Big Turkey awards for channeling Governor Christie, including his Reform Agenda, Jersey Comeback and Stronger Than the Storm public relations campaigns.

How many stories and columns on Christie's politics and his chances to win the GOP presidential nomination in 2016 are readers expected to stomach? 

In the process, these reporters and their editors have irresponsibly ignored how Christie rules by vetoes and bullying, not by the compromise he claims, and how he has wrecked the state economy. 

Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin also gets a Big Turkey award for using mass transit, but not blasting Christie for policies that have increased traffic congestion and tolls, and hurt train and bus service. 

Plump food hen

Staff Writer Elisa Ung gets a Big Turkey award -- this one pumped full of the harmful animal antibiotics she routinely ignores -- for her split personality.

As chief restaurant reviewer, her Friday columns are supposed to critically evaluate restaurants, but she devotes too many of her Sunday columns to promote wealthy owners and chefs who advertise in the paper.

(The Record's 2015 Dine Out Guide to local restaurants was produced by the advertising department, and the 72 glossy pages included only advertisers.)

The Corner Table column Ung writes should be renamed, if she isn't going to get serious about fighting for consumers on such issues as tipping, low food quality and high wine markup. 

Food Editor Esther Davidowitz and freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson each get a Big Turkey award for unhealthy weekly recipes that recommend large quantities of artery clogging butter and heavy cream.

Stephen A. Borg

Publisher Stephen A. Borg gets a Big Turkey award for allowing news coverage that promotes the fortunes of his biggest advertisers, including mall and highway retailers.

In the process, North Jersey Media Group and The Record abandoned Hackensack in 2009 and virutally ended coverage of that city's downtown, as well as other struggling Main Streets in Teaneck and Englewood.

The year before, Borg also enriched himself at the expense of employees, who were hit by the biggest downsizing in company history only months after he used an NJMG mortgage to buy a $3.65 million McMansion in Tenafly.

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Editors' one-two punch: Sports and two long corrections

Two-lane Passaic Street is a major thoroughfare through Hackensack, Maywood and Rochelle Park, but it hasn't changed much since the 1950s. On Saturday, the street was packed with a long line of cars heading toward Rochelle Park, above. 

With no turn lane on Passaic Street at Summit Avenue, a turning car, left, will bring trailing vehicles to a dead stop. The SUV, right, is too big to squeeze through.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

One glance at Page 1 of The Record's Sunday edition shows a strong focus on sports above the fold.

The editors consider victims of sexual assault important enough to put on the front page (A-1).

But not more important than a football team at a Catholic high school or the prospects of sports betting in New Jersey -- a subject even more boring than the story on Governor Christie's chief financial booster (A-1).

On A-2, two long corrections are like a slap in the face to readers.

This is what we have been getting for years after Liz Houlton, who earned the sobriquet of "Queen of Errors" when she ran the features copy desk, was promoted to the six-figure job of production editor, whose job it is to keep such embarrassing screw-ups out of the paper.

Local news?

The Local-news section carries stories on Teaneck, Fort Lee and Englewood (two), but nothing about Hackensack, the most populous community in Bergen.

The Road Warrior column claims this week's holiday will have everybody focusing on how to "drive on North Jersey's angst-ridden roads without killing or maiming themselves" (L-1).

Speak for yourself, John.

Isn't that what we do all year around after a dramatic decline in the enforcement of speeding and aggressive driving -- a story you have ignored for more than a decade?

Uncharitable chef

Some chefs give away leftovers to charities that help feed the hungry and homeless, but Staff Writer Elisa Ung is celebrating one who turns them into "popular dishes" (BL-1).

Or, as the chief restaurant reviewer puts it in The Corner Table column, "turning trash into cash."

How appetizing. 

Frugal Chef Al Scazafave's restaurant is called The Twisted Elm. That's not the only thing that's "twisted."

Child abuse?

Given the low quality of the food served to students in public schools, are Garfield school employees committing child abuse when they falsify their income to qualify their kids for free lunches (O-1)?

The great Mike Kelly might want to investigate the crap served at Hackensack High and other schools instead of rewriting news stories and asking a million rhetorical questions.

In my rush to recycle Sports, Real Estate, Travel and other useless sections today, did I also discard Business?

I can't find it. 

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He's big news on the front page, misidentified in Opinion

Late for work? On the way to the gym on Tuesday morning, I encountered this driver, who blew through a stop sign in Hackensack, and drove well over the speed limit on Spring Valley Avenue. Here, I was stopped behind the driver on Summit Avenue in Hackensack. One sticker says, "I brake for UFOs." The peace symbol obviously doesn't signal the hippie driver wants to coexist peacefully with other motorists.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's Woodland Park newsroom can't seem to get its accuracy act together.

On Sunday's front page, Bergen County Democratic Chairman Lou Stellato was portrayed as so powerful he could "make or break" a candidate seeking to become New Jersey's next governor.

But in the Opinion section, a photo of Stellato flummoxed everyone from the lowly photographer who took it to the production editor who gets paid six figures to prevent embarrassing errors from getting into the paper.

Lou who?

OK. I wouldn't know Stellato, if I sat next to him on the bus. But he doesn't look anything like James Tedesco, the Bergen County executive-elect.

Yet, the photo of Stellato ran with a caption identifying him as Tedesco, even though Tedesco was correctly identified in a photo caption on A-10 of the same edition.

The editors didn't run a correction on A-2 until Tuesday:

"A caption on Page O-4 on Sunday misidentified a man greeting supporters of Bergen County Executive-elect James Tedesco last Tuesday night. Pictured was Democratic Chairman Lou Stellato."

The problem may lie in how the lazy editors, including Production Editor Liz Houlton, have always relied on staff photographers to provide accurate spellings and identifications of the people in their photos, and have often failed to check the accuracy of the information.

More errors

A second correction on Tuesday noted the paper was wrong in identifying the type of crude oil carried by tanker cars through Bergen County.

The crude is from North Dakota, not Canada, as the L-1 story reported on Monday.

Today, A-2 corrects the misspelling of "the surname" of a high school soccer player that appeared on Nov. 4. "She is Katey Samarro," the editors note.

Bus woes ease?

A Page 1 story today reports the Port Authority has made some changes to ease the delays home-bound North Jersey commuters were facing leaving the antiquated bus terminal in midtown Manhattan during the rush hour.

But the story doesn't address the difficulty of getting to the gridlocked terminal, if you take a North Jersey bus into the city in the late afternoon.

Christie's future

Marc Schaeffer of Wyckoff is a letter writer who provides a perspective on Governor Christie's White House ambitions the editors and reporters are unable or unwilling to provide (A-10).

"Imagine the exuberance of the opposition research teams," if Christie decides to run, Schaeffer writes.

"The first vulnerability that will be exposed is the illusion of the New Jersey economic recovery Christie has advanced."

"Then, they will turn to the cesspool of patronage, cronyism and alleged financial impropriety at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey..."

You get the idea. 

Schaeffer analyzes Christie's chances of success in a way you have never seen in The Record, where the GOP bully has received overwhelmingly favorable coverage since he took office in 2010 and began his war on the middle and working classes.

Dead at 57

The Record's obituary writers can't be bothered trying to explain why so many African-American men die in their 50s, as you can see in today's story on rapper Henry Jackson of Tenafly (L-1).

Korean War veterans passing St. Patrick's Cathedral during Tuesday's parade up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Korean New Yorkers who fought in Vietnam also marched in the Veterans Day parade.

Hackensack news

Staff Writer Todd South didn't have anything to report about this past Monday's City Council meeting.

But today, the Hackensack reporter has an upbeat story on a Veterans Day ceremony for the nearly 30 veterans who now work for Hackenack University Medical Center (L-3).

Like thousands of other residents, I thought about the hospital on Monday, when I made my quarterly property tax payment of more than $4,300 to the city of Hackenack.

How much smaller would it have been, if the non-profit but tremendously profitable hospital made payments in lieu of taxes to Hackensack or returned anything in kind, like a couple of patrol cars or paving Prospect Avenue, which is torn apart by ambulances? 

If South is looking for story ideas, the hospital's not paying taxes on more than $180 million dollars in property could be it.

He certainly can't rely on his lazy local assignment editors to wake up one day and suggest the story.

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Seniors see sunlight, crime as local news and more

Gen. Enoch Poor, a Revolutionary War hero, died in Hackensack on Sept. 8, 1780, and was buried two days later at the First Reformed Church on Court Street, above, with full military honors and with Gen. George Washington, Lafayette and other senior military leaders in attendance. Today, his spirit lives on a couple of blocks away in General Poor's Tavern on Main Street, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record today publishes a rare photo of Senior Bergenitis, a species that inhabits every corner of Bergen County, but is rarely shown in public.

A Page 1 photo captures sun-splashed "dancers enjoying the song 'Shout' at the Bergen County Senior Citizen Picnic" on Tuesday in a Paramus park (A-1 and L-3).

The Woodland Park daily often portrays seniors as little more than inhabitants of nursing homes and critical-care facilities, and generally turns a blind eye to age discrimination in the workplace and in the media.

You have read far more about autism than Alzheimer's disease in The Record.

The paper's chief restaurant reviewer has eaten tons of butter and sugar, and its freelancers have published numerous artery clogging recipes of no interest to many seniors.

It's hard to understand how The Record generally ignores seniors when this is the group with all the money.

People over 55 buy the most cars, and travel lavishly. Yet, coverage is aimed at the young, who don't even read the paper.

Local crime news

Peter J. Sampson, the hard-working Bergen County Courthouse reporter, has three bylines on the Local front today, part of an onslaught of Law & Order news throughout the section.

With 70 towns in Bergen County alone, you'd think the lazy local assignment editors could come up with more municipal news, such as the impact on residents and businesses of all the tax-exempt property in Hackensack.

Evidently, Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza are bored with their jobs. 

The same could be said for Liz Houlton, the six-figure production editor who allows numerous errors, bad captions and clunky headlines to get into the paper.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg could cut those three, and save a ton of money.

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Today and every day, editors play elaborate catch-up game

Maywood Avenue at Passaic Street, above, and State Street near Hackensack City Hall, below, were closed this week, making local driving even more difficult than normal. In Maywood and Hackensack, officers sat in air-conditioned cruisers during the work. Is that the best use of our property tax dollars?

A long trench was cut into the State Street pavement at Central Avenue.

State Street traffic backed up for more than a block as two lanes of drivers had to turn right onto a narrow, two-way street.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Three days after an apparently disturbed man in a speeding pickup truck killed a woman at a farmers' market, readers of The Record find out he has a terrible driving history (A-1 and L-1).

Two days after Robin Williams' suicide, the paper's editorial director writes movingly about his father's struggle with depression and mental illness, but the column is buried in favor of a feel-good story about the comedian "rallying the troops" (A-1).

Courts rely on retirees

This bold Page 1 headline today sounds like news concerning a shortage of judges in Bergen County.

But the reporter comes clean in the second paragraph, noting the courts have used retired judges for 40 years (A-1).

Revel's luck runs out

The $2.4 billion Revel casino hotel was doomed to fail when it opened in April 2012 backed by Governor Christie's $200 million state tax-break package (A-1).

Contrary to today's Page 1 headline, Revel never was lucky, especially in view of $400-a-night rooms and the smallest casino in Atlantic City -- two features that turned off vacationers.

Yet, The Record's John Brennan has ignored them in story after story about its failed history.

More screw-ups

And a moronic news or copy editor actually wrote an awkwardly worded photo caption saying "Revel employees won't be celebrating" when the casino closes and they lose their jobs (A-8).

Who would "celebrate" losing their jobs in New Jersey or anywhere else? What insensitive idiocy.

Production Editor Liz Houlton gets paid six figures to catch such embarrassing work, and to limit embarrassing corrections, such as the one on A-2 today.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg might as well throw the money out of the window.

Razor burn

The lead anecdote in last Sunday's Page 1 takeout on Richard Nixon's life in Bergen County after he resigned the presidency is about a barber who cut his hair every two weeks, Domenic Parisi.

But Staff Writer Christopher Maag wrote in his first paragraph the shop was on "Maple Avenue in Park Ridge."

Below that, a small A-1 photo of the barber and a quote also identified Parisi as "Nixon's former Park Ridge barber."

Today's correction notes the A-1 article "misidentified the town" of the barbershop, but the street also was wrong.

Parisi's shop is on "North Maple Avenue in Ho-H0-Kus," the correction states, not Maple Avenue in Park Ridge (A-2).

Playing catch-up

I'm not sure what is going on at the morning and afternoon news meetings in the Woodland Park newsroom -- led by the august Martin Gottlieb, a big-time former editor at The New York Times.

But day after day, the print edition plays catch-up on so many stories that are full of unanswered questions thanks to the laziness or incompetence of local Assignment Editors Deirde Sykes and Dan Sforza.

The first question reporters should have asked about James T. Woetzel, 48, the man who killed Donna Marie Wine at the Hawthorne farmers' market on Sunday, is does he have a good driving record.

But the initial report on Monday didn't even identify the driver or the dead woman. (!!!!) 

Today's L-1 story says Woetzel "has a long record" of violations, including DWI, speeding and careless driving.

Come to think of it, the single story about the death of pedestrian Leyla Kan, 60, last Thursday in Leona didn't say anything about the driving history of Esperanza Jaramillo, 54, the school-bus driver, nor did reporters seek comment from her employer, Rainbow Transportation of Bergenfield.

Promoting Ervolino

The editors of Tuesday's Better Living cover couldn't wait to exploit the death of comic Robin Williams by promoting Staff Writer Bill Ervolino's 1989 interview with the comic genius.

But today, concern about mental illness and the depression that drove Williams to suicide is all over the paper -- in a letter to the editor, in a column by Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin and in a story on the same Better Living front (BL-1).

A letter on A-10 today from Robert L. Parker, chief executive officer of NewBridge Services Inc., seemed to speak for many of Williams' most ardent fans:

"We mourn the loss of such a brilliant performer and scratch our heads at how someone who seemed to have it all would end his life.

"Let's try to make something good come of Williams' death. Let's make it a rallying point to value mental health care at the same level of importance as physical health care."

The Record could help by writing about community organizations like NewBridge, instead of seizing every chance it get to promote itself and its staff.

Eye on The Record 

will return next week

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Inside the world of The Record's DEADBEAT EDITORS

On a typical weekday morning, traffic on Route 3 east toward the Lincoln Tunnel grinds to a halt more than 2 miles from the tollbooths and then proceeds bumper to bumper, a delay of about 45 minutes.

In the afternoon, New Jersey drivers join the long lines of cars on Canal Street in Manhattan to enter the Holland Tunnel, a quarter of a mile away. The lack of mass-transit alternatives to and from New Jersey is especially dramatic during the rush hour.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Except for Page 1 teases, readers of The Record today get only three elements, Gaza, sports and a takeout on "deadbeat dads" -- a less-than-compelling issue in dysfunctional New Jersey.

Staff Writer Colleen Diskin apparently worked on the child-support story for a long time, judging by how few bylines she has had recently, but is that any reason to put the story on the front page?

And what is the point, that taxpayers pay more to jail the "deadbeat" men and women than the child support they finally cough up?

Editor Marty Gottlieb could run a Page 1 takeout every day on the property taxes wasted on services duplicated in every one of Bergen County's 70 towns.

He could run a front-page takeout every day on the broken mass-transit system, increasing traffic congestion and declining enforcement of speeding and aggressive driving.

Gottlieb could, in fact, assign reporters to issues of far greater general interest than "deadbeat dads," if he hadn't, in fact, become one of The Record's "deadbeat editors."

The list is long: Deirdre Sykes, Dan Sforza, Tim Nostrand, etc., etc.

More screw-ups

In big, black type, a headline on Saturday's Local front "gave the wrong location for a fatal car accident that happened Thursday," according to a correction on A-2 today.

A copy editor wrote "Fort Lee" instead of "Ridgefield," which is slightly longer and probably didn't fit in the headline. 

Anyone who has driven on the West Side Highway in Manhattan -- where many drivers exceed the speed limit by 10 mph, 20 mph and more -- knows a Bergen County police officer quoted in Road Warrior John Cichowski's July 18 column is wrong.

In New York City, speeding cameras are used only on local streets in school zones, as Cichowski reported in the same column.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior errors are captured by fact camera

Local news

On the Local front today, an obituary for Celestine Hoffman, the granddaughter of a professional baseball player, seems an odd choice for "A LIFE."

The major element on young people who die of drug overdoses probably is a better candidate for Page 1 than "deadbeat dads" (L-1).

But "opioid" isn't a headline word, and I can't imagine what Production Editor Liz Houlton was thinking when she approved it.

Big-cheese news

Why is the Business section running a glowing profile of multimillionaire William Procida, "who helped revitalize the South Bronx in the 1980s" (B-1)?

Procida's company is based in Englewood Cliffs, but he lives in Piermont, N.Y., and one of his major loans may go to renovate a hotel in Philadelphia.

No-cheese news

The Better Living cover on hard times at food pantries clashes with the excess usually celebrated in the section, including the best dishes food critic Elisa Ung ate this month (BL-1 and BL-4).

In Ung's 4-star review of Cafe Matisse on Friday, I didn't see any mention of salads or vegetables, but she raved about the artery clogging desserts.

You'll have to call the restaurant to find out whether price-fixed dinners for $68, $88 and $108 include dessert, and whether you can substitute another dish, because she is silent on that, as well as whether the meat she sampled is naturally raised.

Healthy eating isn't a priority of the Better Living editors, as readers can see from the Saturday feature on homemade ice cream from freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson, who, if she actually eats all the stuff she writes about, must be as big as a house.

Jackson obviously isn't thinking of all of the diabetics in her audience or the many readers watching their weight or cholesterol.

Downtowns

The Real Estate front on empty-nesters moving downtown includes more information about Englewood's and Hackensack's business districts than has appeared in the paper in the last five years (B-1).

Hackensack news?

Since a flurry of news stories and a column in late June and early July on the removal of Hackensack Economic Development Director Anthony Rottino, who also was acting city manager, residents haven't seen much about their city.

Staff Writer Christopher Maag, who was assigned to replace Hannan Adely, seems to be writing about everything except Hackensack.

Second look

I am just catching up on papers I missed while I was on vacation, and a story on Price Rite caught my eye (L-7 and L-8 on July 1).

The editors continue to struggle with delivering photo captions that are coherent and don't duplicate what readers can see in the photo.

On the continuation page, a photo caption says, "Serge Rodriguez sorting out produce at the Price Rite in Garfield on Monday ahead of the store's 8 a.m opening today."

I do a lot of food shopping. But what is "sorting out produce"?

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