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| The front page of The Record of Woodland Park on June 4, 2018, before reporter John Cichowski put readers out of their misery by retiring. He wrote The Road Warrior column for more than 14 years. The so-called commuting column focused almost exclusively on drivers. |
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The executive editor of The Record today formally announced a policy that had been apparent to readers of NorthJersey.com for many months:
"A portion of our reporting will be available only to subscribers," Daniel Sforza said on NorthJersey.com -- the paper's website -- via a link from Twitter.
"These will be labeled 'For Subscribers' on NorthJersey.com and our mobile apps," said Forza, a former Record assignment editor who rose to executive editor of The Record of Woodland Park and these other Gannett properties:
North Jersey.com, The Herald News, The Daily Record in Parsippany; The Journal News, LoHud.com, and The Poughkeepsie Journal, the last three in New York State.
The job came with a modest raise, but unlimited mileage reimbursement, some wags have suggested.
Reader reaction
"So the number of readers you do have, which I can assure you is very limited, will continue to plummet just like CNN's ratings," Johnny B Good @mastrfriendship replied on Twitter. "An interesting strategy for an already failed news source."
Apple Ridge Something @AppleRidgeGuy wanted to know, "Do your 300 ads per page still pop up for subscribers?"
"I'll guess I'll u follow you now. Bye, said G.O. @bankerdad73.
"$7.99 a month for a digital only subscription is way too much so sadly I guess I won't be seeing your posts," tweeted Paige Ryan @paigeonedesigns.
"Bye," said Pinky @NJPinkSky, showing an emoji with a waving hand.
Layoffs, cuts in local news
In his statement, Sforza invokes the glorious history of The Record without mentioning the layoffs of more than 350 employees after the Gannett Co. paid nearly $40 million in cash to the Borg family for North Jersey Media Group in July 2016.
Then-Publisher Stephen A. Borg had engineered the biggest downsizing in The Record's history in 2008, then abandoned Hackensack in 2009, moving more than 1,000 employees to Woodland Park and Rockaway Township.
Gannett not only cut the payroll. Local news pages in the print edition dwindled and ads increased.
The Record no longer runs an editorial everyday. And as the Local news section shrank, the Sports section was expanded.
A few weeks ago, The Record included an 8-page Sports section and only 3 pages of local news, much of it from Passaic County and of little interest to the heart of the readership in Bergen County.
Sforza's statement fails to acknowledge that he has helped Gannett turn The Record into a rag:
"In a few short months, The Record will be celebrating its 125th year of publication.
"That's more than a century of covering North Jersey, from its time as a rural farming community to the building of the George Washington Bridge to its place as a retail and residential hub in the shadow of New York City.
"Over that time, we've worked to deliver information that's important to you, to your families, to your businesses and to your future.
"The Record still does all of that, landing on newsstands and in your driveways each day. But it now does so much more.
"First and foremost, it's the storytelling engine behind NorthJersey.com, our virtual home where you can get not only our award-winning articles, but view fantastic videos, photo galleries, newsletters and more.
"That shift, which brings local news to you around the clock on your mobile phones, laptops and tablets, has also changed how we support the journalism that is so intrinsic to the way we live and to our democracy.
"Now more than ever before we are relying on our subscribers to support our news gathering.
"In recognition of that growing reliance on our readers’ support, a portion of our reporting will be available only to subscribers, starting Tuesday. This will include many of our exclusive stories unavailable from other news sources. These will be labeled “For Subscribers” on NorthJersey.com and our mobile apps.
"As savvy readers, you have no doubt noticed that we have been scaling back on the number of free stories available each month on our digital site. That's because we value our journalism and we know that you value it as well.
"Often, readers will tell me that they get their news through Facebook or Twitter. But behind the stories you find on social media networks are organizations like NorthJersey.com and The Record, where hard working journalists are doing the on-the-ground reporting to get to the bottom of a scandal, tell you about the new restaurant opening up, or analyzing the latest Yankees victory.
"It's important to realize that. And it's important to acknowledge that the content provided through social media is not generated by social media.
"The success of local media will increasingly depend on support from our most loyal readers — those of you who subscribe to The Record and NorthJersey.com.
"Many of you may already have subscriptions to The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. But only The Record and NorthJersey.com cover the towns you live in, the schools in your neighborhood, and the high school athletics your sons and daughters participate in.
"In addition, as New Jersey is comprised of more than 500 towns, it's important to keep watch on what is happening in our local governments. Only reporters from The Record and NorthJersey.com are keeping tabs on our politicians, our school boards, our downtowns, our health organizations, public transit agencies and the environment.
"This type of reporting is critical to a functioning democracy. It's critical to watching how your tax dollars are spent. And it's critical to how you make decisions that are in the best interest of your family, your business and your career....
"We have also returned coverage of the New York Rangers to our sports pages, adding it to our already robust coverage of the Devils, Knicks, Yankees, Mets, Giants and Jets. And we do it like no other.
"In the coming months, we will be adding searchable online databases of everything from state employee salaries to tax data to education statistics.
"None of this would be possible without our subscribers....
"To get all your digital benefits, you just need to log in our activate your digital account.
"As a lifelong resident of North Jersey, I know how passionate we all are about the role The Record plays in our lives. And I'm grateful to everyone who supports our efforts.
"Again, thank you, and please don't hesitate to reach out with your suggestions for coverage."
Daniel Sforza is the executive editor of the The Record, NorthJersey.com, The Herald News, The Journal News, LoHud.com, The Daily Record and The Poughkeepsie Journal. He can be reached at sforza@northjersey.com, on Twitter @sforzadan. Subscribe to our independent reporting that supports our local communities and our democracy.
Victor I understand your hatred for the bean counters that destroy newspapers but I do not understand your animosity to your former friends and co workers.
ReplyDeleteReally. Former friends? Do you have anyone in mind?
ReplyDeleteDan Sforza was a lazy, incompetent assignment editor who had no regard for the copy editors who were trying to fact-check his copy. He was especially difficult to deal with on the Jewish congregation that bought a house on Chairman and Publisher Malcolm "Mac" Borg's block in Englewood and planned to turn it into a synagogue. Borg did everything in his power to stop the congregation, but stories about the controversy Sforza edited often omitted Mac's pivotal role. On one occasion, when I asked him to insert Borg's name as an opponent, Sforza said there wasn't room.
Chickowski was simply incompetent as a commuting columnist, made more errors than any other single reporter at The Record, and ignored mass transit. Yeah, he was a nice guy and worked long hours handling email from readers, but basically a failure. Please feel free to respond.
And the truth is that the copy desk, where I worked for many years, was unpopular in the newsroom and was treated poorly by the dayside editors. In fact, at one point, then-Editor Frank Scandale, who eventually was fired for incompetence, even ordered copy editors NOT to call reporters at night with questions on their stories.
Now, as a blogger who writes about Hackensack, where I live, I have been completely ignored by Debra Vial, the former assignment editor at The Record who is now head of corporate communications at Suez, the giant water company. I wrote one post about exorbitant "public fire protection" fees Suez charges Hackensack and other cities and towns, but have not been able to do a follow up, because Vial and others refuse to give me the information I need. Does her attitude have anything to do with my "Eye on The Record" blog? And if so, how does she allow her loyalties to The Record to trump the public's right to know how Suez charges are impacting their property taxes?
This paragraph from Dan Sforza's statement is a joke -- the opposite of what is being covered in The Record; in other words, The Record does little reporting about municipal affairs, school boards, mass transit -- certainly less than before Gannett -- and in its environmental reporting ignores the premature deaths from auto emissions and the fouling of the air from vehicles with gas and diesel engines. This is the equivalent of President Trump telling Americans how much he has accomplished, when, in fact, nearly every word is a lie:
ReplyDelete"In addition, as New Jersey is comprised of more than 500 towns, it's important to keep watch on what is happening in our local governments. Only reporters from The Record and NorthJersey.com are keeping tabs on our politicians, our school boards, our downtowns, our health organizations, public transit agencies and the environment."