Decline of a once-great local newspaper: You can't cover 90+ towns in 3 to 4 pages

The corrosive influence of the gun lobby on Congress hits home every time a crazed gunman commits a mass shooting. In this cartoon by Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News, the National Rifle Association is shown enticing domestic terrorists with the easy availability of semi-automatic, military style weapons.

THE RECORD IGNORES DEATH

OF WELL-KNOWN TEANECK WOMAN 

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

You probably have never heard of Barbara C. Peckham, but many thousands of Bergen County residents relied on the Teaneck woman for a vital service before she died last Monday at 91.

Beginning in the early 1960s, Peckham Drivers Service Inc. provided a reliable, lower-cost alternative to renting a car and driver for trips to and from the airport; as well as to plays, concerts and dinner in Manhattan.

Many of her customers were elderly and though they still drove, they often called Mrs. Peckham and asked her to send over a driver to take them in their own cars to doctor's appointments and food shopping or to drive them into the city to visit children who lived there.

If she couldn't find a driver to take a customer to Kennedy or one of the other airports, Mrs. Peckham would handle the job herself -- even after she turned 90.

Not too long ago, The Record of Woodland Park, my local daily newspaper, would have published an expanded local obituary to profile Mrs. Peckham after her death.

Instead, there was no mention of her passing or who she was.

Since March, when the Gannett Co. laid off the reporter who covered that beat, the once-great local newspaper has published only a handful of expanded obituaries of prominent local residents -- in contrast to two or three a week before the layoff.

See Mrs. Peckham's page on the website of the Volk Leber Funeral Home: Barbara C. Peckham

A Memorial Service for Barbara C. Peckham was held on Saturday at the Volk Leber Funeral Home in Teaneck, below.

3 to 4 pages for 90 towns

The decline in the quantity and quality of local news started years before Gannett bought North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, from the Borg family in July 2016.

Still, there appears to be even less space every day -- 3-4 pages in The Record's Local section -- devoted to news and feature stories from the 90 or so towns in the paper's circulation area (Bergen, Passaic, and parts of Morris and Essex counties). 

The Record once published separate sections for Bergen County and Passaic County, but several years ago, the Borgs decided to consolidate the sections to save money on newsprint.

Today, Local often is dominated by news of Paterson and other towns of no interest to Bergen residents, who, as a result, get far less news of their 70 towns than they did before.

Promoting guns

Since July 2016, Gannett laid off more than 350 employees at NJMG, including about 50 reporters and editors, but kept veteran columnists like Mike Kelly and John Cichowski, encouraging them to write as long as possible to fill space.

That might be the explanation for why the editors devoted nearly two full newspaper pages to a local shooting range as part of its coverage of the massacre in Las Vegas.

Kelly's Page 1 column on Gun for Hire (yes, that's the name of the shooting range) ran on Sunday, a week after a deranged gunman killed 58 people at a concert and wounded nearly 500 others with rapid-fire, military style weapons.

Kelly justifies promoting the shooting range near the paper's headquarters this way:

As the nation debates more gun control to stop such mass shootings as the Las Vegas murders, "proponents of gun rights have been pressing forward with a subtle but meticulous campaign to make guns as much a part of everyday life as cars and cellphones" (Sunday's 3A).

That's wildly exaggerated. 

And Kelly actually quotes the range owner, Anthony Colandro, claiming:

"I'm like a pool hall. I'm like Seaworld. The only difference is that we're shooting real guns and we're not water-sliding."

No. The real difference is that after a visit to a pool hall or Seaworld, people don't have murderous thoughts or impulses.

Asbury Park Press

The Asbury Park Press, another Gannett newspaper, has been ripped for "one of their stunning acts of hypocrisy," this one concerning the LGBT community in Asbury Park.

Publisher Dan Jacobson of the weekly Tri City News says the "failing" Gannett-owned daily is trying to attract more advertising by sucking up to the LGBT community, which the Press "turned its back on not that long ago."

Last month, The Press published an upbeat article -- "LGBT community always at the heart of Asbury Park."

But in 2010, the newspaper opposed a move by the state Legislature to legalize gay marriage, and called for a statewide referendum on the issue.

Then, about two years later, the newspaper blasted Governor Christie when he called for the same type of referendum on marriage equality.

"God, they are so full of shit," Jacobson said of the editors at the Press.

I guess you could say the same about the editors and columnists at The Record. 

In N.J. race for governor, GOP ads using the same kind of lies that elected Trump

Jimmy Margulies, former editorial cartoonist at The Record of Woodland Park, on the standard excuse after a mass shooting like the one that killed 58 and wounded nearly 500 in Las Vegas on Sunday night -- "Now's not the time to discuss gun control."

In "LET THEM FLOW FREE," Cartoonist Joep Bertrams portrays President Trump's crocodile tears as bullets.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Governor Christie's lieutenant during the nearly 8 years of mayhem they caused in New Jersey can't afford to run for the job on the issues.

So, Lieutenant Gov. Kim Guadagno's attack ads are employing the same type of lies Republicans have used for decades, most recently in Donald J. Trump's campaign for president.

The Nov. 7 gubernatorial election is a little over a month away, and Democrat Phil Murphy is leading in the polls.

Let's hope Democratic voters, confident that he will win, don't stay home in droves, as they did nationwide when Hillary Clinton was called the clear winner before the Nov. 8 election.

2013 election

Christie was elected to a second term in 2013 in the lowest turnout for a gubernatorial election in state history. 

Thousands of Democrats sat out the election.

In 2010, his first year in office, Christie eliminated state funding for family planning. And he's vetoed higher taxes on the wealthy and a $15-an-hour minimum wage.

To tame the Democratic majority in the state Legislature, the GOP bully also used nearly 600 vetoes to kill a wide range of other bills they approved, including tighter gun control.

He was elected in 2009 on his promise to lower property taxes, but the 2% cap he pushed through only slowed the increases, and New Jerseyans still pay the highest levies in the nation.

2017 campaign

In a Monmouth University poll released on Tuesday, Murphy was ahead by 14 points.

Property taxes are the top issue for New Jersey voters, and Guadagno has staked her campaign on a promise to lower tax bills, if elected governor, just as Christie did.

But governors have little control over local property taxes, which are set by municipal and school officials and assessors in each of the state's 565 home-rule communities.

And they are even higher in places like Hackensack and Englewood, where large tax-exempt hospitals shift the burden to home and business owners.

"A whopping 85 percent of voters said they haven't heard of a property tax plan from either candidate, according to the poll," Observer.com reported.

"And 70 percent said if they did see a proposal to lower property taxes, they would dismiss it as a campaign ploy."

Attack ads

"The 15- to 30-second spots touch on familiar talking points," Observer.com said of the ads both sides are running: 

"Democrats portray Lt. Kim Guadagno ... as an alter ego of Gov. Chris Christie, the least popular governor in the country.

"Republicans paint Democrat Phil Murphy as an out-of-touch millionaire [and liberal] bent on raising taxes."

In a TV pitch to middle-class homeowners, Guadagno falsely claims Murphy "already said he will raise your taxes," including "higher sales taxes."

But Murphy's $1.3 billion tax plan targets only millionaires, corporations and pot smokers, if he is successful in legalizing marijuana.

"Murphy's tax plan does not include an increase to the sales tax," Observer.com reported.

'Same old playbook'

The Murphy campaign's first and only ad so far links Guadagno to Christie, and his administration's school funding cuts and corporate tax breaks.

"The Christie playbook failed New Jersey," Murphy says in the ad. "Now Kim Guadagno wants another try."

The Record, my local daily newspaper, reported the Monmouth University poll on Wednesday.

On Monday's front page, Staff Writer Dustin Racioppi reported the candidates' positions on luring Amazon's second headquarters to New Jersey.

But Racioppi, as he has been doing for weeks, quoted liberally from an attack ad, but didn't bother asking for a response from the Democrat's campaign.

The ad said Murphy's call for a $15 hourly wage shows he is "really loaded, really liberal and really doesn't get New Jersey."

Las Vegas

To hammer home how the print edition of The Record plays second fiddle to NorthJersey.com, I couldn't find a word about Sunday night's Las Vegas massacre in the paper delivered to my home on Monday.

Instead, the front page was dominated by hysterical residents of wealthy Saddle River complaining about coyotes.

"Daily, I am terrorized by these animals," one woman claimed.

Then, after a solid day of massacre coverage on TV and radio, The Record devoted all of Tuesday's front page to the story.

How to fill space

On Page 1 last Friday, Columnist Mike Kelly wrote a tribute to a woman who was killed trying to catch a train in NJ Transit's Hoboken Terminal a year earlier, leaving behind her husband and 18-month-old daughter.

Of course, the death of Fabiola Bittar de Kroon deserved recognition, but Kelly struggled mightily to fill the columns he usually devotes to his subjects, and yet this seemingly endless piece had big holes in it.

He traced her last steps after she dropped her daughter Julia at a preschool. 

"Witnesses say De Kroon kissed Julia as she always did when she bid goodbye to her daughter," Kelly wrote.

Later, he noted a few Hoboken residents "still talk about Fabiola de Kroon, saying they continue to feel a personal and professional kinship with her."

Sociology lesson

He goes on to give a sociology lesson, reporting "more than half of Hoboken's 53,000 residents are in their early 30s," and "like De Kroon, almost 55 percent juggle professional careers and the challenges of starting and raising a family, according to Census figures."

Kelly also interviewed a worker in the coffee shop the victim frequented, the mayor of Hoboken, a pastor, the police chief and a commuter.

But I couldn't find any quotes from the dead woman's husband, Daan de Kroon, nor whether he has filed a wrongful death suit against NJ Transit, alleging the railroad's negligence caused the train crash that killed the innocent bystander.

A jury can award tens of millions of dollars in damages based on her age and her potential earning power, as well as for the loss of companionship suffered by her husband and daughter. 

Food coverage

In the absence of a weekly restaurant review, The Record's food coverage goes from bad to worse.

Today's Better Living cover declares:

"CELERY IS THE NEW

'IT' VEGETABLE"

On Wednesday, Food Editor Esther Davidowitz listed fall dishes on the menus of nine North Jersey restaurants in what sounded more like advertising than food reporting.

Last Sunday, Better Living listed 29 places in New Jersey to pick your own pumpkin.

And in last Friday's Better Living tab, the "EATS ON THE CHEAP" feature recommended the mystery meat and other dishes served at 11 casual places.

The same restaurants appear often in Better Living, including Kimchi Smoke, Bobby's Burger Palace, Mighty Quinn's Barbeque and Juicy Platters.

In a listing of halal restaurants a couple of weeks ago, Davidowitz deferred to a Paramus resident with a YouTube series, but the piece omitted Aleppo, the best Syrian restaurant in Paterson's South Paterson neighborhood.

Muslims can cook

Davidowitz visited five halal restaurants recommended by Sameer S. Sarmast, a Muslim of Indian descent who lives in Paramus.

And she notes New Jersey has the second largest Muslim population in the United States after Michigan.

"A lot of them, as I hope you and I will learn over the years, can really cook," she says.