North Jersey's 'Record' and 'Herald News' Combine Copy and Photo Desks

By: Joe Strupp North Jersey Media Group, owners of The Record of Hackensack, N.J., and the Herald News of West Paterson, N.J., is combining the two newspapers' copy desks and photo departments. The move is expected to save about $800,000 annually and cut its workforce by 12 staffers.

"Everyone got notice of this and people have to reapply for their positions," said Stephen Borg, North Jersey Media Group president. "A few chose not to reapply so we might even have to hire from the outside."

The changes were announced in February, but the consolidation effort and reapplying did not begin until this month.

"Folks are going through an interview process right now," said Doug Clancy, assistant managing editor at the Record and Herald News executive editor.

The change will consolidate six different copy desks at the two papers into two, reducing staffing in those departments from 52 to 44. Right now, each paper has its own sports, feature and news copy desks. The new approach will provide one shared sports copy desk and a shared news and features copy desk.

"The thought is that each paper picks up from the other paper, but papers were editing their own wire stories," Clancy said of the two dailies, which came under common ownership in 1998. "The idea is that it gets read once and will still get placed in different ways in each paper."

On the photo side, each newspaper will continue to have a photo desk, but they will be combined under one department. The consolidation will reduce the number of photographers between the two newspapers from 14 to 12, with the additional loss of a digital specialist and a supervisor, Clancy said.

The copy desk changes are expected to save about $500,000 in yearly expenses, with the photo consolidation likely to reduce costs by another $300,000.

"We are trying to reach cost-savings, but ones that the consumer will never notice as opposed to consolidating the opinion departments of both newspapers, that would be a lot different," said Borg. "Copy editing is more behind the scenes."

The Record and the Herald News have an unusual circulation and readership relationship. Longtime rivals for decades, they overlap in many areas between Bergen and Passaic counties of Northern New Jersey, but are seen as very different papers.

Borg said such differences make a merger between the two papers, rumored for years, unlikely any time soon. "They're different readers," he said. "I believe that if I gave all of the Herald News readers a Record instead, I would lose a lot of them."