led him to pursue advertisers too aggressively. Bidnik was convicted of extortion charges in connections with alleged attempts to force local businesses to take ads with the paper and that footnote often overshadows any good he did for the community. In his final column, appropriately titled, “The Pleasure Was All Mine, he wrote, “I’ve been at bat many times in the past 20 years. I’ve pitched and fielded and occasionally threw a curve, although unintentionally.” Going into the Seventies, the environment changed drastically for weekly papers. Daily publications began covering local news more aggressively with their regional sections and offered other media options.
1981, Matzner Publications, owner of Today Newspapers, which served other Passaic County communities, launched Dateline Clifton. The formula to its success, it seemed, was that it was mailed to 31,000 homes weekly, insuring delivery, an attractive selling feature to advertisers.
Evolving Media Options Page counts were steadily decreasing for the weeklies and as a result, the Leader ended its nearly 55 year run in 1980. But in Dec. of
The second edition of Dateline Clifton, which was launched on Dec. 2, 1981, with Tom Hawrylko as its editor.
By the end of 1982, Bidnik’s Independent Prospector had folded. The Clifton News-Journal was acquired by Matzner Publications and merged with Dateline Clifton to become Dateline Journal. Around the same time, the Paterson News folded and the Drukker family sold the Herald News to Media News Group, a company owned by Dean Singleton and Richard Scudder. In the mid-eighties, Matzner sold Dateline Journal and all other Today papers to a national concern which allowed out-of-towners to manage the publications. Late in the 80’s, these papers were again sold to Singleton’s Media News Group. In the nineties, the Herald News, Dateline Journal and its sister publications in Passaic and Bergen counties were purchased by Macromedia, the parent company of The Record of Hackensack. Throughout those changes, Dateline’s editor, Albina Sportelli, continues in that position.
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Broker/Owner Sean X. Gunby announces the opening of Gunby Clifton High Class of ‘87
Realty
• Residential • Commercial • Apartments • Property Management
www.gunbyconsulting.com 1608
790 Bloomfield Ave., Suite 4, Clifton Tel / 973.773.2430 • Cell / 973.204.6584 August 2006 • Clifton Merchant
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