The Borg Family
Media owners/publishers
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2019-20: Enterprise
Few institutions remain linked to a single family for 10 decades. Such was the case with The Record newspaper, which was associated with four generations of the Borg family stretching from 1920 to 2016.
The Record (originally The Evening Record) was founded in 1985 in Hackensack. In its early years, the newspaper had various backers and name changes. Wall Street financier John Borg entered the picture as an investor in 1920; by 1930 he had taken over ownership of what was then The Bergen Evening Record.
John Borg, who retired in 1949, brought his son Donald on board to help run the newspaper. Under Donald’s leadership, circulation doubled and The Record expanded from local to regional coverage, as symbolized by the opening of a bureau in Trenton, the New Jersey state capital. By the 1960s, Donald’s sons, Malcolm and Gregory, had joined the business. Malcolm would take over on the business side; Gregory became The Record’s editor.
Expansion continued with the purchase of newspapers in Toms River and Freehold and the opening of a Washington, D.C., bureau. Four television stations were added in 1971, and in 1982, the company reorganized as Macromedia Inc., with separate divisions for print and broadcast.
As the company grew, so did its dedication to serving New Jersey’s information needs with award-winning journalism and investigative reporting. Malcolm Borg viewed the company as “a watchdog” for the people of New Jersey. As he explained it: “We were the public’s eyes and ears for many, many years in watching out where the tax money went and who was taking graft and one thing or another.”
In the 1990s, Malcolm’s children, Jennifer and Stephen, joined the company, making it a four-generation business. By the time the family sold its media empire to Gannett in 2016, it had been renamed North Jersey Media Group and included daily and weekly newspapers in Bergen, Passaic, Essex and Hudson counties; websites; magazines; and TV stations.