On weather or election, we're sick of the hype

  One homeowner prepared for the storm by covering outdoor furniture.

Editor Marty Gottlieb delivers another screaming Hurricane Sandy headline on Page 1 today -- for the fourth day in a row.

"Bracing for the worst" is today's banner headline, hard on the heels of "Ready or not, here it comes" on the weak Sunday edition.

We may not be ready, but here it is Monday morning in Hackensack and we haven't seen any steady rain.

Sure, the trees are swaying in the wind and our power flickered out for a few minutes, but that's it so far.

OK. The storm center has yet to hit the New Jersey coast, and all of the bad things we've read in the paper may indeed come to pass.  

But once you've read the predictions of weather doom, there is pathetically little in the rest of the paper, especially the Local news section run so poorly by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy yes man, Dan Sforza. 

Hype sells papers

The hurricane hype is eerily familiar to readers who have been pounded into senselessness by coverage of the presidential election for the past year and a half.

President Obama's lackluster performance in the first debate was a godsend to Gottlieb and others media leaders.

They were able to whip up another horse race to keep readers engaged in an election process they lost interest in many months before.

Meanwhile, GOP hopeful Mitt Romney's many lies went unchallenged, as he moved toward the center and said anything to get elected.

Pascrell endorsement

The paper's endorsement today of Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. D-Paterson, was welcome (A-11).

The Record has paid far too much attention to the challenge by Republican Shmuley Boteach, an Englewood rabbi and author who is a master at manipulating the media.

Did any of the many stories on Boteach's campaign for the 9th District seat in Congress report how he bought an Englewood mansion, knowing full well the one next door was owned by the Libyan Mission to the U.N.?

Did The Record recall the almost daily coverage of Boteach's so-called protest in the summer of 2009 when the mission announced that Libyan leader Moammar Ghadafi planned to stay in the East Hill home? 

Did the paper's political reporters or columnist reprise Boteach's recent attempt to have his mansion declared a synagogue so he could gain exemption from city property taxes? 

No contest

It's likely the paper ignored all of Boteach's many weaknesses to make the race against Pascrell seem tighter than it is, just as it is doing with coverage of the presidential contest.

Buried in Sunday's Page 1 story on jobs is a report that the Congressional Budget Office predicted in January the nation will add 10 million jobs from January 2013 to January 2017 (A-5 on Sunday).

Similarly, private economists have predicted that the economy is likely to create 12 million more jobs in four years, regardless of who is elected.

If those predictions are credible, why hasn't anyone challenged Romney's ridiculous boast that as president he would "create" 12 million jobs?   

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