Brace for five months of hysterical Clinton-Trump coverage

Work is underway to convert the former United Jersey Bank Building at 210 Main St. in Hackensack and an adjacent structure into apartments, above, as seen from Moore Street.

The former bank's parking garage on Moore Street was being demolished on Saturday.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record and other media will make sure the five months until the November presidential election won't be pretty.

Today's front page celebrates the milestone of Hillary Clinton becoming the first woman to lead a major American political party as she clinched the Democratic presidential nomination (A-1).

But below the fold, Editor Deirdre Sykes trots out the paper's burned-out political columnists -- Charles Stile from Trenton and Herb Jackson from Washington -- signaling her distaste for issues-based coverage.

She has that in common with The Associated Press and much of the electronic media, which will do their best to portray the contest between Clinton and wacko racist Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, as one of the closest, if not the closest, in history.

Jackson claims "leaders of both parties debated whether Trump's unpredictability could end the state's streak of backing Democratic presidential candidates that goes back to Bill Clinton in 1992" (A-1).

As for Stile, he's quoting Governor Christie as claiming "Trump is not a racist" (A-1 and A-7).

What a joke. 

Of course, Trump is a racist, and he's drawing support from an exclusively white electorate who have always hated the nation's first black president.

Obama v. Romney

The media have a lot invested in keeping voters interested in coverage of a presidential race that seems to begin right after the inauguration.

That's what happened in 2012, when the media quoted pollsters and experts as claiming the contest between President Obama and the GOP's pathetic Mitt Romney was too close to call.

In fact, the incumbent buried Romney in both the popular vote and in the Electoral College.

Mexicans, Muslims

Why haven't the major TV news networks or The Associated Press ever just laughed in Trump's face when he says he is going to build a wall on the U.S.- Mexican border, and get the Mexicans to pay for it?

Why haven't the media denounced the billionaire for his hate speech against Mexicans, Muslims and other minorities? 

Trump can't possibly win on a platform that seeks to "Make American Hate Again" and "Make America White Again."

Local news?

The first paragraph of another front-page story claims the plan for a 14-story hotel and conference center at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center was "once heralded as a cornerstone of revitalization efforts in South Paterson" (A-1).

That's the kind of flawed local reporting The Record is known for.

Since the 1960s, South Paterson's bustling Middle Eastern bazaar of restaurants and other food businesses, and the city's Farmers Market have drawn shoppers from Bergen County and other parts of the metropolitan area.

With new commercial buildings and a strip mall, as well as one of the biggest mosques in North Jersey, renewal of the neighborhood on the Clifton border has never waited for the hotel and conference center that St. Joseph's has now abandoned.