Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Time to poll Americans on who we trust in the news media

In his first debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton, GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump didn't mention the wall he wants Mexico to build on the U.S. border. This cartoon is from Christo Komarnitski in Bulgaria.


By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

"Clinton and Trump
come out swinging"

Is this trite, non-committal Page 1 headline the best The Record's editors can do today to describe the first presidential debate?

With the names changed, this same headline probably has run every time presidential candidates engaged in their first televised confrontation.

Democrat Hillary Clinton looked and sounded far more presidential than Trump, the wacko racist who didn't prepare for the debate and at times did a good imitation of a blithering idiot.

On NYTimes.com, David Leonhardt, an OpEd columnist, listed 26 lies Trump told during the debate -- from the loan his father once gave him to "birtherism" to calling women "pigs."

Then, Leonhardt asks, "So ... who won the debate?"

The Times has already endorsed Clinton for president, leaving readers of The Record wondering when the editorial board of the Woodland Park daily is finally going to take sides.

"Our endorsement is rooted in respect for her intellect, experience and courage," The Times said on Sunday.

A recent Record editorial claimed Americans don't trust either presidential candidate, but no one has polled readers on whether they trust the paper's editorial board, which didn't call on Christie to resign after endorsing Trump in February, as did seven other dailies.

A 'Cichowski'

A second blithering idiot appears on A-1 today --Road Warrior John Cichowski, who slams David Wildstein, the former Port Authority executive who pleaded guilty and is testifying as the chief prosecution witness in the Bridgegate trial.

Cichowski's column is one of two pieces that attack Wildstein's credibility (A-1 and A-4).

As usual, Cichowski's column is padded with so much nonsense you have to wonder why the editors ran it at all.

"The governor's childhood chum explained the makings of something so bizarre [conspiring with other officials to cause a traffic jam] that it might some day be called a 'Wildstein'" (A-1).

Well, there are a few 'Cichowskis' in the column -- stuff he completely makes up -- like reporting for the first time that closure of two upper-level access lanes to the George Washington Bridge from Sept. 9 to 13, 2013, "paralyzed Fort Lee and several other towns." 

A second "Cichowski" is noting "the world's busiest bridge ... links America's biggest city to New Jersey's biggest county."

Oh, that's why they built it.

Can readers trust anything they read in the Road Warrior column, which Cichowski has mishandled for all of the 13 years he's been doing it?

Shuber told?

On Monday, Wildstein testified he alerted Pat Shuber, a Port Authority commissioner, to the plan to create gridlock in Fort Lee in 2013 to punish the borough's Democratic mayor for not endorsing Governor Christie's reelection.

Wildstein said Shuber, who was appointed by Christie, "understood," but an attorney for the former Bergen County executive denies the conversation ever took place.

Abused seniors

Staff Writer Colleen Diskin, the closest thing the paper has to a reporter who covers the elderly, today describes a Bergen County nursing home with a free room for any abused senior -- "a temporary place to stay to get away from exploitative, neglectful or violent circumstances" (A-1).

What about the majority of Bergen seniors, who travel, dine out frequently, go to Broadway shows and subscribe to The Record?

When is Diskin going to pay any attention to them? 

Local news?

The Local front today reports on a major endorsement for Josh Gottheimer, the Democrat trying to unseat Rep. Scott Garrett in the 5th Congressional District (L-1).

Gottheimer has repeatedly attacked Garrett as a Tea Party radical, but that identification doesn't appear anywhere in the story on retired Gen. Wesley Clark's appearance at a campaign event for the former Microsoft executive.

A second story reports Teaneck Councilman Mark Schwartz, a Democrat who is Jewish, is endorsing Garrett, claiming the congressman is "one of the best friends Israel has" (L-1).

Four major stories about Paterson appear in a local-news section that has little news about the 70 towns in Bergen County.

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