N.H. paper backing Christie has picked losers since 1988

This Daily News front page from Jan. 9, 2014, is worth running again now that the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper has given its presidential endorsement to Governor Christie, who is last among GOP candidates in state polls.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In case you missed The Record's Sunday story on a New Hampshire newspaper endorsement of Governor Christie, you'll find another one on Page A-3 today.

The Union Leader on Saturday gave its presidential endorsement to the GOP bully, the latest in a long line of losers that paper has backed since 1988.

That means that except for 2004, none of the Republicans endorsed by the Union Leader went on to win the big prize, the White House.

The endorsement went to Newt Gingrich in 2012, John McCain in 2008, Steve Forbes in 2000, Pat Buchanan in 1996 and 1992, and Pete du Pont in 1988.

Christie is running seventh among Republican contenders in state polls of New Hampshire voters leading up to the Feb. 9 primary.

Why did The Record run stories for two days in a row on the same newspaper endorsement?

Rutgers news

The Record today corrects a major error on Sunday's front page, where it named the wrong team in reporting the loss of Rutgers University's football team on Saturday.

However, none of the half-dozen major errors in Staff Writer Christopher Maag's Sunday story on commuter rail in North Jersey were corrected.

Although today's front page is dominated by more news about Rutger's football team, the real crisis is at the Woodland Park daily.

Devoting so much of Page 1 to Rutgers football, and playing the story under a big, black doomsday headline, surely had tens of thousands of readers cursing their misfortune.

This is a non-story for the vast majority of readers, yet it seems to fascinate Editor Martin Gottieb, who left The New York Times to take over the newsroom of the Woodland Park daily.

Local news?

There is so little local news today, Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza had to run long wire-service obituaries about an obscure U.N. official and an even obscurer Japanese actress on L-6.

Meanwhile, freelancer Nina Rizzo must be trying to steer patients to a cardiac-surgery practice with three recipes for macaroni and cheese (BL-1).

They are filled with unhealthy ingredients -- butter, half-and-half, heavy cream, full-fat cheese and bacon.

Yogi again!!! Readers get another front page of stale news

Baking a sweet potato until the natural sugar oozes out. Unless you want to gain wait or clog your arteries, ignore Record freelancer Nina Rizzo's advice in the Better Living section today that the only way to enjoy sweet potatoes is to add butter, heavy cream and sugar to them.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Editor Martin Gottlieb of The Record is filling the front page today with more warmed-up old news: 

Yogi Berra, Afghanistan, the faked Planned Parenthood video and Pope Francis.

Local news

The local-news section today is filled with non-profit news, as it is every Monday (Local).

On L-1, there are stories about a food drive, special games and hundreds of motorcyclists -- some of whom delight in violating local anti-noise ordinances -- on a run to raise money for charity.

Inside, three of the five municipal news stories are from Little Falls, Pompton Lakes and Lincoln Park (L-2 and L-3), and there's not a single word about Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood.

Food news

Nina Rizzo, a food writer for the Asbury Park Press, ignores all of the Record readers who are diabetic or watching their weight and cholesterol with sweet-potato recipes filled with butter, heavy cream and sugar (BL-1 and BL-2).

Missing is a recipe for mashed sweet potatoes with heart-healthy extra-virgin olive oil and seasonings, including curry powder, cinnamon, red-pepper flakes and garlic powder. 

In a sidebar comparing sweet potatoes and yams, she doesn't explain the latter are starchier and have more calories.

When court news, Dean's List stand in for local reporting

Many Hackensack residents wrote large checks -- more than $4,500 for some homeowners -- to meet Monday's deadline for payment of quarterly property taxes. But the lack of coverage in The Record means they would have to attend Board of Education meetings and question officials themselves on why the school budget is so high and exceeds the city's own budget.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Page 1 of The Record today, the obituary of Ralph Corrado, owner of Rosie's Farmland Diner, is mildly interesting.

But the editors forgot to report that like the diner, the Little Ferry Circle is history. And readers might still be wondering if Ralph was related to the Corrados who own supermarkets in Passaic County.

As for the rest of the front page, Editor Martin Gottlieb's story selection could lull you to sleep like the steady beat of raindrops on my skylight, especially the column on Governor Christie's birth control practices (A-1).

Buried on A-3 today is a story on Christie vetoing 13 bills, including quarterly payments to the troubled state pension system.

And NJ.com reports that as of Monday, Christie had spent nearly 55 percent of the year outside of New Jersey in pursuit of his White House dreams (that's all or part of 121 days).

Local news?

Well, don't turn to the Local section for relief.

Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza are back to their old sleight-of-hand tricks of heavy coverage of criminal court hearings (L-1), and a Dean's List that fills half of a page (L-6).

Other pages carry a total of eight more Law & Order stories, and a photo of a non-fatal two-car collision in Glen Rock.

Although The Record does a fair to middling job of covering the Hackensack City Council, the Woodland Park daily completely ignores the city's school board and increasing education budget, leaving taxpayers twisting in the wind.

In a story on the Port Authority's shuffling of bus gates in midtown Manhattan, the editors forget to tell commuters about several freestanding touch terminals they can use to locate platforms for their New Jersey bound buses (L-1 and L-3).

Healthy recipes

In Monday's Better Living section, three recipes for Jersey Tomatoes were a rare nod to the many readers who are trying to follow a healthy lifestyle (BL-1).

The story carried the byline of Nina Rizzo, a food writer at the Asbury Park Press.

The Record's own writers -- restaurant critic Elisa Ung and Food Editor Esther Davidowitz -- usually sample or promote unhealthy food, including three major articles on the resurrection of Callahan's preservative-laden, deep-fried beef-and-pork hot dogs.

Editors continue to diss elderly, fabricate dumpling fever

Even though the surface of Route 4 in Paramus was clear around 9:30 this morning, eastbound traffic moved sluggishly after warnings from The Record that ice would make "travel hazardous" (Local front).

On the narrow, two-lane cow track known as Passaic Avenue, the light was green, but traffic was at a standstill near Summit Avenue in Hackensack, where county officials have ignored calls for the installation of turn lanes. In North Jersey, as much as 10 inches of snow fell on Monday.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The editors of The Record today are lampooning an elderly woman who inadvertently crashed her 2005 Buick LeSabre, which was found "suspended over a retaining wall at a concrete plant" in Wayne (Local front).

This time, readers don't have the same kind of photos that ran in the Local news section on Jan. 13.

Then, they could clearly see the helpless expression on a white-haired woman's face after she drove her 2009 Honda Civic "over a guardrail and retaining wall and down an embankment at a condominium complex" in Ridgewood. 

But today's story names the elderly driver, Mary Gwenn, 81, who disappeared Friday night and was discovered Saturday afternoon, having been "exposed to a life-threatening drop in body temperature" during a cold snap (L-1).

Gwenn and the unnamed driver on Jan. 13 likely mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal, a common error for elderly drivers.

Is driver retraining available for such older drivers?

Road Warrior John Cichowski has ignored that question for more than a decade.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, have run numerous stories on older drivers running into storefronts, hitting pedestrians and causing other mayhem.

But they've never run any stories on whether help is available for these drivers, who are no more addled than Cichowski himself. 

That's not surprising given how The Record virtually ignores Alzheimer's, heart disease and other illnesses suffered by older readers.

Christie in England

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes continues to hang on every word from Governor Christie, the undeclared candidate who is campaigning in England for the Republican presidential nod in 2016 (A-1).

Meanwhile, Christie is defending his "corporate-backed, three-day trip," claiming "it aims to improve the state economy" (A-6).

But campaign finance experts say Choose New Jersey, the non-profit paying for Christie and his wife, poses a potential conflict of interest "because the firms ... have significant business with the state."

Voodoo economics

A Bloomberg News story on the first Business page today doesn't explain how a couple who are saving $500 a month, "thanks to cheap gasoline," can afford to visit Disney World and renovate their home (L-7).

"We're finally starting to feel like we're back in the middle class," Cheryl Saul of Emmaus, Pa., says.

The Record's business editors apparently couldn't find a North Jersey couple who suddenly felt they could splurge on an expensive vacation.

And, of course, by emphasizing the savings on cheap gas, the story takes the focus off of North Jersey Media Group and other employers who have frozen wages in recent years.

Dumpling mania?

A Better Living cover story by freelancer Nina Rizzo would have us believe North Jersey residents have suddenly discovered Asian dumplings (BL-1).

Rizzo claims dumplings are a "trend" that is "exploding among foodies nationwide and picking up speed in North Jersey."

What a joke. We've been eating Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese dumplings for decades.

This is another so-called trend story newspapers love to run to peak reader interest in a topic proposed by a staffer or freelancer such as Rizzo, who is a food writer for The Asbury Park Press.

Under WHERE TO FIND DUMPLINGS on BL-1 today, the name of a Closter restaurant, Homung Nangmyun, is misspelled.

Petite Soo Chow, a Chinese restaurant, also is listed, but there is no mention the Cliffside Park Health Department closed the place three times in less than three years for insect infestation and other unsanitary conditions.

We patronized the restaurant for its Shanghai-style soup dumplings in 2007 and 2008, but stopped going there after we saw the lone male waiter picking his nose in the dining room one time too many.

The first Health Department closure was in May 2009.