Here are 3 recipes -- a Pasta with Yogurt, Korean-style Haddock and Kimchi Stew, and Monkfish with Spinach -- all from Victor's Healthy Kitchen on YouTube

 

Auto press group solicits ideas for ethics policy, but at least one member is skeptical

This week, President Emeritus Scotty Reiss asked members of the International Motor Press Association to submit ideas for the group's first ethics policy.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Members of the International Motor Press Association and Washington Automotive Press Association met this week for a free technical conference to improve their content and hone their social-media skills.

Five automakers sponsored the event, held at Volvo Cars Manhattan, including a light breakfast and lunch, and an evening cocktail party on the roof of a hotel called Ink 48.

The party, featuring $29 glasses of French champagne and light snacks, was paid for by Drive Shop, which manages new press and marketing vehicles many members can borrow free for "test drives."

In fact, many IMPA members have such a cozy relationship with auto companies and dealers I was surprised to hear President Emeritus Scotty Reiss solicit ideas for the press group's first ethics policy. 

I didn't get a chance to ask her at the conference on Tuesday why she thought the group needed an ethics policy, and she hasn't responded to my emails.

Freebies galore

I'm not sure IMPA is ready for an ethics policy.

"Free" is the operative word at IMPA, which calls itself the country's "oldest organization of automotive journalists and public relations professionals."

Members come from all media -- print, broadcast and Internet -- and include public relations representatives of all the world's automotive manufacturers and suppliers.

In addition to free cars and SUVs to borrow for a weekend or a week, some members have all their expenses paid when they travel to auto shows to report on new models or attend a "reveal" of a new car or SUV.

Few IMPA members disclose these freebies -- including airfare, hotel rooms and fine dining -- and many of their reports are indistinguishable from the advertising and promotion paid for by the automakers and dealers themselves.

Convivial lunches

I joined IMPA in the 1980s, when I wrote a monthly road-test column on new cars for The Record, then in Hackensack, N.J.

After I left the paper in 2008, I let my membership lapse, but rejoined when I began writing a blog, Shocking Car News, which focused on all-electric and hybrid cars, including my 2015 Tesla Model S.

Later, I folded that blog into The Sasson Report, which covers EVs, food, politics, news of Hackensack, where I live, and other topics.

I enjoy the free monthly IMPA lunches in Manhattan, convivial gatherings of writers, public relations people and auto company executives.

But given IMPA's emphasis on members monetizing their content, and the group's distaste for criticizing the industry and dealers, I can't imagine an ethics policy with any teeth.

Climate change 

For example, I don't see IMPA acknowledging how the auto industry damaged the environment in the past century or how auto emissions cause tens of thousands of premature deaths every year.

Few auto writers in the group focus exclusively on all-electric cars and gas-electric hybrids or ever discuss the environmental advantages of owning such a vehicle.

Good luck, Scotty. I sent you my ideas for an ethics policy. But I'm not holding my breath.

See: World automakers try to improve

 mileage of deadly gas engines

See: Writers just want to have fun

 at annual track event

See: Years late, Consumer Reports

 puts EV on Top 10 list

See: Maserati says 'vaffanculo'

 to climate regulators 

At Tuesday's tech conference, IMPA members heard from representatives of Facebook, Volvo and Drive Shop on how they can increase their presence on social media.

Katz's Deli delivered a light lunch, but servers didn't know what was in some of the sandwiches, which is how I ended up eating a chicken-salad sandwich, below, when I thought I was getting tuna fish. (I don't eat poultry or meat).

During the cocktail party atop Ink 48, I asked for a glass of French champagne, which was listed on the bar menu for $29. Delicious.

Record reader and sports fan catches a major error on today's Local news front

Kevin Meistickle in a photo by Melinda Meistickle from the 1970s.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A sports fan who is a careful reader of The Record says a story about a former West Milford man on the Local news front is "misleading" and "in error."

Despite the words "former Met" in the headline, Kevin Meistickle never played for the baseball team, the reader said in an email to The Sasson Report.

Victor: There are two things that are clearly misleading -- the headline says "Former Met"  that clearly implies that he played for the Mets.  

He never played a game for them and I do not even know if they signed him to a contract. It is not unusual for teams to draft players but not sign them for a variety of reasons.

Calling him a former Met would be like calling someone who ran in a primary for U.S. senator as a "former senator." 

The sentence that "Kevin Meistickle spent roughly a decade playing professional baseball for the Atlanta Braves, Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves" clearly connotes that he played for those teams. 

It should have said "Kevin Meistickle spent roughly a decade playing professional baseball in the farm systems of the Atlanta Braves, Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves."  

Either poor editing or the author [reporter David M. Zimmer] did not understand the distinctions or both. 

Errors have mounted since the unannounced redesign of The Record of Woodland Park in November, and the money-saving shift of production to a Gannett Co. design center in Neptune, where the publisher puts out seven New Jersey dailies.

In an earlier email, the Record reader said: 

 I never heard of this fellow. After a close reading of the article, it appears that he never played a game in the major leagues, but it was not clear. 

I checked him on the Baseball Reference.com website, which has every person who ever played a game in the majors. He was not listed. It appears that he was a career minor leaguer.

 The article could not be more misleading.

Besides shifting production to Neptune, Gannett apparently no longer publishes corrections on the second page of the paper, as The Record did occasionally when it was owned by the Borg family.