Don't own a car? Take a hike

Image by Keithius via Flickr

The Record of Woodland Park today carries plenty of evidence the lazy, incompetent editors favor news about well-to-do whites like themselves over news about working-class minorities. For example, if you live in a poor town or don't own a car and rely on shabby local buses, you'll get its cold, editorial shoulder.

A huge Page 1 story reports that students in affluent North Jersey high schools get dramatically higher SAT scores than those in poor urban areas. Is this news? Didn't the state Supreme Court decades ago order more state aid to poor school districts, precisely because property tax collections often determined the quality of education? The story is silent on what, if anything, is being done to improve the SAT scores in poor high schools.

Then, the mostly white editors bury a story on A-4 about Governor Christie halting all actions by the Council on Affordable Housing. The state's wealthy towns have done so much to stop the building of housing for low- and moderate-income people, you'd think their residents are racists. This is the story that belongs on A-1, not the back-slapping take-out praising what a great job educators in Ridgewood and other rich towns are doing.

Then you get to the column by Road Warrior John Cichowski on the front of Local. His mission is to write about the commuting issues faced by drivers and users of mass transit, but he has found as many excuses as possible to sit for hours in the office, reading e-mails, instead of riding on and commenting about the quality of bus and rail service. If you don't own a car, John says, go to hell.

Compare the coverage of deer or West Milford to the coverage of Hackensack, and the former home of The Record comes up short. Today, a single photo about a new fire-fighting tool is all the Hackensack coverage you'll find. Live in Teaneck or Englewood? You're also out of luck.

But there is room for two, seven-paragraph "local news" stories: one on a water pipe rupture in Lyndhurst, the other about Moonachie hiring two police officers. Wow. Don't you think this ground-breaking municipal coverage is worth the 50-cents cover price?

And as if we weren't fat enough, Staff Writer and Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung stuffs her face at four cupcake "joints" in Ridgewood, and tells us all about it in sickly, artery clogging detail in Better Living.

Recession? More demand at food pantries? Let them eat $3.75 cupcakes, The Record says.