Image by Getty Images via DaylifeRoad Warrior Columnist John Cichowski needs to get off his duff and take a first-hand look at the problems of commuters -- both drivers and mass-transit users.
Instead, he spends hour after hour in the office poring over e-mails he gets from readers of The Record of Woodland Park and often takes his lead from them, because he has to turn out three columns a week and is desperate for material.
Today, on the front of Local, his column is hung on a single e-mail, and he enlists the aid of other readers to answer her question: Where can a driver find free air to keep tires inflated properly. But he doesn't go far enough and completely ignores a related issue: Gas stations that don't hit you with a surcharge for using a credit card.
Properly inflated tires improve gas mileage, but if you pay 5 cents to 10 cents more per gallon for using a credit card, the savings are canceled. I use the Shell station in Teaneck he lists as having free air, but do so because it charges the same for cash or credit, especially important for drivers like me who hold a cash-rebate card (I get 5% back on gasoline purchases).
John, you'd be a much better, more relevant columnist if you come down from Garret Mountain and rub shoulders with many of the commuters you have long ignored -- the rail and bus riders who often are ill-served by NJ Transit. You need to pay more attention to them, especially at a time when they are facing 25% fare hikes and service cuts. Now, your columns seem frivolous.
The Page 1 story on the jobless problems of returning veterans is told in the pictures -- all of the vets featured appear to be minorities, but Staff Writer Harvy Lipman doesn't discuss whether they are having a harder time than other vets finding work.
Yet, the other A-1 story is about a shortage of black donors for lifesaving stem cell or bone marrow transplants.
I noticed a number of typos today, starting on A-1. The level of news copy editing continues to decline.
In the other sections, the best I found was Virginia Rohan's interview in Better Living with the flamboyant ex-Patersonian who scripts the Oscar show, especially his memories of Silk City in the 1950s and his anecdote about the city of Garfield after the Kennedy assassination.
Did anyone bother reading wind bags Mike Kelly and Bill Ervolino today?
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