Sky blue, grass green

Friday's Aegis contained the most unsurprising article I've ever read, that realtors, county officials, just about everyone is advising the New Jersey BRAC transplants to avoid Edgewood.
I especially liked the county's hedge that they advised people to go to the state of Maryland's Web site to view test scores. It's all right there -- the schools are "not meeting expectations" in bold letters.
This had the potential to be a good article, but in our opinion at TAA, it was marred by the reporter's reluctance to clean-up the quotes of the realtor from Edgewood who was quoted. While the realtors in Bel Air, Fallston, Forest Hill, etc., benefit from the poor schools across 1-95 by inflating home prices in those school districts, this poor realtor (a phrase I don't think I've ever used before) is fighting against TPTB who are in collusion with the realtors. The reporter shared the realtor's use of "ain't" which was entirely unnecessary. It distracted from his valid points about the trouble he's experiencing. While some are reaping the benefits of poor schools, many (not even counting the children) are not.
As former reporters here at TAA, we know it is common to clean up quotes. If David Craig uses the word "ain't" or Jacqueline Haas misplaces a pronoun, it will not appear in print. We knew reporters who relished making their subjects appear stupid. Most of these subjects were politicians who could take it. The realtor, who was passionately defending the schools in his area and using the word "ain't" in the process received an unnecessary jab from the reporter -- "see, the schools are failing, the realtors can't even speak correct English!"
In our naive days when we first moved here four years ago, we really thought that BRAC would bring about a change in the school district. Certainly the high-tech new residents wouldn't stand for subpar schools. And then here at TAA we realized that they wouldn't stand for subpar schools in Fallston, Bel Air and Forest Hill. Keeping the "desirables" on one side of I-95 and the "undesirables" on the other seems to be working for someone. That article had a chance to highlight that, but instead it decided to highlight poor grammar.