Baldreydash: I dare the media to cover child poverty during B.C. election

News reporters, including myself, tend to be a bourgeois lot.

Most of us with full-time jobs make decent money. We don't have to go to soup kitchens. We're able to afford bus fare if we take the transit system, but a lot of us also own cars.

I believe this influences what we cover on the nightly news.

Trust me, child poverty  rarely, if ever,  makes the grade, even though B.C. posted the worst child-poverty rate in Canada for five consecutive years under the B.C. Liberals.

A primary factor behind B.C.'s high child-poverty rate are B.C. Liberal government's policies concerning single mothers. This topic also doesn't make the grade on  most nightly newscasts.

Not long ago, we heard from Lower Mainland mayors who were concerned that the bus system will be cut back to levels not seen since the 1970s.

This is because the B.C. Liberal government and the NDP government that preceded it focused far too much attention on building large-scale rapid-transit projects in areas with low population densities. People who ride the bus just aren't as important as the megaprojects.

It's one reason why transit fares keep going up year after year.

This is  also a factor behind B.C.'s despicable child-poverty rate.

I challenge my bourgeois peers in the media to focus just a tiny bit of attention  on this area before the May 12 provincial election.

Perhaps a Facebook photo of a candidate in his underwear or a cabinet minister with speeding tickets seems more important to the average assignment editor.

But it's not more important to the hungry kids in our communities.

Some of these kids of single mothers are ending up in gangs--and part of the reason is because they're absorbing the message that nobody cares about their welfare.

The proof is in how this election is being covered.