A LETTER from reader Barry Green (published today) may have struck a chord with some readers. The Craven Herald is, he believes, reporting increasingly on bad news and calls for some Christmas cheer.

The argument echoes comments made by news reader Martyn Lewis. However, as the saying goes, don't shoot the messenger! The Herald reflects life in the Craven area of the Yorkshire Dales and if there are bad events, then we must report them.

Kate Adie answered a similar question when she spoke at Giggleswick School a couple of years ago quite brilliantly. Imagine, she said, you are sitting in your back garden on a lovely summer's day and you hear the sound of chatter, laughing, beer cans being opened and sausages sizzling on a barbecue on one side. Suddenly, on the other side of the fence there are voices shouting, the sound of a shotgun and a scream. Which side of the fence would you look over?

There is a public perception that all news is bad. For example, we are constantly surprised that firms who win major contracts, take on extra workers or present their staff with awards don't bother to announce their good news to the world but redundancies and closures do make the headlines.

Herald reporters much prefer to report on good news for the district and there is plenty of it about. A perusal of our columns this week will show it makes up a considerable proportion of our content.

Alas we do have our share of police incidents but keep informing us of happy tidings so we can bring some of the requested Chrismas cheer!

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.