Letter to Sir Ray from Alan and Ivy Beard

Dear Sir Ray Tindle,

We very much appreciate the local press. I wrote to you once before regarding the Gazette that I always purchased because of its very good contents.

We write now because we are very concerned about all the local papers you produce because they are very important, where they give us well balanced local news, that we are sure, even local councillors and MPs find useful, and it keeps us abreast of what is happening in our community.

We need so much that you print, and the chance to express our opinion/opposition/concerns through your letters pages, often the only outlet to make this public knowledge where it affects a great many people.

We have advertising pushed through our doors on a daily basis that goes straight in the bins. Undoubtedly newspapers gather revenue from the advertising material which is taken more notice of if it is combined with well-written interesting local news items.

With dedicated staff to turn out your well written and presented additions week after week. It is a disappointing state of affairs that the reporters find themselves in. The position of having to go on strike to show you the strength of feeling they have on preserving the quality of your newspapers, which unless they have the time to gather
information, interview, research and compile the pages to the high award standard they expect of themselves, job satisfaction and enthusiasm will wither away along with the reputation the reporters have worked hard to achieve over the years in your newspapers.

Clearly it is obvious they cannot produce the same standard of excellence if there is not enough reporting staff to cover all the many diverse pages people are interested in.

Just writing a letter is an effort, but the ability of the reporters to gather the information, get the facts right, make it interesting and set the article in an allotted space, can be seen as no easy task and made unreasonable without sufficient time to do it to their
professional satisfaction, yours and that of your readers.

Please consider the importance of all that is being expressed to you and negotiate with those who have your best interests at heart as well as their own, and ultimately ours.

Yours sincerely,

Alan and Ivy Beard.