No letters page in the Ely Standard for two consecutive weeks - it’s contrary to justice

FOR the second week running the Ely Standard did not have a Letters page in last week’s edition.

If this is because of some dire staffing emergency then you have my sympathy. However, it is contrary to justice and democratic principles not to allow your readers the right of reply to provocative articles.

Before the Ely Standard goes any further into a downward spiral, I would like to make several suggestions.

Please aim for a newspaper which takes account of the fact that Ely is a distinguished cathedral city and not any old hick-town in the boon-docks.

Please take note of the fact that a lot of interesting, grown-up people live here whose stories are worth finding out about in some detail.

Please could we have some longer, regular features in the paper, so that it loses the feeling of unstructured bittiness that it has at the moment?

It was a sad thing when, under the last editor, Lynne Turner’s expansive articles on local history were curtailed and then dropped.

Please dare to be old-fashioned and put the names of the paper’s editorial team where a reader would expect to find them, not hiding in the bottom right-hand corner of some unremarkable inside page.

I do wish you well in whatever troubles your newspaper is going through at the moment.

JANET FAIRWEATHER

Via e-mail

Editor’s Note: Thank you for your thoughts Janet and your comments are appreciated. I dropped the letters pages for a couple of week because no-one had actually written any! Presumably everyone in Ely is happy and content.

You do raise some interesting thoughts though. I’d be happy to buy you a coffee if you care either to drop in (recommended) and to accept my invitation to Costa (also recommended - during my days in Ely I have never found the office coffee much of an inducement).