By Samantha Castle, Reporter
So, you’ve got an opinion on something, or you want others to know your plight, or you simply feel something is so unjustified that you have to tell your story to the Weekly News and share it with our readers...
Well, this is exactly the kind of pro-active reader we like, people like that are our bread and butter and we rely on readers coming forward with their stories or opinions to help fill our pages with interesting copy.
But what is the point, I ask you, of contacting the editorial department to rant down the phone about something that we’ve either written about already, or just something that’s rattled you enough to pick up the phone? And then you want to remain anonymous.
You feel so strongly about an everyday matter that you’ve contacted the media, but that’s it - no name, no contact information and no photograph. What do you expect us to do with that information?
For example, a lady contacted the office the other day to comment about a news story we had written about North Wales Police having armed patrols in Llandudno during the festive season. She talked for what seemed like 10 minutes about how wonderful the police were with her when she experienced vandalism some time ago, and that we "Welsh should support our police more” (she was English).
She was full of strong opinions, which we always welcome, so I asked for her name and contact details so we could produce a story from her point of view. But she said she didn’t want her opinions in the paper, or to send a letter to the letters page, or give her name as “journalists twist everything”.
My advice to her and other people who wish to share their point of view with us is to please keep doing so, we want you to get in touch, we welcome it. But only if you feel it would be of use to us.
If you don't want to have your story written, then there are other ways you can express your opinion - you can send a letter to the editor, or if you want to remain anonymous why not sound off on our online forum?
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Vincent McKenzie wrote...
Still no Takers!
A problem I have with writing to news papers and offering my opinion is, my letters get heavily edited and when they appear in print, they are not my opinion, my voice, simply my name.
Posted by: Vincent McKenzie | December 28, 2007 12:52 PM