Letter: Don't victimise the regional press

Sir: Polly Toynbee ("Weasel words in the last-chance saloon", 11 September) should remove her blinkers. Her diatribe on the perceived ills of her industry tars a huge number of undeserving victims, namely the regional press.

There is a greater world beyond the national comics and the sanctimonious heavies to make the total picture of what she describes as a "grotesque press".

Many more people in this country read regional papers than nationals. These journals and their editors don't always get it right. But they respect, welcome and adhere to the Code of Practice in a manner very different from Polly Toynbee's viperish reaction to it.

There is much good, indeed great journalism in the national press. Recognising that is a prerequisite for identifying the rotten bits.

Polly Toynbee tells us how she laughed out loud when she came across the "legendary" Code of Practice. Her jibes sit incongruously with her later assertion that it is "a good code, full of truths".

GRAHAM GLEN

Editor

`Evening Post'

Nottingham