SIR – Malvern Town Councillor Paul Tuthill has put the cat among the pigeons with his now withdrawn proposal to limit forthcoming agendas for public meetings to the bare topics to be discussed.

This predictably produced words of outrage from the editor of Worcester News and negative noises from political rivals in your correspondence columns.

How dare he attempt to limit the legitimate interest of our fifth estate warriors of the now it can be told headlines?

And yet I see what the councillor means. There’s usually a reasonably good and sometimes an excellent press reporter’s precis of the agenda report itself, given the restrictions of column inches.

But there is sometimes (and more often in some newspapers than others) a tendentious sub-editorial heavy print headline over it, often of the type which says “Council set to introduce...” – the sort of headline which can give the impression that the whole matter is cut and dried, whereas the reality is that it is not until the voting at the end of the agenda item that we really know what’s decided.

By the sound of his letter in the Malvern Gazette, Graham Myatt didn’t actually bother to attend that Malvern Town Council meeting. What’s more, in spite of their editorial fulminations the Worcester News didn’t even send a reporter, which rather proves the point I think Councillor Tuthill is making: elements of the press are sometimes more interested in stirring controversy than reporting the arguments put forth.

In an ideal world, of course, the agenda reports (usually drawn up by professional officers in an honest and balanced way) should be published beforehand. But in that ideal world the press should understand council matters are up for discussion in a meeting and not for rubber stamping – and that goes for issues on which unanimity might be predicted as much as for those which seem to be an open question.

CHRIS CHEESEMAN, District Councillor, Malvern.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

The letter writer misses the point. If local authorities restrict information released to the media, they are in effect reducing the level of information being given to the public. That cannot be right and newspapers like the Worcester News will continue to oppose any such proposals. He is right to point out that the Worcester News did not attend the town council meeting in question but our sister publication the Malvern Gazette did – and we share resources with them