Letter: ‘He Said, She Said’ Reporting is Not Sufficient

Published on: 30 Oct, 2026
Updated on: 30 Oct, 2026

From George Potter

Lib Dem borough, county and West Surrey Shadow Authority councillor

In response to: Cranleigh Leisure Centre Rebuild Still Uncertain, Warn Opposition Councillors

The opposition comments on this article could be made about literally any council major project in Surrey right now.

Neither East nor West Surrey can commit to any major projects until they set their first budgets, and any question asked about any project will be met with the same response of “we can’t make any specific commitments until we set our budget”.

This applies as much to Weyside Urban Village as it does to the Dorking Regeneration Project as it does to Cranleigh Leisure Centre.

It is, I suppose, unsurprising that Tory opposition politicians will seek to exploit that fact to make mischief by spreading alarmism that project X or Y is in danger of being cancelled because it is not yet possible for a successor council to commit to it yet, but it is surprising, and disappointing, that the LDR journalists no longer bother with the most rudimentary of factual analysis and instead just limit themselves to ‘he-said-she-said’ reporting on local government.

Heaven forfend they use their taxpayer-funded salaries to try to actually inform and educate.

It famously used to be said to journalists that if one person says it’s raining and another person says it’s sunny then it’s not their job to report both claims with equal billing, it’s their job to look out the window and see for themselves which it is. Clearly that no longer applies (with the honourable exception of the Dragon’s in-house reporters).

Editor’s response

First, I apologise to Cllr Potter for the time it has taken for his comment, sent in on October 18, and my response to be published. Even editors need to take some leave, occasionally.

Journalistic reports can take many forms and assessment of merit is necessarily subjective, to a degree at least.

In my view, your criticism of the LDRS article is harsh.

Essentially what was being reported is an intention to have a new community project completed in Cranleigh and an observation from political opponents that nothing can be guaranteed because of local government reorganisation and its impact on finances.

Both views have been properly reported with apparent accuracy – at least no one has suggested otherwise (I believe it is rare for reporters to be intentionally inaccurate; our reports are on public record for all to see and judge).

Readers should be able to know what different parties have said. The job of a reporter, in part, is to extract quotes that help tell the story in a clear, digestible and fair way. And sometimes the quotes alone can do this.

Without analysis, reports still have definite value: in this case Waverley Lib Dems have expressed a strong intention that the Cranleigh Sports Centre is completed while the opposition leader has warned that the centre’s future cannot be considered definite because of the overall uncertainty of of West Surrey’s financial position. Both things are true and both are clearly expressed in the quoted remarks.

It wasn’t: “one person says it’s raining and another person says it’s sunny”. It was more like one person saying: “I expect to buy a new car next year,” and someone else pointing out, “But what if your roof needs to be replaced?”

Often it is the analysis of news that can be considered more subjective, even biased, which is why we at the Dragon always use the clear labels “Opinion” and “Comment”. Of course, opinion and comment has an important value too, so long as different views are allowed to be represented.

Finally, if the finances of local government are in a parlous state then so they are for local journalism. Staffing levels have been stripped to the bone. The Dragon has only survived because of voluntary effort but it is not a sustainable. If there is anyone that would like to help us meet that challenge I would be delighted to hear from them.

We have had some fine words from some politicians but, frankly, little else. If we are not all to eventually rely completely on unedited social media for our local news something needs to happen.