Be grateful for fine journalists

I NOTE another fine article by David Pratt concerning the necessity of having top class reporters providing people with on the spot commentaries from the world’s troublespots (“Now, more than ever, we need sound foreign reporting”, The Herald, July 7).

All governments have been adept at putting out propaganda to the press that is then published as hard facts, particularly in the right-wing London papers. Fortunately over the years we have had journalists of the calibre of Claude Cockburn, Wilfred Burchett, Donald Woods, John Pilger, Marie Colvin and Martha Gellhorn who are able to sift the facts from a maelstrom of “false news”. How easy it is for governments to dupe the public. They thrive on it.

Wilf O’Malley,

11 Delnies Road, Inverness.