Reflecting a proud community

Recently, I met a senior civil servant who told me, without embarrassment, that potential investors can't be brought to West Belfast or Derry because on seeing those locations they wouldn't invest.

I was, as you'd expect horrified to find those views in currency in 2010 (if not surprised).

However, the Andersonstown News also has a role to play in reflecting the reality of life in West Belfast in a fair and balanced way, not glossing over real problems like inadequate policing and anti-social behaviour while making clear those who would destroy rather than build or a tiny, tiny minority.

It's not always easy to get the balance right and for us to serve our dual masters of the truth and news reporting.

There are things we could do better and we'll try to do so in partnership with some of those we met today: report from the start on one of the multi-faceted initiatives to combat crime which are led by the community; encourage more voices through op-ed articles on fraught issues such as suicide; report more comprehensively on the 'refusers', young people who have opted out of school in West Belfast; constantly monitor text messages (we get 700 a week and print 100) for gratuitous and provocative comment; report more thoroughly on the Integrated Services Initiative across West Belfast; and editorialise on the onslaught being suffered by our frontline community and youth services.

I'm pictured above outside Teach Basil with some of the warriors of our community sector — which has been the saving grace of West Belfast over the past 40 years — Angela Mervyn, Louise Brennan, Mairead McCafferty, Lianne Carlisle, Niall Enright, Aine McCabe and Jim Girvan.