IN recent years regional weekly news-papers like ours have enjoyed a growth in sales and one of the main reasons given for this in surveys is that most people trust what they read.

It adds a little extra emphasis to the responsibility we should always have as journalists to ensure that what we write is accurate.

The same applies to the BBC but it is a trusted media all over the world and that is why it needs to take the findings of this week's Hutton Report so seriously.

The mistakes made in the Andrew Gilligan story have been an accident waiting to happen because of the way much of the national media, not just the BBC, have not so much blurred as totally forgotten the line between news and comment in political reporting.

While it is true that many people do like to read and hear some analysis of events, too many political reporters have got into the habit of reporting opinion as if it were fact. Hutton is not a threat to the media but a reminder to all of us about getting the basics right, otherwise the Hutton Report was unbelievable and must have come as a huge disappointment to the Kelly family.

It was clear from their submissions to the inquiry that they felt the Ministry of Defence had failed in its duty of care to Dr Kelly.

Even if you accept, as Lord Hutton believes, that it was inevitable his name would become public, had the MoD treated Dr Kelly with the respect any employee deserves it would have told him it was going to have to release his name and offered him support, not left him to face the frightening prospect of the world's press on his own.