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Forty years ago people used to queue up to buy the latest edtion of the evening paper. In it would be the latest news and jobs .It would entertain you with features or tell you where to find a flat or see who Liz Taylor was married to. A couple of bob for a black and white sheet opened up the world.

Technology was supposed to change all that and bring us access to information 24 hours a day in full technicolour details. The reality is that the TV has rolling news channels that scroll through the same 15 minute slot all day and the internet has a million website serving up the same  official news releases and celebrity dross. Most quality paid for newspapers have been sacrificed on the alter of advertising-driven content.

Optician has held the line on providing  decenet content paid for by people who value it. Optician is proud of its independence and its ability to get information out to the people who need it.

I'm finding myself banging on these days more and more about the reluctance of  the optical bodies to share the issues with the wider profession. Committees hang on to their workings and those paid by the professions to do their bidding don't feel the need to share information with the very profession that pays their wages.

There are more PRs and spin doctors than ever before in optics but none of them seems to understand the media or how it works. There are so many committees in optics sitting around in, non smoky, room blathering on about what needs to be done. The problem is no one will accept the responsibility to publicise it to the general public through the media.

If there is one thing Optician understands as a weekly newspaper it's the importance of communication and talking in ordinary language to ordinary members of the profession.

We will continue to fight for that news, but it's not getting nay easier.