EVERY Thursday evening a great roar of the printing press at Bradford marks the start of the production of another 21,000 copies of the Craven Herald.

It is the culmination of a great, concentrated effort which brings the news and views to the people of Craven. Today, with the rapid expansion of the internet, our readership expands as former Craven residents across the world call up our website to catch the main news items and features.

Opinion polls show that the local newspaper is the most trusted media in the country.

While the national newspapers and television may bring you news of what's going on in Kosovo, Parliament or the world's sporting fields, the local newspaper acts as the eyes and ears of the local community. It is a place for local views, opinions and information to be exchanged - this week our letters page is full of correspondence on a major local issue, a place where people can make their feelings felt.

Today's Herald is the result of a hard week of news gathering and advertisement production from our teams.

Reporters, correspondents, secretaries of organisations and advertising staff have all contributed to bring the weekly digest of life in the southern Yorkshire Dales.

It all starts on Monday morning, when plans for the week are discussed, assignments are made and advertisements begin to flow in.

As the week progresses the paper is put together, decisions are made on what to leave in and what to take out, photographs are processed and adverts are made up by our artists.

There are millions of keystrokes involved in each edition and as the deadline approaches, the rush becomes ever more urgent. By 5pm on Thursday it all has to be complete and transmitted electronically down telephone wires to the printing press at Bradford.

By 9pm the next day's Herald should be completed and ready for distribution by our vans to newsagents and other outlets in the Craven area and beyond.

On Friday morning thousands of readers are scouring through the columns to be - hopefully! - entertained and informed.

The Herald is famous for its front page of small advertisements. All newspapers used to be like this but slowly they each succumbed to the temptation of putting a major news story on the front page to grab the attention of potential buyers.

The Herald resisted this and now is famed throughout the industry as one of only three, and the largest selling, newspapers still to carry small advertisements on the front page.

"It is our symbol, like the Coca-Cola bottle or the Rolls Royce flying lady," said editor Ian Lockwood.

There are only two other newspapers in the country to follow the tradition - the Buchan Observer in Aberdeenshire and the Cornish and Devon Post, in Launceston.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.