Beverly Zembko said it as we talked about the Oyster Festival issues; "We need to talk." It was a great summing up of the problem. Over the years, we have written about how often the stores use the Oyster Festival money to pay their rent for the year. We've written about Creative Compositions saying that people have come to them for their wedding pictures, saying, "we saw you at the Oyster Festival and decided you would take out wedding pictures."

Over the years there have been many good stories written about the Oyster Festival results. They get forgotten and need repeating. What we really do need is a merchant representative to express the positives of the Oyster Festival to whomever is running the event. We have been steadfast in defending the Oyster Festival. That is because over the history of the event, we have written so much about it.

It's a great event. Unfortunately, there is a great propensity for many people to love to talk about the negatives. It seems to get more attention.

Gloria Steinem wrote an essay about covering presidential campaigns. She said in the hopes of being fair, the journalists often gave more coverage to Richard Nixon than he deserved and less coverage to George McGovern than he deserved. They approved of what Mr. McGovern was saying and didn't approve of what Mr. Nixon was saying, and tried to balance their own feelings by being especially generous to Mr. Nixon. It's one of our favorite stories about the attempt to be fair.

That appears to be the problem of newspaper coverage overall - in the hopes of being fair, we often give equal attention to the negatives and the positives. We need an educated reader to balance out the arguments. So, here's to the next Oyster Festival. It is always controversial, but that's what proves that Oyster Bay is a small town.

Just remember, when all it said and done, be sure to come to the Oyster Festival. This year it takes place on Saturday, Oct. 18 and Sunday Oct. 19. The fun begins on Friday with a carnival in Firemen's Field and a fireworks show. With the current controversy, it appears that the fireworks have already begun.

- DFK