"BAD news, bad news, bad news."
So bemoans Nancy as the TV screen displays the aftermath of a horrific bus crash.
"One bus crash. What about all the buses that made it safely to their destinations?" she asks.
"Yes," counters Mark sarcastically, "I suppose the news should just be a dispassionate list of events that have occurred the world over during the day, except of course it would take forever."
This fictional exchange from the sitcom Peep Show often springs to mind when I hear people complain that the Grimsby Telegraph only ever runs negative stories.
When I first joined the paper I was given the role of Immingham reporter, a patch where the locals felt they got scant coverage in comparison to Grimsby and Cleethorpes.
But despite writing a glut of positive stories about the Immingham Carnival, the Pilgrim 400, Immingham In Bloom, One Voice, Pilgrim Junior Swimming Club and the skate park project, residents would still stand up in public meetings and complain that their town got nothing but bad press.
If one assumes they actually read the paper, they must have either ignored the good news stories or simply forgotten them.
Sadly, both are likely scenarios. Because, as much as people like to protest otherwise, bad news sells more papers and lingers longer in the memory than good news.
Recent tragic events in North East Lincolnshire have only re-emphasised this.
Sales of the Grimsby Telegraph shot up on the back of the stories about two men being killed on the level crossing at Great Coates and the horrific collision on the A18 which killed a family of five.
On the Telegraph website, the Great Coates story attracted more readers than our coverage of the Duchess of Cambridge's visit to Grimsby.
Now it is true that I have heard very few complaints about the Telegraph giving these terrible events front- page coverage.
But court stories are a different matter – and I'm afraid that for all those who insist they have no wish to read about the nefarious deeds of rapists, muggers and benefit cheats in their newspaper, there are thousands more logging on to our website to do just that.
Last Wednesday our front- page story was about a 21-year-old man who appeared in court for abusing staff at Grimsby's Diana, Princess Of Wales Hospital.
On page 33 of the same edition was an article about another 21-year-old who had been named Yorkshire and Humber regional apprentice of the year.
One reader e-mailed the newsroom to suggest we had got things the wrong way round.
Was he right? Given the choice I'm sure more people would rather meet the latter, but I bet they'd prefer to read about the former.
Just as more people would rather read about the bus that crashed than all the others that made it safely to their destinations.
Of course the selective nature of news has the distorting effect of making the world seem a scarier place.
A local councillor once told me that after reading stories on the Telegraph website, his ex-pat brother was moved to enquire if his sibling lived in a "wild west" town.
I suppose the Grimsby Telegraph could be a dispassionate list of events that occur in the town every day.
But then, as Mark might say, to read it would take forever.
And I'm not sure even our most avid reader would want that.