I HAVE always thought that being a journalist is a privilege. This profession allows you into places and introduces you to people you would never normally get near.

And those same places and people welcome you, or in some cases tolerate you, just because of the press card in your wallet.

Working for the Gazette & Herald, as I have done since 1993, is double that privilege. There are few papers that are better loved or that are so woven into the fabric of the community they serve. But with that also comes a huge responsibility.

I have a portrait photograph of George Simpson, the trailblazing founder of the Gazette, in my office. It is a particularly stern study of the man taken in later years, in which he stares away to the right in a slightly cross manner.

Of course he may just have spotted an ink blot on something he was writing just before his picture was taken but I often imagine his irritation is reserved just for me as I ponder how to deal with some issue or other.

Because I won't lie to you, the thought of being at the helm of a 200-year-old institution that has survived two world wars, nine sovereigns, endless cultural, political and economic upheaval and the coming of the Internet can be a little daunting.

As the Gazette reaches its second century newspapers are still trying to work out what their future looks like. It is plain that youngsters are growing up with the world in the palm of their hand – accessed via their smart phones. Few of them consume much information from anything else.

The rest of us are spending longer online every year (up to three hours a day at the last Ofcom study in 2015). So where does that leave the newspaper?

I passionately believe there is a place for a regional news outlet like the Gazette, or its sister papers the Wiltshire Times and Swindon Advertiser. Local democracy is more important now than ever before and the regional press is its fiercest champion.

A wise old editor once told me that a great regional newspaper should always be the true opposition party, acting as a check and balance to those in power, questioning authority and holding it to account.

George Simpson's first editorial piece for the Gazette, known then as Simpson's Salisbury Gazette, promised to do that and I'm proud that in the 17 years I have been editor of the Gazette it has continued to do so.

In my time I have been called a Tory stooge, a liberal sympathiser and a closet red so I think that proves we have trodden a fairly central path.

By the way I've also been accused of trying to turn the Gazette into The Sun, being too highbrow and forgetting that it is a rural newspaper.

I am also convinced we have the power to make our community a better place.

In my time at the Gazette we have campaigned against the closure of leisure centres, fought to retain RAF Lyneham as a military concern and railed against the gradual decline of our health services.

We have also helped raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for charities, either directly through our own appeals like the one we are currently running for Julia's House or indirectly by publicising fundraising events or individual participants' own efforts.

We have reunited long lost siblings, friends and helped people recover possessions. Our stories have helped the police solve crimes and our investigations have brought criminals to justice.

Yes, the Internet has definitely changed the game as far as the press is concerned but I think it is for the better.

We can react to stories so much more quickly now. There is nothing so frustrating for a reporter, or an editor, to come across a story on a Monday knowing that you have it to yourself but won't be able to keep it that way until publication day on a Thursday.

Now the Gazette's reporters can show they are every bit as sharp as their daily, TV and radio counterparts by breaking their stories online immediately.

We can also interact with our readers so much more easily now. They can comment on stories or react on Facebook and Twitter (and believe me they do).

Sometimes it isn't always positive and occasionally it is downright rude but that's good too. All feedback is good feedback and it helps us judge the worth of a story and also gauge when we have not treated it in the right way.

We have an average weekly audience of more than 85,000 people in print and online, that's more than the paper ever had in its newsprint heyday.

Wiltshire is not only an incredibly beautiful place it is also a fantastically optimistic one. I don't doubt it has a wonderful future ahead and I am absolutely convinced the Gazette & Herald, Wiltshire's Gazette & Herald, is going to be part of it.

Here's to the next 200 years.