A top splash, confident news and sports intros and strong online boosts to the newspaper made the Peterborough Evening Telegraph an enjoyable review.

But for goodness sake, spread this succinct style into the business section, which felt slow, awkward and read like an advertising supplement.

'MAN IN COURT OVER A1 DEATH CRASH' was the page one headline on 16 February.

The crash was a major one from 12 February, and police had arrested and charged a Peterborough man with taking without consent, driving dangerously and causing the death of a road worker.

The accused was named, with age, full address, initial reaction from neighbours and a thorough but legally sound description of the incident.

This was clearly the best story of the day, containing facts that readers turn to their local paper for after a fatal road crash, providing plenty of pub banter for that evening.

What I really liked about this story, and indeed about the majority of news and sports reports in this 56-page Tuesday edition, were the tightest of first pars.

Page one lead, 17 words; page five lead, 21; page seven lead, 24; back page lead, 18; page 55 lead, 17; page 54 lead, 17, and so on.

This pithy style made a teenagers' Facebook petition over bus cuts an enticing read, took you straight into a £500,000 city centre pub renovation and revealed Roy Keane's raw trepidation for that night's Peterborough v Ipswich match, (he was right – Posh thwacked Ipswich 3-1).

Where, then, did this conciseness go in the eight-page ET Business pull-out?

The business splash intro: "The Eagle Business Park is definitely going to be a pocket of employment with, eventually, about 200 direct jobs offered by about 15 to 20 companies."

Blimey! Cagey tautology or what?

The page three business lead: "Chartered accountants Rawlinsons has launched a joint venture with Peterborough-based software provider Cirrus in order to offer an integrated one-stop shop combining HR and payroll software together with practical advice and service solutions."(Yawn.)

The business spread: "Roses are red, roses are white, roses are pink and almost any other colour... and now, a deep passion for bringing top-quality, beautifully fresh roses to your home is the inspiration for a new website."

This had me searching for an 'Advertising Feature' header or an advert for the Purely Roses company, (I found neither).

One of the first rules learnt at any decent journalism college: make dropped intros a rarity, and start again if you bumble into much more than 25 words.

Tell 'em what it's about in a snappy sentence, expand in par two, amplify in par three, then quotes and balance.

Editor Mark Edwards clearly has strong story-telling skills in his newsroom, and needs one of these wordsmiths to knock business copy into shape. Enough said.

Online, I was delighted to see the Evening Telegraph logo as the dominant brand of each page, the peterboroughtoday.co.uk address a simple underline.

The homepage displayed the simple word 'Newspaper' as a top link on its toolbar, leading to a full page of information about the Evening Telegraph printed product.

A scroll down the same homepage found a second strong graphic boost to the newspaper reading: 'Free delivery! Delivering your Evening Telegraph newspaper directly to your door.'

This was a live link to another full online page about the newspaper, its daily features, paper round jobs, back issues service and more.

The blurb again underlined the offer: 'Direct Delivery is our home delivery service enabling you to have the Peterborough Evening Telegraph delivered to your door. Sign up to our Direct Debit service and delivery is free!'

This is great stuff, simple online calls to print that so many newspaper websites could immediately emulate.

Other points to highlight:

Annoying brand confusion... the masthead reads 'the evening Telegraph' (sic), a logo heading various columns and sections. But each page top dateline reads 'Peterborough Evening Telegraph.'

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