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EDITOR’S NOTEPAD / Three times in the past two weeks I’ve found myself defining "news" for people as something that has  happened, versus information, which is generally more static. GenevaLunch offers news and information, but we are primarily a news service, the Lake Geneva region’s only daily "newspaper" in English. Our information side is getting a boost with the publication today of the first in a series of excellent guides to life in the Lake Geneva region.

People tend to agree that major disasters, wars and interest rate changes are news, but the confusion sets in when we talk about what journalists call soft news. Sometimes we mean background reports and sometimes we mean that what just happened is not of earth-shaking importance.

Important or not, these are often the news stories that catch our eye and give us something to share with friends and neighbours.

Skimming over the headlines from the rss feed for Swissinfo which we carry on the main page of GenevaLunch my eye was certainly caught by "Swiss sex appeal to attract more tourists," which was a far cry from a headline earlier in the day from the federal government, "Swiss tourism doing very well." The second one talked about the healthy state of tourism, noting that ski lift revenue should go up by nearly 7% this year. Good news – even hot news for one of Switzerland’s largest industries.

But the real news for a lot of people will be the chance to win some ski lessons and if they are really lucky a week in a resort with a package of private lessons, part of the Swiss tourism office’s big new promotion.

So if you’re a news snob and think that there’s no room in the news for cute ski guys alongside headlines  about Madrid’s terrorism trial and the US presidential election debates, be honest about which of the two links above you checked out first.

I went for the ski guys. There’s one for every taste, in case you’re interested.

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