LIKE the BBC, parents and the very best schoolteachers, The Herald has a remit, some of which may not be immediately obvious: we need to inform, educate and entertain.

The first of these is self-evident: we keep you informed every day with the latest news, at home and abroad. We like to think we entertain you too, with our Diary, our puzzles, our Magazine, humorous writings and sketches, and, not least, these Letters Pages.

As for educate, well yes, that too: we carry in-depth analysis of the issues of the day where experts in their chosen fields impart their knowledge, whether that be on taxation, ferry procurement, health matters, foreign affairs or constitutional issues.

With a quality newspaper like The Herald, however, we assume a base level of knowledge among our readership: we don't want to patronise you by painstakingly spelling out things you are already well aware of, such as the fact we have a constitutional monarchy, list and constituency MSPs, and two football teams who have much more money than their so-called competitors.

There is a line to be drawn, and sometimes we may not get it right. By way of example, this week reader David Miller wrote: "Gobbledegook may be defined as language rendered meaningless by excessive use of technical terms. In your Sport section today, I read that NFTs are cryptographic assets on a block chain with unique identification codes and metadata. Thoughts of the song Let Me Out ...".

Well, quite. The question is, though, how much detail should we go into in a sports story which is essentially about a contractual dispute between Rangers FC and the SPFL? Must we devote column inches to an explanation that an NFT (a Non-Fungible Token) is, wait for it, "a digital asset that represents real-world objects like art, music, in-game items and videos. They are bought and sold online, frequently with cryptocurrency, and they are generally encoded with the same underlying software as many cryptos"? (My thanks to Forbes.com, by the way.) It's undoubtedly not fair to assume that level of background knowledge amongst the general readership – but knowing it doesn't really add to the basic understanding of the sports report.

That said, there is often technical detail that adds to the comprehension of the issue that we need to explain – see various reports on how baseload electricity is generated and how the National Grid works, for example. The trick is to strike a balance between the three aspects of the remit outlined above: we need to keep our readers informed, and we want The Herald to be an interesting read – but we don't want to bog you down with endless recital of dry and dusty detail.

Still, at least now you know the difference between NFT and TNT. Less chance of buying the wrong thing online.