Taken out of context, anybody or anything can be made to seem ugly and dangerous.
One of the main problems with newspapers, for instance, is that we trend toward reporting crime and death and destruction more often than we do the uplifting stories of people doing good things.
But it wouldn't be responsible to only report the good things. To quote the character Mark Corrigan from the British sitcom Peep Show, the news could be a dispassionate list of all the events that have occurred the world over during the day.
"That would be good. Except of course, it would take forever!" Which is why we in the media need to strike a balance between reporting the best and the worst that happens in our society.
The Facebook page "Only in Surrey" which has recently cropped up in the news explores only the worst side. And since a Facebook page run anonymously has no obligation to provide context, fairness, accuracy, impartiality or all the other things we went to journalism school for, you're not likely to see the good things that happen here.
That's why the Facebook page should be taken for what it is - a candid look at Surrey's ugliest and most unappetizing side, replete with drug addicts, prostitutes and the mentally ill.
There's certainly something unsavoury about poking fun at Surrey's underclass and politicians and business leaders in this city have the right of it when they note these "vulnerable populations" need to be helped rather than laughed at.
Surrey is sorely trying to shed off decades of jokes made at its expense so it's unsurprising people here are a little sensitive about a webpage that seems to reinforce the stereotypes.
And despite the recent rapid growth
and gentrification in the city's poorest neighbourhoods, Surrey shares remarkably similar image problems with Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
But while it's good to see Mayor Linda Hepner and Surrey Board of Trade CEO Anita Huberman express concern about the state of poverty and homelessness and mental illness in the city, it would be nice to see both take a more active role in remedying those problems.
I think most Surreyites will have to admit that Hepner seems to behold this city with a rather different colour of glasses than the rest of us. And despite being elected with a commanding mandate in November, the gaffe she made during the live debates on CBC still haunts her today.
"There is nothing wrong with the city of Surrey," she said, before adding in rather understated tones, "we have some issues that we need resolving, but it is not a lockdown."
The people depicted in the photographs on the "Only in Surrey" page would quite easily refute the "nothing wrong" part of the sentence.
Since the November election, there has been a pervasive sense that Hepner and, by
extension, the rest of the Surrey First slate, is out of touch with the needs of Surrey's considerable underclass.
Some of us in the newsroom have given her the benefit of the doubt, given her short tenure so far in office.
But don't think that people haven't noted the mayor's deafening silence in December when several young people were murdered in the city.
It's good to see that there are people who believe in all the good things this city has to offer and are working toward a vision of the future that will improve the quality of life of everybody who live here.
However, it does a disservice to the residents to gloss over the serious problems that exist. Worse still would be exhibiting self-righteous indignation about a webpage that highlights those problems.
The fact the plight of those people is being largely ignored by City Hall is a much worse affront to their dignity than any number of photographs on Facebook could ever be.
Adrian MacNair is a staff reporter with the Now. He can be reached at amacnair@thenownewspaper.com.