How To Use A Function To Format And Display Result From Data Reader

Hi guys n gals !

I am having a few problems manipulating the results of my data reader,
To gather the data I need my code is:

        // database connection
        SqlConnection dbcon = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["dbcon"]);

        // sql statement to select latest news item and get the posters name
        SqlCommand rs = new SqlCommand("select * from tblnews as news left join tblmembers as members ON news.news_posted_by = members.member_idno order by news.news_idno desc", dbcon);
       
        // open connection
        dbcon.Open();

        // execute
        SqlDataReader dr = rs.ExecuteReader();

        // send the data to the repeater
        repeater_LatestNews.DataSource = dr;
        repeater_LatestNews.DataBind();

Then I am using: <%#DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "news_comments")%> in my repeater.
What I need to do is pass the "news_comments" item to a function I created which will then write the result. The code for my function is:

    // prevent html
    public string StripHtml(string data)
    {
        // grab the data
        string theData = data;

        // replace < with &alt;
        theData = Regex.Replace(theData, "<", "&lt;");
       
        // return result
        return theData;
   
    }

But I am having problms in doing this,
Can anyone point me in the right direction on what I should be doing ???