A peek behind the curtain
After last weekend’s bizarre time-travelling “exclusive”, this weekend’s Sunday Herald has thrown up another little curiosity. A story in the lead section of the paper’s website today trumpets the latest positive argument from the Unionist camp – that mortgage rates will soar in an independent Scotland, as alleged by Danny Alexander.
The piece, penned by Tom Gordon, is headlined accordingly – “Alexander claims: yes to independence could mean mortgage rise”. What’s interesting, though, is a little piece of text that seems to have been left in by accident at the bottom of the page.
It appears to be a discarded alternative headline for the same article, given that the fourth paragraph cites “the SNP Government” dismissing Alexander’s claims as scare stories. (We did check by Googling to see if the headline had appeared on a completely different Herald piece, but turned up nothing.)
It’s quite instructive to see the paper’s thought processes laid bare. “Scottish Government Slam Scare Tactics” is a positive message from the SNP’s point of view, as it would portray them standing up against Unionist fearmongering.
The headline used instead is the complete opposite – it actually IS Unionist fearmongering, designed to produce an instinctively frightened reaction in the reader, by planting in his/her mind the image of a crippling rise in the cost of living and associating it with a Yes vote (no matter what the feature then goes on to say).
We just thought we’d point it out.
I posted a reference to this on Herald website – wonder if it’ll get past moderators.
Whoops! ‘Alternative’ headline has disappeared and no sign o my comment. Looks like yer no allowed tae criticise the Herald!
Amazingly, contributors on the Herald site have begun to debate the position!
How that is possible when the most important part of the (non)story is highlighted in bold below –
“Alexander Claims yes to independence could mean mortgage rise”
So what they are leading on is an unsubstantiated claim of something that may or may not happen. Wow! our so-called quality newspapers are hardly better than the red-tops these days.
Guys, isn’t it obvious?
Firstly, the Dependence Brigade consider we Scots ARE “Too wee. Too poor, Too stupid”. Therefore they feel all they have to do is spread RUMOUR and SUSPICION about something, the MSM will pick up on it and run the story. Now because, according to the D.B., we are all too stupid we will all believe the story as FACT!
Secondly, this piece proves, yet again, that the D.B. have absolutely NOTHING in their armoury which they can use that will provide POSITIVE proof that the union is good for Scotland.
Thirdly, it is interesting that this piece is “alleged” news about something which may or more likely may NOT happen whilst the story about the Cameroon Bar attacking under 25’s is not even mentioned int this great paper of wisdom and truth!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9351604/New-welfare-clampdown-could-axe-housing-benefit-from-under-25s.html
Maybe I can at least clarify the headline thing. I have the dead-tree paper in front of me. The layout has the main “Alexander claims….” headline first, then there is a picture of Alexander with his mouth open and looking slightly glaiket, then underneath that in a smaller point size but bold capitals is the sub-heading “Scottish government slam ‘scare tactics'”. Under that, in the same type face but in red, it reads “by Tom Gordon”.
Hope that helps.
The Herald are just as bad as all the others, from what I’ve found. Worse in some ways.
I’ve found they will not post perfectly reasonable comments – especially responses questioning the validity of the statistics of anti-independence supporters such as Michael Mckeown
I’ve also written legitimate comments about unionists politicians possibly being motivated by personal gain (or loss) in the event of a Yes vote.
i.e whether their career ambitions in London are fuelling their drive against independence. These never get published by the Herald.
e.g I posted a comment here http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/curriculum-vitae-alistair-darling.17918493 on whether Darling might be thinking about a seat in the House of Lords.
It was never published. This happens a lot.
Yes, Peninsula, that’s happened to me a lot too. I’ve given up bothering posting there, because it’s so often just a waste of typing.
The sub-headline thing seems pretty unsuspicious though.