Sports: sitter sclaffed
In the news business, there are some advantages to being second to a story. So when Scotsman journalists were digesting the contents of an exclusive splash in their rival at the opposite end of the M8 this morning, they at least had the opportunity to learn from its mistakes with the benefit of a little distance and time.
By simply avoiding the amateurish, widely-mocked spin of the Herald’s reporting of its own poll, the ailing Johnston Press paper could have scored itself an easy open goal by presenting the facts more truthfully and even-handedly, enabling it to at a stroke look like the more fair and balanced voice in the Scottish “quality” media.
Or, of course, it could shank the golden opportunity hideously and embarrassingly wide. Do we even need to finish this article, or can we go and have a sandwich?
.
The Herald and the Scotsman: two once great Scottish newspapers, now reduced, sadly, to an independence stalling role as BritNat propaganda comics. I look forward to their final extinction.
According to the vast majority of recent polls, less than half of Scots are prepared to vote for the union tomorrow (yes, tomorrow morning, you need to decide right now). That’s all you need to know at the moment.
Enjoy your sandwich.
It is going to be interesting this year, watching increasingly desperate attempts by the MSM to spin away the inevitable, upward trend towards a yes vote in 2014. It will probably take the form of: SWING TO INDEPENDENCE WEAKER THAN EXPECTED, or: SALMOND FAILS TO GAIN ENOUGH GROUND BEFORE THE REFERENDUM, or UNDECIDEDS LIKELY TO VOTE NO. Meanwhile, in the real world, the no vote continues to plummet.
did you expect anything less from them (cringe even thinking about their name and how it completely misrepresents itself.)
What are you having on your sandwich? Like a nice BLT masel’.
I had some tattie and leek soup. It was lovely with a wee bit of bread 🙂
Sorry Rev, what were you saying about polls?
“What are you having on your sandwich? Like a nice BLT masel’.”
Warburtons Sandwich Thin with mature cheddar, no spread. Lovely. Have been known to add a wee daud of sweet chilli sauce, though.
@Rev
Mmmmmm, nice. 🙂
Lost the will to check out the Scotsman page. However, the canteen beckons.
Things are not working out at Johnston Press. After a two-phased project of (1) restructuring and refinancing the company, and (2) refurbishing and relaunching titles in print and more specifically online over the past 12 months, the company’s shares are trading at only 12p as of now. The share price remained stagnant at 14p over December 2012, having started that year at 15p per share, but have fallen backwards to their current level.
I’ll give JP/Scotsman 6 months then toast.
What I’d like to know is, how low does the “no” vote have to drop in the polls before the media stop telling us “two thirds” of the population support the union?
Rev
Unless things have changed recently, TNS-BMRB political polls aren’t commissioned by the Herald. TNS continued the System Three practice of giving them free to the Herald, to publicise their firm.
Not sure what the listening figures are for Good Morning Scotland, but they gleefully reported the “Yes vote poll shocker” story at least four times before I left for work this morning. Depsite continuing falls in circulation, the pro-Union press can always rely on their friends at Pacific Quay to repeat the Newspaper headlines to their listeners.
“Unless things have changed recently, TNS-BMRB political polls aren’t commissioned by the Herald. TNS continued the System Three practice of giving them free to the Herald, to publicise their firm.”
Fair enough. Not sure it materially changes anything, but will phrase more carefully in future.
That place needs razed. Pacific Quay, I mean.
Rev
Agreed – no significant change – but pedants rule!