A difference of tone
Journalists and broadcasters tend to be very prickly about allegations that they do their job in a biased way, and it’s a difficult claim to prove. Much of the time it centres around the belief that “If this story was about Party Y rather than Party X you’d be covering it in a different way”, and that’s a hard assertion to back up because it’s based on an assumption rather than an empirical, demonstrable reality – it’s rare that two parties or two politicians ever find themselves in completely comparable situations.
So we’re very grateful to the good people of the Herald this week for kindly providing us with an eye-opening illustration of what happens when they do.
The image above is the headline on a Herald article from yesterday about the UK government’s plan to create a “manifesto” for the No campaign by deploying “teams of top economists and civil servants, who are busy formulating the statistical and policy ammunition for ministers, including David Cameron, to fire in their bid to stop the Nationalist-led attempt to end the 300-year-old Union”.
In isolation, there’s nothing at all wrong with the story. It’s a straightforward, neutral piece of factual news reporting. It even contains quotes from the opposing side, in the form of Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, though they’re not actually critical of the UK government. So far so good. But look how the Herald reported on the Scottish Government doing the exact same thing just a few short weeks ago:
From the headline onwards, the tone of the two stories couldn’t be more different. While the UK government’s preparations are described in wholly positive terms, the Scottish Government – or as the Herald chooses to put it, the more partisan-sounding “SNP” – are embroiled in a “row”. Let’s compare and contrast a few paragraphs. First, from the start of the UK-government article:
“The Treasury is spearheading the co-ordinated push, with Sir Nicholas MacPherson, the department’s top civil servant, chairing a group of permanent secretaries. The documents, the first of which is expected within weeks, will look at a wide range of areas from the economy to defence and security.
But senior Coalition sources have made clear the project is flexible and can be enlarged as the date of the 2014 referendum approaches. Insiders have told The Herald there is room for the manifesto to respond to events and to examine new issues that emerge as the independence debate intensifies.
The Coalition wants to ensure it can harness the expertise of the civil service on all aspects of the debate.”
Spearheading. Co-ordination. Flexibility. Expertise. A determination to examine “all aspects of the debate” and “respond to events”, implying diligence, dynamism and pro-actively honourable intent. Positivity and warm feeling all round. Now let’s see how precisely identical activity is portrayed when undertaken by the Scottish Government:
“The SNP Government has been under severe pressure recently over how an independent Scotland would function. The First Minister was criticised for his explanation of a separate Scotland’s relationship with the European Union. His answers on currency and defence have also been scrutinised.
Now the Scottish Government has promised to lay out the nuts and bolts of independence in a White Paper ahead of the 2014 referendum. However, Better Together, the campaign to keep Scotland in the UK, said Alex Salmond was using publicly funded mandarins to “justify his separatist dream”.”
Pressure. Doubt. Scrutiny. Criticism. “Has promised to” – implying reluctance and coercion – whereas the coalition “wants to” do something. The pejorative term “publicly funded mandarins” used rather than “the expertise of the civil service”. (Even though the Better Together spokesman quoted later in the piece didn’t actually use the word “mandarins”.) And a direct attack from the opposition right at the opening of the story, framing it as a controversy and suggesting impropriety. Negativity from start to finish.
We invite readers to examine the full text of both articles for themselves (we assume everyone knows by now how to circumvent the Herald’s half-hearted “paywall”), and arrive at their own conclusion as to whether the two sides of the independence debate have been portrayed equally and fairly.
The sooner you all stop wasting yer time by reading these shite titles, the sooner they will go bankrupt and we all won’t have to suffer their peurile, biased, bare faced lying journalism any more.
Articles like this simple prolong their existance because it encourages readers to visit their websites & generate revenue.
You can’t win the argument by posting clever articles demonstrating what we already know; the best way to beat The Herald and that other comic title, The Scotsman is to liquidate them along with every twisted, corrupt, lying, self serving wretch who works there.
Harsh? Not really. Our country’s future is at stake. Compared to losing one’s life in the struggle for freedom & democracy, a few lousy job losses at a comic print factory are worth it.
As a price to pay for a new, positive chapter of Scotland’s future, it’s a bargain.
@G H Graham
That is your opinion and you are entitled to it, but I disagree.
I do not see it as beyond reasonable to assume that such propaganda sheets will be supported through “selected advertising revenue” provided by pro UK interests until the referendum. Why would they fail to support such a propoganda machine?
The other alternative you offer is to give up this ground and hope that the average reader is savvy enough to know that they are being lied to.
I dont believe that this is a realistic option.
We need to tackle the lies and mis-information head on and take that campaign into these titles so as to show them up for the propaganda merchants that they are.
Only by exposing the lies can we hope to turn people towards a better future based on facts!
I do not wish to see any redundancies! I would rather have a vibrant and honest press, so lets see if we cant kill the cancer and not the patient first!
@GH Graham
It’s obviously important to know and understand what the MSM is up to lest we think that all we’re up against is ‘Scottish’ Labour and it will be plain sailng to Independence. Also, the Rev does a very hard and unpaid job of drawing our attention to stories and attitudes in the press and the very least we can do is to adopt a civil tone when posting here.
C.H.Graham I dont know if I would go along with that view . There has to be a lot of hard working employees of both publications who dont subscribe to their biased views and there is always the employees family,s to think about as well . The other argument is if we dont read what lies they are printing how can we refute them .
Excellent article Stu and a perfect demonstration of what we can expect from ‘our’ press in the coming months. Unlike GH Graham, I do think we need to read these articles in order to make those who are unaware just how devious, biased and to what lengths our supposed National newspapers are prepared to go in their quest to preserve the union.
Scott Minto ( aka sneakyboy )
I simply do not understand your thinking, everyone is well aware we who will vote YES, do not have the means to tackle this problem.
Why, we would and do, get little space to make such complaints as the MSM are well weighed to direct their readers to whatever stance they take.
Without a well seen platform to express our views, they have it all their own way.
I wait to see just how you would suggest we tackle this, as such a way has long been the NIRVANA for those who care about our land.
Fact is we, and the population at large have to put up with constant negativity, constant bias, constant lies and manipulation, they certainly will keep doing this as the “Unionists” have much to lose for their own agenda.
Putin would be proud of the Unionist conspiracy and the way they conduct their un democratic practices.
There was a point where I thought the MSM were copying his tactics, but the more I consider this, I reach the conclusion that it is Putin, who copied them.
They are being successful to date, as they have destroyed democracy at the very least across our bonny country of Scotland.
GH Graham: I’ll simply repeat the question I posed to you back on Jan 2nd, which you didn’t answer:
“So what is it you propose? Let their lies go unchallenged?
There is no prospect – none whatever – of someone starting a new print newspaper in Scotland any time in the forseeable future. So the only hope of getting balanced coverage is to change the ones that exist. By constantly highlighting the liars in their employ, destroying their credibility and damaging sales, they might just decide they’d be better off hiring people who’d present a fair picture.
(They might not, of course, but the alternative is to concede the mainstream ground entirely and pray for their death of natural causes. But that’s not going to come about either if nobody points out their failings.)
We need a press. Nobody in their right mind is going to set up a new one. So we have to do our best to change the one we have.”
@Les Wilson
I simply do not understand your point…
Are you arguing that the MSM is biased?
I Agree.
Are you arguing that we cannot counter their distortions, or worse that we shouldnt?
I dont agree. We have limited access to the public and we need to seize every opportunity that we can avail ourselves of.
Are you arguing that all newspapers in Scotland should go bankrupt? Why?
We need an avenue to provide news about the world to our public and not everyone is on the net. Additionally, I have already noted that there is a very good chance they will be supported by pro-UK interests until after the referendum in any case, so why destroy the jobs people rely on.
My argument is that it is better to show them up so that they cant be so blatant in their bias, or if they are, it is so obviously displayed and counteracted below the line that it has the opposite effect.
I like this site, it’s like a vaccine booster jab to help you deal with poison
link to tvtropes.org
On balance, I think the printed press is in trouble anyway. I also think they’re not doing themselves any favours when printing the kind of crap they do (as highlighted by Rev Stu and others here.)
It does need challenged so these critiques are important, they’re important because it isn’t just confirmed yes voters who come here, hopefully (and going by the stats for this site) there are new people reading every day. Its important these instances of slanted reporting are highlighted. Even if curious potential yes voters are firmed up because they read the piece above, even if there’s only one, its worth it.)
Beyond that, I think this is one of those area where ultimately, even if people habitually buy the Herald or Scotsman, if they still also believe the tripe they often churn out as regards the independence debate then it may well be a situation where; if we still had to explain, they’d never understand.
I think this is one of those instances though where we still have to keep plugging away. One of my main motivations for voting Yes is I hate being lied too, its the ultimate insult. They’re basically playing people for fools and I can’t accept that, (I also happen to have very many positive reasons for being a Yes man, I believe in Scottish Independence because I think it will be a positive thing, not just because the union is rubbish.*)
That is all.
* Although it is.
Right on cue today the Herald reveals via a FOI request that deaths during childbirth are on the rise. Or so it claims.And a large colour photo of Labour’s Jackis Baillie is provided with her contribution to the issue.
Then when you read the article. Deaths on the rise? Mebbe aye mebbe naw. Deaths from road accidents, for example haven’t yet been extracted. The data hasn’t been fully analysed by the specialists.
Oddly the Herald hasn’t spoken to the Government Heath Minister, Alex Neil. No mention that he may be unavailable or whatever. Just no mention.
A reader has responded to the article to inform that such deaths have indeed doubled – in London. his letter does surely undermine the article and supports the view that readers responses are worthwhile?
@Velofello
Yes, they led with the nearly doubling of deaths from 3 per year to 6 in every 58,000 births and then slipped in the fact that they hadnt excluded where the mother died from drug misuse or accidents not actually attributable to child birth itself in the increased figure.
I doubt many people went into the detail to see tha facts.
Any loss of life is tragic, but this was a cynical use of these deaths to attack the Scottish Government via the headline, nothing more.
“Right on cue today the Herald reveals via a FOI request that deaths during childbirth are on the rise. Or so it claims.And a large colour photo of Labour’s Jackis Baillie is provided with her contribution to the issue. “
I assumed that was just a shorthand way of saying “Don’t bother reading this piece, it’ll be complete bollocks”. Maybe the picture editor is a nationalist.
It is a fact that, while newspaper sales are generally down across the UK, they have fallen sharper in Scotland. The question we should ask ourselves is why? Is it because Scots, being too wee, too poor and too stupid to stand on their own two feet no longer need their daily fix of dead wood media that simply reinforces this image of ourselves? Is it because we just aren’t as literate as our Southern cousins and can only buy so many sausage suppers, so don’t really have a use for all that paper? Or is it because, thanks to sites like this highlighting it, we’ve started to seeing through the lies and propaganda, no longer believe we’re as incompetent and hopeless as they make out and no longer have the calvanistic need to pay for newspapers just to put us down?
Yes, we all know the MSM is bias, yes, there’s not a great deal we can do about it while Unionist interests are prepared to fund the downward spiral of once great papers. But by challenging their message, by ensuring each of us here are armed with a truer picture of events (word of mouth is still powerfully persuasive), we minimise the impact of their negativity.
@ RexStu
That’s not for me to say, if that is what you are implying.
The devil is in the detail. In contract negotiation no matter how tedious it can be reading articles it is necessary to seek out the “slip-ins” that can come back to bite you.
Same scrutiny needs to be applied to MSM?
Firstly, well done yet again Rev for your thoughtful contribution.
My view is that we really don’t know how influential the press is these days. It would be a fair bet to say not nearly as influential as they once were. People are better informed and sceptical of political views in newspapers. My suspicion is that the majority find it a huge turn off. I hardly hear of anyone quoting newspaper articles nowadays.
All we can do is continue to expose their lies, deception and bias. They realy don’t like it up ’em!
People don’t like being lied to.
MSM exposed as liars.
Bingo!
“@RexStu
That’s not for me to say, if that is what you are implying.
The devil is in the detail. In contract negotiation no matter how tedious it can be reading articles it is necessary to seek out the “slip-ins” that can come back to bite you.
Same scrutiny needs to be applied to MSM?”
You’ve lost me utterly.
@Scott
I agree. It’s not good enough to simply ignore the media bias, some will believe it.
I started a campaign to highlight it. If WoS, my effort and other people in both the indy and unionist camps, highlight the issue then that would do more to turn the heads of those who take the existing bias as truth.
I included both camps in terms of havering because being biased against bias is never going to work.
Of course everyone has a truth and I’m only interested in highlighting media bias when there is a clear indication that mis-information is peddled.
Everyone unionist or independenly minded has their opinion. They are entiltled to it. However havering nonsense should be highlighted and seen for what it is. None of it from either camp helps us.
So incensed at the Call Kaye phone in mis-quoting racism targets I started a FB campaign page on 30th Dec and have 192 likes and growing. Next day I built a website.
Sitting by and letting the MSM drivel on and not be held accountable is inappropriate given the size of the prize. We must highlight the mis-info or some will believe it …and that might just make a difference on referendum day.
The campaign is against indy or union bias …for bias read havering deliberate nonsense to decieve. Interstingly, or not surprisingly for some, my initial poll shows:
Unionist bias – 31 votes
Independence bias – 4 votes
No media bias – 1 vote
Please support. GO to http://www.cmisid.com
Click on the FB link or the poll like to take you to facebook.
Say YES in 2014
“You’ve lost me utterly.”
He means that just like in contract negotiations you have to look at the small print to see whats going to come back and bite you… I think…
MSM will not change, nor should we expect them to. However, it should be remembered that MSM behaviour is predictable and those politicians and campaigners clever enough can exploit this and expose the British MSM for what it is – pro-union, pro-Labour, anti-snp, anti-independence. Remember the fun that the FM had with the second question – reporters were so sure (ort led to believe so) that the FM was desparate for a second question, they were left floundering with mouths gaping when the Edinburgh argeement was signed off in a firendly manner, without fuss. Yes, MSM are biased, but is also highly predictable, and therefore still potentially useful, in an indirect way, to the pro-independence campaign.
responding to each and every MSM article is very important. That is because the internet has “memory” – in any of the coming 18 months, there are “not sure” voters who will casually turn to the web for answers and will see a few years worth of information from WoS, NNS and so on refuting the mainstream press – and like taking the blue pill – will have their eyes opened and be able to make an informed decision regarding the referendum.
@Luigi
Spot on.
You aren’t quite comparing like with like, because the two journalists behind these pieces are very different animals. Thanks to the excellent link to journalisted.com we can find that Kate Devlin was Health correspondent for the Daily Telegraph (not mentioned on the Herald website, interestingly enough!), before leaving at the end of June 2010 and moving seamlessly to the Herald as UK political correspondent. For both papers she has filed roughly three pieces a day, and a quick skim of her work for the Herald suggests she is doing a straight reportage job on politcal stories as they emerge in Westminster.
Paul Hutcheon is billed as Investigations editor, and Journalisted has him writing for the Herald back to 2008, with a gap between 2011 & 2012. Most often he files on a weekly (or longer) basis, and almost always for the Sunday edition. You would expect this from an investigative reporter, whose stories are likely to take longer to research. As you would expect from the job title, most of the stories he writes are to do with revelations of questionable behaviour, misuse of public money, and other scandals (although, since Scotland is a small country, some might best be described as storms in teacups). Hutcheon’s pedigree is shown in the first sentence of the article Stu quotes: “….The Herald can reveal.”
So both journalists are writing in the manner in which they are paid to write. I’m not arguing that the MSM are unbiased, but I’m inclined to put this particular example down to a slow news day. It appeared (unusually for Hutcheon) on a Monday, Hutcheon having previously filed two stories for the Sunday edition. I can hear the editor now… “Paul can you take this story and spice it up for us a bit? There’s nothing much on…”
Sloppy editorial judgement certainly, but I’m not certain it proves anything else.
The more replies posted on blogs such as the Rev’s, the more these press shareholders, employees & advertisers take note of lost patronage. Losses are very bad news for all of them. We are all able to see through their fog but it is only when they become envious of online blog readership numbers & active participants that they will see their current stance as allowing others to steal the food from their families mouths. A daily visit to just a few of our many 1st rate online news sites/blogs will very quickly make these baronial paper junkies turn green with envy and force advertisers to question whether or not they are placing their cash and expectations in the correct place?
vellofello @ 11:25,
I don’t know about you but I found the word highlighted here a bit toxic:
“The figures, uncovered by The Herald, show the number of mothers killed by complications linked to pregnancy and delivery doubled in five years.”
Is it usual to use killed in this context? Do you not usually say “who died due to complications….”?
Any death is a tragedy, especially when giving life, but still…..
Well done RevStu for another brilliant contribution. I have to say, I’m amazed you were actually able to write so eloquently because looking at that, the rage is coursing through me uncontrollably.
This propaganda war is absolutely disgraceful and if there are any people out there who sincerely believe that Scotland’s people would be better off in the union, then they should be just as angry. If we remain a part of the UK because of these lies, then it will leave behind a bitterness that will never go away. It will fester and poison our society.
It is not just us who are being lied to, it is our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, our neighbours and our colleagues, and it makes me physically sick to think of it. It just makes me so frustrated that probably too few people will ever see this, because I defy ANYONE to read this article and not vote YES. How DARE they treat us like this?
@ RevStu
Apologies for the title shift from Rev to Rex. Jimmy Shand explained to interviewer Bill McCue in a wonderfully clipped response TV interview that he loved motorcycles but didn’t ride them “Its ma hauns ye see” – the protection of. With me its ma een, and a more haste less speed inclination.
I’m with the people above who think it is essential that we engage with the biased media. And where they allow it, like on the Scotsman, Telegraph and Guardian, the writer of the article should be targetted using derisory comments about lying, misinformation and stupidity so as to instill doubt in readers’ minds about the integrity of the contributor. At the same time the correct facts can be described and commented upon. On the first two of those rags there is little point in engaging with anti-Independence commenters BTL because their views are usually not worth reading and will not be changed no matter what info they receive. And some of them will be the Journalists themselves in different guises trying to drum up support for their article.
The Herald is a different matter. It will not brook any rubbishing of editorial policy, nor personal insults against its journalists or BTL commenters. But it does allow informative comments from both sides although it is slowly degenerating into a …they say … we say … fest. This is because there are a small number of Bitter Together contributors, clearly Labour Activists, who are favoured by their posts being put up immediately and presumably not moderated like mine sometimes are, and who write the same stuff over and over again. However at least most of the anti-Independence claims can be and are vigorously contested by YES men, most of whose posts are informative.
@ douglas clark.
I feel that anyone who has had the misfortune of a loved one dying in childbirth, mother or child would find this sloppy article very upsetting. The article doesn’t offer any measure of comfort to such persons by focussing say on measures following research and analysis, to safeguard future pregnancies.
The comfort of the article seems more directed to Ms Baillie affording her the air of publicity.
Here’s my response to Rev Stu’s question: I propose nothing more than ignoring these titles and let the print media die. Shifting heavy sheets of paper around the country is becoming economically unviable.
The internet is ideal for expressing messages from all points of view so we should support and share sites like this as frequently as possible but simply aiding a struggling print industry that is rotten to the core, even while arguing with truth and sincerity only prolongs the time during which they can seriously affect the outcome of the referendum.
By ridding ourselves of these titles, we can focus only on serving positive, meaningful messages instead of wasting hours picking apart stories that are made up anyway.
As a former hack at one of our now disgraced, formally “quality” titles, can I assure everyone else that, as you might imagine, the newsrooms of the Herald and Scotsman are NOT filled with scheming, dishonest unionists looking for each and every opportunity to lie for Queen and country.
What they are filled with are shit scared journalists who don’t know whether to cry at the lies they are either being forced to write or know their own words will shortly be distorted to represent – or wet themselves at the ever-growing prospect that the crashing circulation figures will mean their paper will go bust and they will have no way to pay their bills and look after their families.
Print journalism – ALL journalism – is a dying profession in Scotland and it’s not as if they’ve got many options if and when that happens. I’ve lost count of the number of friends and colleagues who once worked long, happy and honest hours at the centre of the nation’s current affairs who are now either PR consultants advising businesses on how to flog themselves or are stacking shelves – if they have a job at all!
I have struggled for months with the agonies of buying a paper every day. Is the shite I am forced to read a price worth paying to continue doing my tiny bit to support my friends still clinging to employment? How many times have I, like one of your contributors recently, stood outside the newsagent ready to cancel my subscription only to walk away.
I do not know what the answer is, all I know is that the problem lies in the editors’ office and the boardroom – not the newsroom.
I have mixed feelings about contributions to online newspaper sites, the reality is however that I don’t post on them anymore but have no complaints about those that wish to.
One unquestionable fact is that (in the case of the Hootsmon anyway) while circulation is plummeting online revenues increased by 11% this year. That’s attractive to advertisers and as long as online readership increases so will their revenue. There is also a good argument to be made that the deliberately antagonistic articles of speculation and accusation are nothing but an attempt to ‘rile’ people up into posting a comment.
They don’t care about the comments, just as long as they can show an increase in visitor numbers. If that is being helped by printing the rubbish that they do, then it will only ever continue and most likely become worse.
So, those that want to post, feel free to do so, but I would urge you to not kid yourselves about ‘free,quality press’ etc etc. It’s mostly all privately owned by people with a specific political agenda.
Very well put Freddie.
@GH Graham
I understand entirely where you are coming from, and although I personally boycott these rags I know that they will not be allowed to fail prior to the referendum. They will be underwritten, perhaps by the very forces Kate Devlin refers to in the article above. In other words, market forces will not prevail here.
@Freddie. Again ,hear what you say. But some ‘journalists’ embrace their Unionist ‘fetters’ with great gusto. Witness Tom Gordon’s sneering outpourings on Twitter (highlighted on WoS) at the time of the indy march in September. Those took his input well beyond the call of duty that an editor or boardroom would impose on him. And he is not alone.
@ Training Day
My point was with regard to the rank and file. Political editors (like Tom Gordon), chief subs, assistant editors etc are appointed to their posts – and keep them – at the whim of editors and publishers who want these key personnel to share their world view. It can be difficult to convey to those not familiar with the workings of newsrooms just how feudal the regime is. When you read the paper in the morning you read a product commissioned, written or re-written, edited, presented and marketed by a very small number of people at the top of the greasy pole – that goes for everything from story selection to captions, headlines – even the billboards.
(During a brief stint at the Record many moons ago I approached the newsdesk with a story and was promptly told who to interview, what to ask them, what answers I had to get from them – whether I managed to or not – then, when back in the office, exactly what to write … and that was before it was edited!)
No, Tom Gordon is not alone. Neither is the silent, powerless majority.
@Rev
Thanks for the article. I think the Herald is improving its coverage, and so is the Scotsman. What’s needed is to refute errors in the articles, and perferably to do so politely but firml;y. The odd rant about biased writers doesn’t go amiss.
Engaging with some of the Unionist posters can be a waste of time, on the other hand a direct challenge doesn’t go amiss. See yesterday’s news about CNN, the poster from Woking didn’t express one single bit of pleasure at the news, just continued wtih anti-SNP bile.
Well, this is something that can be highlighted. It’s not just the stray member of public reading these comments, it’s the journalists themselves. I doubt any resident Scots journalists can be comfortable sharing a point of view with a poster that just puts Scotland down, whatever the odds. Bit by bit they are realising the bitterness that is behind the NO campaign, and, perhaps like Kevin McKenna, reacting to it.
Kate Devlin’s done some OK articles.
The fact I was trying to point out previously was based on my frustration that we see and here bias all days in all ways, but without some media help, which is surely not coming, it is difficult to even argue the case they put, because they simply will not allow it.
I am most definitely NOT SAYING that we should not try to, in every possible way we can.
I know print media is dying but there are still a lot of guys like myself whose first stop on the way to work is for a paper to read at tea break and lunch, but even that is being challenged by the constant bias in the paper. I have and still do buy the P&J for almost thirty years but the anti SNP content is making me considering giving up, if only I could be like a colleague reading his Doo’s news!!!
@Freddie
Understand your point, Freddie. No doubt there are some rank and file employees who are deeply uncomfortable with the way our MSM is stage managed and pre-scripted. Unfortunately, when the likes of Gordon go the extra mile (as he did on Twitter) beyond the pap spouted in his newspaper to flash their unionist credentials people like me begin to find less and less to redeem the organ as a whole for which, alas, people like Gordon and Gardham are the more prominent spokespersons.
Some time ago, I posted a comment in the Herald or Sunday Herald on a Paul Hutcheon article. As you know, he advertises himself as Investigations Editor. I pointed out that I could see no investigative work in the article. Another poster pointed out the same thing. Both comments appeared briefly, then were quickly removed by the newspaper.
I stopped buying both the Herald and the Sunday Herald and can honestly say the only thing I have missed these papers for is starting off a coal fire.
I rarely read them online either anymore. I once commented that Gardham was being deliberately provocative in order to generate comments and thus increase advertising revenue. Again, my comment was quickly removed by the newspaper.
I don’t think it’s worth getting into arguments with the likes of Terry Kelly or our friend from the West Midlands, etc. but I do agree that’s it’s worth challenging the article, at least to the extent they’ll let you away with it without deleting your post. Swithering voters might be persuaded by your reasonable refutation of the article or by your assertion of the true facts and I think Scott does this well. On the other hand, on-line fights might put people off reading the posts at all. Getting the balance right is all-important.
Why does the business-minded side of these newspapers put up with declining sales?
What is of greater advantage to them; building readership and support through popular advertising schemes, or keeping the Union by attacking independence at whatever it costs?
Who is actually losing money as these sales slip way forever?
The owners of what was the Scottish Media Group is Newsquest. They are owned by an American company with a UK offshoot Garrett UK Ltd. Have you ever heard of an American company willingly trading at a loss and likely to keep doing so? Gannett Co.Inc., own Gannett UK, which in turn owns Newsquest Media Group.
Can mighty US policy influence the future of our 5 million or so Scottish people?
Only asking!!
‘Journalists and broadcasters tend to be very prickly about allegations that they do their job in a biased way, and it’s a difficult claim to prove. Much of the time it centres around the belief that “If this story was about Party Y rather than Party X you’d be covering it in a different way”’
It is indead difficult to prove – I am sure that the BBC used to show the First Ministers Christmas message prior to 1997 when Labour were in power – however I cannot find any reference to prove my point on line.
If you’ll forgive the nitpicking, it’s highly unlikely that the BBC used to “show the First Minister’s Christmas message prior to 1997″…