We’ve been getting quite a lot of emails and other messages recently from people complaining about what they perceive to be heavily biased moderation of comments on the website of the Herald. We haven’t done anything about them because most of them lacked any supporting evidence, but today we decided to gather some.
And what we discovered was pretty disturbing.
While the Scottish print media continues to almost totally blank our Panelbase opinion poll, it’s nice to know that they’re nevertheless paying close attention to its findings.
Below is the headline of a story from this morning’s Independent.
We’ve read the article in question several times now looking for the supposed “bad news” for the Scottish First Minister, and we’re having no luck at all. Perhaps you can help us out with it, readers.
If you weren’t up at 8.45am or so (it’s the weekend), click the image below to hear the interview on Good Morning Scotland on the subject of our Panelbase opinion poll.
The poll was also discussed (again) by prominent psephologist Professor John Curtice, who made a few helpful comments by way of expert advice. We’re new to the polling game, so let’s quickly address them.
We’re using that phrase in the sense of “the end of the universe”, we should say.
We’ve done interviews for radio in the BBC’s tiny Bath studio before, but this is the first time we’ve had to let ourselves in and do the whole thing solo.
Newsnet Scotland this morning attacks some comments by BBC presenter James Naughtie in which he remarks disapprovingly on the aesthetic state of Princes Street in Edinburgh. To be honest, we’re with the Beeb’s man on this one – as documented by the splendid Facebook page Lost Edinburgh, the capital’s main thoroughfare is a living catalogue of grotesque crimes against architecture, and the additional havoc wreaked on it by years of needless tram works doesn’t need any detailing here.
The piece does reveal something much more interesting, though.
We were very proud of a terrific performance from Scotland at Wembley last night, in a highly entertaining friendly the national side was unlucky to lose due to a couple of lapses in concentration at set pieces. We also greatly enjoyed the tremendous atmosphere created by both sets of fans, which we read about in the Daily Mail:
And also in the Scottish Daily Mail:
Wait, what?
…to reporting of opinion polls in the Scottish media! These are all from today:
Vital data, there. And definitely more interesting and important than learning that two-thirds of Scots don’t believe the promises of improved devolution after a No vote.
A particularly alert reader contacted us this morning with an observation so subtle it had totally escaped us, even though we’d seen both the things in question.
On last night’s BBC News at Six, the lead story – taking up over six minutes of the 30-minute show – was a steep 4.1% rise in English rail fares. The in-depth piece explicitly noted (at 5m 45s) that Scottish rail users would have a lower rise, saying “Passengers in Scotland will be better off, with season tickets capped at the rate of inflation” and also noting that no rises were planned in Northern Ireland and the decision in Wales was still to be made.
Reporting Scotland, immediately afterwards, took a different angle.
A quick update on how mainstream media coverage of our poll is going.
Sweet mercy. We’ve been pretty scathing about the Scottish media over the last few days, but we had no idea that our jibes about the Scotsman in particular now being a spoof site were so literally true.
The image above comes from the Scotsman’s editorial leader accompanying its ridiculous Nate Silver decoy story this morning. We’ve highlighted a line for you.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
