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The winds of change 533

Posted on March 25, 2018 by

Remember that time, barely over a decade ago, when the readers of the Scottish Daily Express came out for independence despite national polls only showing support in the 20s, the paper sold over 80,000 copies a day (now just 38,000) and Severin Carrell of the Guardian reported that it was about to adopt independence as its official position?

(Which we don’t think ever actually happened.)

Because nothing is weirder than Scottish politics.

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The asymmetric war 614

Posted on March 20, 2018 by

We’re at the halfway point of our 2018 fundraiser, and the all-sources total so far is a thumpingly impressive £103,266 in just two weeks. But while that’s a tremendous sum, it’s sobering too.

Firstly because with an average monthly readership of  nearly 304,000 people it comes to an average contribution of slightly under 30p per reader. As with most crowdfunded ventures, fewer than 1% of the site’s users have actually backed it financially so far.

And secondly because for perspective, the average Scottish adult – independence supporters included – sends the BBC about £72 a year. (£323m from 4.5m adults.)

While obviously a minority of folk do boycott the licence fee, that still means that the average Wings reader gives the BBC 240 times as much money every year as they give Wings to fight it.

And as well as its own output, which is hugely financially incentivised in favour of the Union, the BBC is now using your money to directly fund Scottish newspapers hostile to independence by paying them to hire more reporters.

(It’ll then also massively amplify those hostile voices by featuring them on multiple daily “papers review” shows from which online media with readerships many times bigger are arbitrarily excluded, enabling the anti-independence outlets to dictate the political news agenda every day without having to sell a single copy.)

So, y’know, it’s a tough job.

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The same as it ever was 44

Posted on March 15, 2018 by

Particularly alert readers may have experienced a pang of deja vu at yesterday’s story highlighting media misrepresentation of polling figures.

We can’t imagine why.

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Spinning down 177

Posted on March 14, 2018 by

So here’s a headline from the (Dundee) Evening Telegraph.

You know how we’re always pointing out how newspapers love to lie to readers without actually saying things that are untrue? Let’s have a quick case study.

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The Cupid Stunt 412

Posted on March 08, 2018 by

An alert reader conveniently located in the Aberdeen area pointed us to an “SNP BAD” story in the ever-willing Press & Journal today.

And it raised an awful lot of questions the P&J didn’t seem to want to ask.

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Using the Force 58

Posted on March 08, 2018 by

From today’s Scottish Daily Mail:

The slightly-less-well-known definition of “force” that means “a minority government persuading three out of four opposition parties to agree with it and democratically vote a measure through”, there.

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Here come the monsters again 472

Posted on February 27, 2018 by

If you’re a person (unemployed or working) subsisting via state welfare in the UK, there can be no more genuinely, blood-runs-cold, terrifying phrase in the English language than a Tory saying they’ve come up with “fresh thinking” on poverty and benefits.

Because – and if you’re only going to trust us on one thing in your life, trust us on this – it never, ever means your life’s about to get better.

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Foote replaced by Dick 455

Posted on February 19, 2018 by

Last week, just a day after we highlighted the disastrous sales collapse of the Daily Record during almost certainly the most tumultuous and eventful seven-year period in Scotland’s peacetime history, the paper’s editor-in-chief Murray Foote apparently took the Scottish newspaper industry by surprise by suddenly resigning his position.

(We’re sure, incidentally, this is entirely unconnected with the recent advertising of some senior media vacancies in Scottish Labour.)

Rival hacks dutifully issued a series of glowing tweets about what a smashing guy Foote was and how much he’d improved the paper during his 27-year tenure there in various positions, most recently editor-in-chief, group editor and deputy editor.

So even though Foote accused this site of “debasing public life” with “sewage politics, conspiracy theories, hatred and paranoia” when we forced his paper to reluctantly and belatedly correct a massive front-page lie, we thought we’d join in the salutes.

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The seven-year ditch 266

Posted on February 15, 2018 by

Presented without comment, covering a period of THREE major national referendums, EIGHT elections (UK, Scottish, EU, council) and of course the death of Rangers.

What we’re saying is, it’s not like there wasn’t any news.

(Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

Unmuddied waters 106

Posted on February 05, 2018 by

We’ve had extremely poor internet at Wings HQ since Thursday of last week, which our telecoms company is trying to get to the bottom of. (We’re typing this on an iPhone via very flaky 4G.)

We’ll be back with you ASAP. In the meantime, we’re being baffled by this assertion from the Financial Times that’s been doing the social-media rounds again recently.

Um, that isn’t “difficult” at all. That’s what maritime borders are for. That’s why the UK took the precaution of stealing (or reclaiming, depending on where you’re looking at it from) thousands of square miles of Scottish waters in 1999.

But other than any possible attempts to renegotiate that boundary, there’s nothing to debate. One side of the line is ours. The other side is yours. The end. We’re not at all sure why the FT would ever try to pretend otherwise.

The waste disposal service 197

Posted on February 02, 2018 by

Alert readers may recall as far back as November, when we ran an article on a bizarre Scottish Daily Mail hatchet job which claimed that “the SNP has squandered £2bn” in its ten years in office, but only actually listed around £800m in supposed waste.

The independent press regulator IPSO is still in a great big sulking strop with us for reasons we can’t remember, so rejects any complaints that come directly from Wings, but the good thing about having a 300,000-strong army of readers is that some kind soul will usually take on the task for us.

And this one turned out to be fascinating.

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Replacement bollocks service 344

Posted on January 31, 2018 by

Alert readers may recall some articles last August in which we highlighted the total pig’s breakfast Scotland’s media had made of reporting ScotRail punctuality figures, centred around mistaking the “on time” figures (trains arriving within 59 seconds of their scheduled time, ie at the advertised minute) for the “PPM” figures (trains arriving within five minutes) which are the basis of official punctuality targets.

Several newspapers, including the Herald, Courier, Daily Record and Daily Mail, had to publish corrections after our articles, so we can be pretty sure they won’t have made that mistake again with the latest stats.

Can’t we?

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    • Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Come on Rev when we getting the low down. I’m starting to argue with James…Jul 20, 15:43
    • Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Fair point. How many Scots fill the Westminster corridors.Jul 20, 15:35
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    • Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “That’s exactly what is not being said but everyone is thinking. Thanks for that sane, refreshing summary of this evil…Jul 20, 14:09
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    • sarah on The Pillars Of Sanity: “That is excellent, Lorn. Please send to the best newspapers for wider viewing. It makes the topic so clear and…Jul 20, 10:52
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    • dearieme on The Pillars Of Sanity: “James VI decided, later in life, that he’d been wrong about witches. They weren’t bad, they were mad. He supported…Jul 19, 22:43
    • Alf Baird on The Pillars Of Sanity: “UKSC, Court of Session and ScotGov and other state institutions all serve the English (as British) Crown, i.e. they do…Jul 19, 20:25
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    • Aidan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “@Alf – how does that relate specifically to the comments raised?Jul 19, 19:20
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