The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


Archive for the ‘media’


The grand sacrifice 251

Posted on August 12, 2017 by

The mainstream media is now, by our count, up to at least 13 sizeable articles on the Great Yes-Movement Schism Of 2017 – a minor online spat between a tiny handful of people who’ve never liked each other and most of whom the general public has never heard of – and shows no signs of tiring of gleefully revelling in the subject.

There’s nothing particularly surprising or even diabolical about that. As any reality-TV show viewer will tell you, viewers absolutely love to watch people fighting, and doubly so if it’s the summer silly season and there’s no real news. Most of the stories have attracted large responses and therefore lots of juicy and profitable clicks for tired hacks who long ago stopped having anything of any interest to say but still have to honk out 1000 words a week in order to get paid.

But the more sinister aspect of them is the way they’ve been weaponised to (further) demonise and silence the Yes movement. If someone attacks other Yes figures with a provocative, offensive and dishonest piece, the extra bonus for the media is that any legitimately angry response to it can be used as yet more proof of The Vileness Of The Cybernats: “Look! They even turn on their own if they dare disagree!”

For the Unionist press, that’s a win-win every way up, and there are some on the Yes side who seem only too willing to co-operate with the narrative.

Read the rest of this entry →

More Bad News 96

Posted on August 12, 2017 by

The Vanishings 133

Posted on August 09, 2017 by

The Scottish media this week has started to rather resemble Argentina under General Galtieri’s military junta – everywhere you look are the ghosts of the disappeared.

We’ve already documented at length the sudden non-existence of the Herald’s madly inaccurate front-page lead story from Monday (along with the corresponding piece in the Evening Times). And today two more things joined the missing list.

Read the rest of this entry →

Forever bad 103

Posted on August 09, 2017 by

Here’s Daniel Sanderson in the Times in January this year, complaining that too few university students come from poor backgrounds and therefore the SNP are bad:

So he’d be chuffed if that situation improved, right?

Read the rest of this entry →

The King Of Irony World 261

Posted on August 08, 2017 by

In case you don’t know, Alan Roden is the former Scottish Daily Mail politics editor who’s now Scottish Labour’s director of communications. We haven’t edited this pic in any way, those genuinely are two consecutive tweets he posted yesterday.

So this is almost too beautiful.

Read the rest of this entry →

A series of coincidences 106

Posted on August 07, 2017 by

Earlier today we reported on the mysterious failure of the Herald to notice that its front page lead story about supposedly poor ScotRail punctuality figures made a number of serious errors with regard to the facts, most notably confusing the excellent figures for last month with a 12-month rolling average which was significantly worse.

But as we read the rest of the papers, we noticed the oddest thing.

Read the rest of this entry →

Newspaper misses accuracy targets 95

Posted on August 07, 2017 by

This is the front-page lead on today’s Herald.

Let’s fact-check that, shall we?

Read the rest of this entry →

All the way down 201

Posted on August 03, 2017 by

Today’s edition of The Times contains a textbook example of a phenomenon that we highlight regularly: how newspapers gradually unpick their own dishonest headlines to grudgingly admit a truth which is often the polar opposite of the initial claim.

Or as we more punchily tend to put it, “The Headline Is Always A Lie”.

This won’t take long.

Read the rest of this entry →

The bad losers 322

Posted on August 02, 2017 by

The BBC’s Reporting Scotland is, in our view, directly responsible for at least 80% of Yes supporters’ belief that the UK’s state broadcaster is biased against independence. Almost all of the worst examples of unbalanced or downright dishonest coverage over the last five years come from the flagship teatime bulletin.

But last night’s edition made even the most wearily cynical jaws drop.

Let’s just take that in for a moment.

Read the rest of this entry →

Choco ration soars again 170

Posted on August 01, 2017 by

There’s been some breaking news.

Or rather, there hasn’t.

Read the rest of this entry →

The Pollyanna Problem 69

Posted on July 21, 2017 by

Broadly speaking, the psychological phenomenon known as the Pollyanna Principle is a tendency to neurotically see the most positive possible view of a situation. It’s not generally widely found in newspapers – for whom bad news as a rule sells much better than good news – but for some reason the Scottish press makes a uniform exception when it comes to military shipbuilding.

This, for example, is today’s Herald:

Now, in itself that headline is – unusually – true, so far as it goes. But it only takes until the first sentence of the article text before things start to fall apart.

Read the rest of this entry →

The second-class licence fee 301

Posted on July 19, 2017 by

Today the BBC finally officially revealed what everyone already knew.

So now Scottish viewers definitely know where we stand.

Read the rest of this entry →

  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.

    Stats: 6,789 Posts, 1,222,351 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pillars Of Sanity: “WHAT’S GOING ON? “At great turning-points of world-history the relativity of our traditional measures and opinions manifests itself in a…Jul 21, 01:14
    • Willie on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Simple question if I may. Our services are being strangled for lack of funding. Money they say is short. People…Jul 21, 00:23
    • Scot Finlayson on The Pillars Of Sanity: “The white woke middle class uni educated virtue signalers will move on to some other `cause` and fuck that up.Jul 20, 23:32
    • robertkknight on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Karl Marx…”De omnibus dubitandum”. (Doubt everything.) Once upon a time I thought that The National would bring both balance and…Jul 20, 22:59
    • Confused on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Let’s get back to some knockabout trivia – food, energy, water, geopolitics, war, indy-pendence Lot of stories on telly last…Jul 20, 22:05
    • Lorn on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Onlooker: In Germany, at the height of their ‘witch’ madness, men and children were sent to the stake as witches.…Jul 20, 22:04
    • Northcode on The Pillars Of Sanity: “No problem can be solved using the same state of mind – the same level of consciousness – that created…Jul 20, 20:47
    • Alf Baird on The Pillars Of Sanity: ““Scotland’s vast potential for producing renewable energy is being hi-jacked by England” Yes, colonialism is primarily about ‘economic plunder’ (Memmi).…Jul 20, 19:25
    • Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “These women are making a place in history as the biggest threat to women.Jul 20, 19:14
    • Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Bumba. another Uni brat with 2 years work experience at an NHS call centre. That’s 1 year 6 months more…Jul 20, 19:01
    • Dave G on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Do you never bore yourself with the endless “colonial” guff?Jul 20, 18:51
    • Peter Swain on The Pillars Of Sanity: “(off topic – sorry !) An article by Craig Dalzell in the Sunday National points out the danger that Scotland’s…Jul 20, 18:45
    • sarah on The Pillars Of Sanity: “O/T “Support Legal Fees for a Scottish TV Channel” – crowdfunder.co.uk See Grouse Beater’s blog on 15th July “SBC TV…Jul 20, 18:44
    • Onlooker on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Name one man executed for being a witch/warlock/whatever pish. Couldn’t, could you? Always totally ignored over the women tragically murdered.…Jul 20, 18:19
    • Onlooker on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Aye, nae bother, likes. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nhsfife_nhsfifelifechanger-activity-6989148339782963200-BB6uJul 20, 18:14
    • Alf Baird on The Pillars Of Sanity: “The ‘A’ team in charge of Fife NHS, some of whom were also invited here to run St Andrews uni…Jul 20, 17:59
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pillars Of Sanity: “An Edinburgh University webpage has this: ‘The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft 1563-1736’ https://witches.hca.ed.ac.uk/faq/Jul 20, 17:48
    • sarah on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Thank you for these facts, Robert Mellish. It is appalling that the Scottish Civil Service is officially present – not…Jul 20, 16:16
    • 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
    • Alf Baird on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Yes James, this is of course the reality in a colonial society which is run by external interests/values, as pointed…Jul 20, 15:34
    • Lorn on The Pillars Of Sanity: “dearieme: accused ‘witches’ were nearly all women (albeit both men and children were also accused) but they were blameless of…Jul 20, 14:59
    • Lorn on The Pillars Of Sanity: ““The transcripts of NHS Fife’s Kate Searle in particular bring into sharp focus how the NHS became a partisan lynch…Jul 20, 14:44
    • James Cheyne on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Most of the Scottish government executors, advisors and Civil Servants are not born and bred backgrounds, I have just spent…Jul 20, 14:31
    • 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
    • Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “You started so well and descended into ‘ how can I blame the British government for every disaster, crime, theft,…Jul 20, 14:05
    • Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “NHS Fife is digging the biggest of all holes in front of the whole World and the Health secretary plays…Jul 20, 13:32
    • Captain Caveman on The Pillars Of Sanity: “@Revstu On behalf of my wife, daughters and granddaughters, heartfelt thanks and gratitude to you and those other brave souls…Jul 20, 13:13
    • James Cheyne on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Rev Stu, Thank you for all you’re constant and hard work that you put in on this issue, and to…Jul 20, 12:33
    • C MacKay on The Pillars Of Sanity: “There’s a multi-coloured bus going round Glasgow with Pride markings all over it. They forget Pride’s a sin. Brilliant in-depth…Jul 20, 11:00
  • A tall tale



↑ Top