You very rarely get useful stats about online newspaper readership, so we were quite intrigued by this snippet on tonight’s BBC2 Scotland documentary “Paper Thistle”, about the 200th anniversary of The Scotsman.
We don’t know what the numbers are or how brief the period was, but Wings’ average traffic is higher now than it was in 2014, while we suspect The Scotsman is moving in the opposite direction. For a single-issue website to be anywhere even in the same ballpark as a two-centuries-old broadsheet news brand with scores of full-time writers and production staff and a daily newsstand presence is a remarkable thing indeed.
We might start doing classifieds and sport just to see what happens.
It’s a well-known fact, of course, that 87% of all statistics are made up. But as this site regularly observes, if you’re the Scottish opposition and media there’s no need to invent fake ones when you can twist the real ones to present an image completely at odds with the reality.
The Sunday Times today has some fine examples of the craft of massaging figures for the purposes of deception. It carries two separate scare stories on the NHS, both of them using figures which aren’t based on any sort of news, but on opposition spin on existing stats. One comes from the Tories, under a dramatic headline:
The banner is pulling a classic trick – the £685m figure is actually the total sum spent in a decade, not the single year that most people would assume (since there’s no good reason to measure spending in decades, so headlines usually don’t do it). But remarkably it’s just about the most honest thing in the paper’s health coverage today.
While normally the Unionist media deploys the ever-reliable blunt sledgehammer in its tireless war against Scotland controlling its own affairs, it’s also occasionally capable of more subtlety, slipping in a sneaky stiletto of a lie in passing. Take this piece from today’s Mail On Sunday:
The thing is, that’s not how currency reserves work.
As we’ve always understood it, readers, the definition of “news” is supposed to be “a new thing which has happened that people didn’t previously know about”.
Evidently the rules have changed since we were young cub reporters.
We weren’t going to dignify the utterly absurd media stushie over a tweet by Glasgow MSP John Mason yesterday with any coverage because it was too cretinous to even bear thinking about, but this from today’s Daily Record was just too good.
It might only be the 2nd of January, but it’s already pretty clear what we should expect from Scottish politics and the Scottish media in 2017.
Yesterday saw an absurdly petty response from Scottish Labour to the SNP’s “baby box” initiative, sourly carping at a dirt-cheap measure with a proven record of reducing infant mortality and providing vital help to the poor.
Today’s Herald, meanwhile, leads on a meaningless story about people being opposed to having a second independence referendum in 2017 – something nobody has proposed and which has no prospect of happening barring wildly unforseeable events.
The National has an interesting-sounding front page lead story today.
Donalda MacKinnon’s immediate predecessor Ken McQuarrie has been a hostile and toxic presence at the top of BBC Scotland for many years now, so we were naturally intrigued to hear if a change of heart at the Corporation was on the horizon.
While its pages are mostly filled with toadying drivel about the Royal Family, today’s Scottish Daily Mail does manage to squeeze in a bit of supposed politics news.
We say “supposed” because as alert readers may have already suspected, the story quickly disintegrates under inspection. The figure of 3000 police officers leaving the force since it became Police Scotland (buffed up with a hysterical editorial on page 14 talking about the “truly alarming scale of the mass exodus”) is presented without any context as to whether this is a higher number than one would normally expect.
And sure enough, a few paragraphs in we find out that the vast majority have quit after 20 to 30 years of service, which is entirely normal – the article notes that “most officers retire in their late forties or early fifties”.
The line that caught our eye, though, was this:
“Last night, Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said: ‘Officers seem to be leaving Police Scotland in their droves.'”
Last night? You mean on Christmas Day Ruth Davidson had nothing better to do with her life than offer vacuous quotes to justify meaningless non-stories in the Daily Mail? For the love of God, someone get the poor woman a Netflix subscription.
This is a lie. There are in fact no “tax hikes” in the budget at all. The threshold for the higher rate of tax is increasing with inflation, ie in real terms it’s staying the same as it is now. Councils are being ALLOWED to raise Council Tax but not FORCED to.
But the Mail lying is a reflex action. What about the rest?
Figures released yesterday indicated that the number of full-time teachers employed in Scotland had risen by 253 over the past year, despite budget cuts imposed by the UK government’s austerity programme. This obviously presented the Scottish media with a dilemma: how could such statistics be presented as an “SNP BAD” story?
Luckily, we’re dealing with experienced professionals here.
We often say here on Wings that our job is to teach people to instantly recognise the sneaky tricks used by the media to try to create false impressions without saying things that are technically untrue. (Because despite the tiny size they’re allowed to print corrections at, they’re still rather embarrassing.)
A key technique is to look at a headline or story and immediately ask what you’re NOT being told. So here’s an easy example from today’s Scottish Daily Mail.
Mark Beggan on Looking up at the stars: “‘Rigidity of thought ‘ Entrenched bitterness against their own kind. ‘All problems will be solved after independence.’ How many times…” Mar 17, 14:04
Alf Baird on Looking up at the stars: ““Scotland will issue another framework on important issues, a starting point” Thankfully there is a published research-based ‘theoretical framework’ identifying…” Mar 17, 13:54
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Nope! Setting out a general framework of where we’d be starting from is very different from a political parties individual…” Mar 17, 13:44
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “Okay so now it’s exactly the opposite of what you were saying earlier, glad we ironed that one out.” Mar 17, 13:03
Mark Beggan on Looking up at the stars: “St Patrick was the first illegal immigrant to enter Britain in a dinghy.” Mar 17, 12:50
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Dan: maybe you just don’t see others’ viewpoints as valid discussion issues? Wings is still, by far, the most influential…” Mar 17, 12:50
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Scotland was perfectly capable of writing a framework before. Even Wings wrote the wee blue book along with thousands of…” Mar 17, 12:35
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Anne: I honestly do not think that the vast majority of posters on here are Unionist trolls. It is just…” Mar 17, 12:33
Mark Beggan on Looking up at the stars: “For Scotland to achieve independence now the supporters will have to vote for the Unionist party most likely to form…” Mar 17, 12:24
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “I’m not going through the bins sorry, but looks like you’re absolutely right, it ain’t from the Tay, perhaps it…” Mar 17, 11:55
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “It’s a great strategy from Geri, I love it. So when people ask perfectly reasonable questions in hustings/on the doorstep/in…” Mar 17, 11:48
100%Yes on Looking up at the stars: “Why does it bother you? Ignore them entirely, most people do and they’ll just go away.” Mar 17, 11:33
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “(Another attempt at the Gaelic version, hopefully free this time from misformatting question marks after each Gaelic accent) COIRE A’…” Mar 17, 11:23
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “CORRYVRECKAN George Orwell wrote his novel 1984 on the Island of Jura. I saw something about it on tv recently.…” Mar 17, 11:07
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “That which doesn’t kill you makes you strong, Anne. It never ceases to amaze me how so many pro-Indy Scots…” Mar 17, 11:07
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “COIRE A’ BHREACAIN Sgri?obh Seo?ras Orwell 1984 air Eilean Diu?ra. Chunnaic mi pi?os mu a dhe?idhinn air an tv o…” Mar 17, 11:05
Anne on Looking up at the stars: “This site isn’t what it was because of the increasing posts from unionist trolls but one area where Wings has…” Mar 17, 10:22
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Ah hear it’s grand fer fleas oan dugs.” Mar 17, 10:19
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Thanks fer the heids up, Geri. Ah’ll hae a wee wurd.” Mar 17, 10:16
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Spot on, Alf. Poor shitey will see this for himself if Reform win. Someone did a montage of him the…” Mar 17, 10:13
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Sorry, Alf, but after that response from you, I can only hope and pray that you never actually read the…” Mar 17, 10:02
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “I hate tae burst yer wee Yoon bubble but ye are aware Chucky has strong Islamic leanings? Or maybe that’s…” Mar 17, 09:53
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Look Shitey It’s not rocket science. In a referendum the question is posed to EVERYONE regardless of their preferred political…” Mar 17, 09:47
Alf Baird on Looking up at the stars: ““the article’s author doesn’t account for Scotland’s exceptionalism” Scotland has suffered from Orwell’s thesis since long afore he wrote anything.…” Mar 17, 09:18
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “HMcH Oh, I get it. You start it, don’t come out best so revert to spellchecking sanctimonious teacher mode. Honestly!…” Mar 17, 08:13
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “An interesting article on why, after every political revolution, Orwell’s pigs eventually turn into the humans they overthrew: https://unherd.com/2026/03/trumps-betrayal-of-his-base/ Of…” Mar 17, 07:59
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “I’ve not been allowed near my local mosque since I tidied up all the shoes, bagged them up in pairs,…” Mar 17, 07:41
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““Whose bitter” Dunno, YL. But you saw it first. Fill yer boots. Bet some cant already gobbed in it though.” Mar 17, 07:31
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““you buy the house first before you start arranging the furniture” You’re thinking like a schemie who’s been 20 years…” Mar 17, 07:23
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Michty, Geri! Still only Tuesday and already you’re back to picking up the word on the streets. I see you’ve…” Mar 17, 07:16
