There Are Crocodiles 210
Posted on
June 19, 2016 by
Chris Cairns
Archive for the ‘media’
Total Perspective Vortex 115
Posted on
June 18, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Returning astronaut Tim Peake reveals the BBC’s new weather map.
(Chris Cairns will be back tomorrow.)
Lion lies down with lambs 276
Posted on
June 17, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Fast work 180
Posted on
June 14, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Learning difficulties 177
Posted on
June 10, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Sometimes we feel as though dumbing down Scottish politics until the Times’ political reporter Kenny Farquharson can understand it is our full-time job. It’s something we have to do quite a lot, whether it’s reminding him what manifestos look like, or pointing out that protecting EVERY child in Scotland from harm is actually a good thing, or even basic stuff like explaining what the SNP’s position on Scottish independence is.
So we’re pretty used to this sort of thing by now.
Beating your wife 186
Posted on
June 08, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Yesterday we reported on a rather weird Scotland on Sunday poll that the newspaper reported last month, which pollster ICM seemed to want nothing to do with and whose results weren’t made public until weeks after they should have been, and only under sustained pressure from this website.
Here’s another extract from the paper’s coverage:
Now, that’s some pretty shabby and misleading editorialising right from the off by the paper’s super-Unionist political editor Tom Peterkin. The SNP had pledged to replace the tax in their 2007 manifesto, and attempted to do so as a minority administration, but were foiled by the combined opposition of the Unionist parties voting to block proposals for a local income tax. The Nats accepted defeat and the pledge wasn’t repeated in the 2011 or 2016 manifestos.
But the poll is even dodgier than that.
Good News Day 85
Posted on
June 08, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It was revealed yesterday that NHS Scotland now has the highest staffing levels in its history, a positive story justly celebrated in today’s Times:
It’s in there if you read closely, honest.
The corkscrew 106
Posted on
June 06, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alert readers may have noticed that we tend to slack off a bit at the weekend these days. There’s no point burning ourselves out with busywork at a time when there’s not very much going on in Scottish politics (certainly not in terms of independence, at any rate), and weekend traffic is always lower anyway.
So we’ve only just now got round to taking a proper look at something the online Yoon community and punditariat was getting itself very excited about on Saturday.
And it’s a fascinating piece of work.
The blowhards 192
Posted on
June 02, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Readers, we’re honestly starting to believe that the entire Scottish media is some sort of elaborate Jeremy-Beadle-style prank.
Because the alternative – that they actually mean this stuff seriously – is just too bizarre and horrible to contemplate.
Naming no names 167
Posted on
June 01, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
You can almost physically feel it. Scotland’s opposition and media are absolutely champing at the bit today to try to make some “SNP BAD” political capital out of the tragic and appalling death of little Liam Fee at the monstrous hands of his mother and her grotesque, controlling partner.
Like kids at Christmas, some of them couldn’t even wait for morning.
But something odd struck us as we surveyed the coverage of the case: if the poor wee toddler had a Named Person, how come nobody could name them?
A change in values 140
Posted on
May 30, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
There’s been a lot of chat on social media recently commenting on what seems to be a rather low-key approach to the Tory election fraud story.
Despite having the potential to cast the result of the UK general election into doubt, with dozens of Tory MPs under suspicion of being elected illegally, press coverage – particularly on the BBC – has been noticeably thin on the ground compared to, say, the days and weeks of sustained, new-content-free reporting on Michelle Thomson’s business affairs or Stewart Hosie and Angus MacNeil’s love lives.
(We learned very recently, of course, that the police still haven’t even spoken to Ms Thomson, over eight months after the allegations came to light.)
But even we were startled by this:
Yes, if you type “Tory election fraud” into the BBC website, the top result is for some unfathomable reason an article about Hosie and MacNeil, who are neither Tories nor under investigation for any kind of fraud.
Indeed, the current Tory election fraud story is nowhere to be found at all – the next most recent item on the page is from 2012 and about the Liberal Democrats.
We’ll leave readers to draw their own conclusions.
How newspapers work 222
Posted on
May 24, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
These two stories today are based on the exact same quotes from the exact same interview in a magazine.
Thank goodness the press is here to interpret stuff for us, eh?
