The opposite of information 133
Posted on
March 10, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Archive for the ‘media’
That escalated quickly 103
Posted on
March 09, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
(The GERS figures actually showed Scotland’s revenues in 2014/15 dropping by ONE PERCENT as a result of the oil price collapse. Non-oil revenues were UP by 3.2%.)
The past is another country 375
Posted on
March 06, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This week Scottish Labour have been attacking the SNP’s rather timid plans for the reform of Council Tax, which is an entirely fair and legitimate opposition pursuit.
But as is their wont, Kezia Dugdale’s branch office just can’t help overplaying their hand and doing it in a highly dishonest way.
The off-message journalist 204
Posted on
March 03, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We thought you might like to see this snippet from a recent edition of the BBC News channel’s newspapers round-up, spotted by an alert reader.
We particularly enjoy the obviousness with which presenter Martine Croxall is being fed random titles into her earpiece by a panicking producer in response to freelancer stringer Matthew Green’s unexpected observation.
The lonely onlys 46
Posted on
March 01, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As we’ve explored many times on Wings, one of the many reasons you should never trust a newspaper’s headline is that even the ones that are technically true can be painting a highly (and deliberately) misleading picture.
For example, more than two years ago we pointed to a Scotsman story that blared “A THIRD OF SCOTS WOULD BACK EXIT FROM EU”, which is a rather curious spin to put on a poll which found a 13-point margin for staying in the EU.
A paper particularly fond of misusing stats in this way is the Daily Mail.
Ken Loves Laura 172
Posted on
February 27, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
If you’ve ever heard people talking about the “Scottish cringe” but don’t really know what it is, you could do a lot worse for an example than this:
Jeez, Ken, Valentine’s was a fortnight ago, you had your chance.
Never understanding 124
Posted on
February 26, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
An interesting and illuminating exchange has taken place in the last few days between the First Minister and Times columnist Kenny Farquharson, one of the many senior journalists who’ve recently jumped from the sinking ship of The Scotsman to take up less prestigious but more secure positions elsewhere.
It started on Saturday night, when Farquharson tweeted this:
And then people said more stuff.
Fighting for horsemeat 178
Posted on
February 26, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
In what may be a new all-time low for the broadsheet press in Scotland, this morning’s Scottish edition of the Telegraph makes a front-page lead story out of a petition with a pathetic 4500 signatures, put together by some extremist Yoon nutters to express their rage that there might be a peak-time news show actually made in Scotland.
The idea of a so-called “Scottish Six”, whereby the main six o’clock news bulletin would be a single programme made by BBC Scotland and covering Scottish, UK and world news – rather than the current half-hour London-centric UK programme followed by 30 minutes of regional murdur’n’fitba in Reporting Scotland – has been exercising the media (and pretty much nobody else) for the best part of 20 years.
But now it’s become a constitutional battleground, and the funny thing about it is that the two sides are fighting bitterly over something neither of them actually really wants.
The sands of the times 265
Posted on
February 24, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Newspaper sales figures in Scotland now come out in a patchy and unco-ordinated sort of way, with different frequencies and at different times of year, so we thought it’d be worth collecting them together for easy reference.
The numbers below are the most recent figures for each title that we know of – for papers classed as “national” that means November last year, and for those counted as “regional” (which includes the Scotsman and Herald titles) it’s this month.
Figures have all been rounded to the nearest 100, and increase/decrease stats refer in all cases to the corresponding sales for one year previously.
The cold hard numbers 81
Posted on
February 24, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The first quote below is from Magnus Gardham in the Herald, the second one is from Kenny Farquharson in the Times, both today.
So just to clear that up: four times £12 million is £200 million. The mystery of why people are increasingly reluctant to believe what they read in newspapers continues.
Breaking news broken 113
Posted on
February 23, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
File this one under “the wish is the father of the thought”:
We wonder which government?
A trip down Memory Lane 78
Posted on
February 23, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This was a little cruel, frankly.
(From today’s Daily Politics.)
