Making Britain great again 72
Posted on
January 23, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The front page of this morning’s Telegraph.
We can’t decide which part we’re the most proud of.
Archive for the ‘media’
Category errors 108
Posted on
January 21, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Veteran readers will be aware that there are basically two types of misinformation perpetrated by the Scottish media. The rarer type is the flat-out lie, where things that are simply demonstrably untrue are presented as facts – a common example being the regular assertion by journalists that all three Unionist parties are committed to giving Holyrood new additional powers after a No vote, which was neatly skewered by Andrew Nicoll in yesterday’s Sun (image link, no paywall).
The subtler variety is when newspapers and broadcasters report true information in a misleading way, sometimes so drastically that it comes out meaning the exact opposite of what it actually means. A story today is a case in point.
Fairness In The First Year 88
Posted on
January 19, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
For those of you wanting to look at the report on broadcasting bias from the University of the West of Scotland, we’ve uploaded it to the Repository, and you can also grab it directly from this link. Thanks to the alert readers who sent it in.
The illegitimacy klaxon 76
Posted on
January 19, 2014 by
James Kelly
We doubt if anyone is going to faint with amazement from the discovery that an academic study has found TV news coverage of the independence debate was biased against the Yes side by a 3-2 margin between September 2012 and September 2013.
But what’s useful about the University of West of Scotland research is that it sets out the exact nature of the various types of biases, and gives a precise number for how many times each type occurred. This moves us on considerably, because complaints can no longer be dismissed as nothing more than (to misquote Derek Bateman) the paranoia of nationalists obsessing over how many times Jackie Bird raises her left eyebrow while reading from an autocue.
The classic double whammy 145
Posted on
January 18, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Step 1: Write an offensive, provocative piece of trollbait for the Daily Mail, describing your opponents as “kilted bum-barers who bellow ‘freedom’ whenever an English person hoves into view” and suggesting that a Yes vote is an abdication of morality.
(If you can then somehow get the Guardian to reprint it, bonus!)
Step 2: Whine like a baby when you get the response you wanted all along.
Panic stations 115
Posted on
January 18, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
When we started the week with news of the UK government’s statement on debt, we wondered aloud whether it would be a game-changing moment. Judging by the No camp’s reaction since then, shrieking and flailing and lashing out blindly in all directions simultaneously, our question’s been answered.
It’s been hard to keep track of it all, but we’ll have a go.
A second opinion 91
Posted on
January 16, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We got an email last night with regard to yesterday’s piece about a bizarre story in the Daily Record. We thought it was worth sharing with you. The emphasis is ours.
“I’m a lawyer and many years ago worked for the Scottish Office drafting ‘exchange cover’ contracts to deal with fluctuations in the value of currencies between parties from different countries. Sometimes the contract dealt with Swiss Francs, sometimes Deutschmarks or US Dollars and so on.
From what you have printed in your article, it seems that this is not such a contract but it does the same job another way. It makes the person sending the invoice (the contractor) send all their bills to the Scottish Government in one currency only – the pound Sterling. It also provides that they will only receive payment in Sterling.
In other words it’s an affirmation of the use of Sterling now and in the future by the Scottish Government. I don’t know who the ‘top’ lawyer alluded to is but he or she is talking mince.
Regards,
George Gebbie
Faculty of Advocates.”
(“Mince” is an obscure legal term. You wouldn’t understand.)
The incredible vanishing story 166
Posted on
January 15, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Gah. Why is it that any time we’re ever vaguely nice about the Daily Record in public, they immediately pull an idiotic stunt like this and make us look like chumps?
Watch and marvel, readers, as a headline disintegrates in front of your very eyes.
The teachers are afraid of the pupils 72
Posted on
January 15, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s always a concerning state of affairs for any society when newspaper journalists appear less well-informed and less capable of intelligent analysis than their readers.
So we felt a letter published in today’s Herald deserved a wider audience.
Always crashing in the same car 80
Posted on
January 14, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A must-view for those of you who missed last night’s Scotland Tonight. Watch and marvel (mainly from 2m 28s) as a man falls apart in front of your eyes, reduced to a babbling, incoherent shambles by a calm, eloquent gent in a sharp tweed suit.
Our favourite bit is the desperate, plaintive “Just ask Alistair Darling!” at the end.
Reader alertness test 35
Posted on
January 09, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Just a quick one, folks. Here’s a story we touched on earlier today, that appeared in today’s Scotsman and Daily Record. (It even briefly showed up in the Herald, but was deleted faster than we could save it.) At first glance it appears to be identical in both papers, but it isn’t. In fact there’s a rather substantial difference. Can you spot it?
