Herald Spot The Difference
An alert reader points out a story in today’s edition of the once-popular regional periodical. See if you can pick out the curious inconsistency.
Headline: “Concern at decline in PE teacher numbers under SNP”
Third sentence: “However, schools have made up the shortfall by appointing additional PE teachers on temporary contracts – most of them part-time – which has led to an overall increase.”
We’ve emphasised some of the words as a clue. Did you get it?
A few days ago we blogged on the noticeable lurch towards Unionism the Herald has undergone since appointing Magnus Gardham as political editor, most obviously illustrated by its dogged determination to make something out of the manufactured controversy around Martin Sime and the SCVO. (A determination which the paper has continued hammering away at impotently, with not one but two more desperately contrived non-stories trying to flog some life into the dead horse since we covered it.)
Despite being staffed by alleged professional journalists, the Herald inexplicably neglects to specify the full statistics referred to in its story, listing only the incomplete figures showing a fall in the number of PE teachers on permanent contracts and not the increased number on temporary contracts. Without the latter, of course, the story is meaningless.
There could be another 50,000 PE teachers in Scotland for all the Herald tells us, working full-time but on temporary contracts. Those temporary contracts could be being renewed every term, making the teachers “permanent” in every meaningful sense. Scotland could be leading the world in PE-teacher provision, with a teacher for every individual child, and the Herald would still be headlining with “decline in PE teacher numbers” on the grounds of a contractual technicality.
We wrote to the editor earlier this month about the paper’s newfound predilection for printing empirical lies. He dodged the question, waffling on about not being biased when we hadn’t accused him of being biased but of publishing things that weren’t true, and a polite follow-up pointing that out was ignored. We genuinely can’t understand how the paper imagines that such a strategy will arrest its precipitous decline in sales.
And because we’re proper journalists who care about getting the facts right and telling our readers the truth, on this occasion “decline” DOES mean exactly what it says.
My belief, also shared by various friends, is that the Herald had a “lightbulb” moment. The contentious Mr Gardham was brought on board to produce articles that would have the hoards of “cybernats” rushing to the online site to argue and counter lies and misleading stories for which said Mr Gardham is well known.
In essence he’s boosting views and therefore increasing revenue.
Unfortunately, I think that all that will happen is it all becomes a big turnoff, but I could be wrong!
And it’s easy to get around the Herald’s fee paying wall simply by clearing out the internet cache on your browser and revisiting the site as many times as one wishes. In fact the cache cleaning can be set automatically to make blogging via their website stupidly easy.
Expect to se the newspaper announce the end of print publishing next year then a final cough when it disappears from the interent a few years later, only to possibly pop back up as someone’s personal Unionist loving blog.
It’s been a turnoff for me – I’ve boycotted their website since Gardham joined. It’s safe to say I haven’t missed much.
I wrote to The Herald last week (letters-didn’t get it printed) to inform them of my concern that Magnus had been appointed. I informed them that he was contributing to bringing the paper down to the gutter standard of The Daily Record, with his politically biased drivel, especially with the unfair treatment of Martin Sime. I also informed them that I would no longer buy the paper.
To be fair, Mr Russell replied to me via email. He explained that Magnus was a first class journalist and had no axe to grind against the SNP. He also stated that whilst the paper was not convinced about Independence, they provided an even handed unbiased approach. He also thanked me for my custom.
I replied and thanked him for taking the trouble to reply.
I also informed him that his explanation was fanciful and an insult to my intelligence. Their attack on Martin Sime was a disgrace, and if the paper is as even handed as he claims, no doubt Magnus would write an article on why the Labour party, who claim to care about the poor and disadvantaged, voted not to devolve Welfare to The Scottish Parliament, and leave Scotland to the mercy of the coalition cuts.
Yep, used to be a reasonable paper. Some columnists still worth a read, eg Bell. But their news is biased and sometimes embarrasingly amateurish.
Check also their misleading front page story yesterday on NHS numbers, where they manipulated the figures. Worth a blog, WOS!
They’ve lost this longstanding reader.
Be interesting to see whether the Herald reports on the good news announced today that the Forties field has at least another 20 years of production. Or will such news be deemed as classified lest the natives get restless!
Will they report on this story either I wonder?
link to bbc.co.uk
Och, I don’t know.
It seems to me that there are a lot of pretty easy targets on the Herald web site. It behoves us to challenge people like that outside our comfort zone. I have become more confident in doing that knowing that whatever I say is evidence based. (Largely from this most excellent site.)
So far, I have not been banned or actually censored. As far as I know, nothing I have said has persuaded anyone. But, you gotta fight!
You too can have endless fun taking the mickey out of both their ‘journalists’ and their regular commentators like oor Terry or Michael McKeown from the West Midlands. It would be a huge mistake to surrender that ground to these internet bampots. For it is that contested territory we have to win over. They print their rubbish on the basis of a drip feed of propoganda. It is, relatively, easy to demolish it.
I want to win our freedom. I look on this site – which is both witty and intelligent – as a springboard to jumping in with the sharks. You dear reader, are probably far more able for that fight than I. Let us all contest every bit of churnalism wherever we see it.
Ahem..
I have been incredibly impressed with the way people on our side of the fence have conducted themselves. We need to be ‘nice’. we need to be ‘witty’ and we need to be ‘right’. We need to spread the word into the darkest of places, even unto A Cochrane, Esq.
There is such a muddle in the unionist case that they fall over themselves with ad hominems and frankly lies. It would be well worth looking at Rev Stus’ Alex Salmond Dictator-Comparison Bingo:
link to tinyurl.com
which ought to get you so annoyed that the users of these ideas become microscopic creatures of no worth whatsoever. You should treat them as such with wit and facts.
You are a lot better than them. Believe it and we will win in 2014. We absolutely must make our case wherever we can. Apparently there are tens of thousands of you our there. That is a lot – so just do it!
A bit O/T, but further to the discussion on media blunders, did anyone else spot the ‘Double Jeapordy’ headline used by Scotland Tonight on the subject of Alastair Bonnington’s view that Holyrood has done more damage to Scottish law in 13 years than Westminster did in 300?
Douglas amen to that.
Bill C,
Thanks.
I believe we have to contest, in a civillised way, every inch of unionist propoganda.
Our good host allows us to generate ideas here, whether above the line or below it.
It is my belief that those ideas that have merit ought to be fed into any mainstream media that allows it.
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I will share a nightmare with you. Scotland votes ‘no’ and David Cameron has a win.
We cannot allow that. We would be rolled back to a mere province of Westminster. North Britain if you will. Which is a bit rubbish.
That is how important this is.
We have a one shot chance and we can’t afford to blow it.
People that read this site are more than capable of making the positive arguement. I am just asking that they do…….
Wherever, and whenever they can.
Morning Rev. Sorry for going O/T here but I’ve found this article by Gavin McCrone over on the Hootsmon. It makes for some interesting reading I think.
link to scotsman.com
This tactic is all too common in the Scottish media. I’ve seen the same thing with the Scotsman and the Daily Mail. I’d imagine it’s being used by all the newspapers at this stage.
It’s a good way for an editor to put a unionist/negative spin on a neutral article too, if the writer does not have full control over the headlines.
Other than a boycott and a fresh political start post-independence I don’t see much that would kickstart a new era of better behaviour. Even in a post Yes vote Scotland it would seem hard to believe that such newspapers or editors would suddenly behave themselves.
I now click on the Herald once a day; if there is a positive story about anything then I sometimes follow it through. Otherwise its a quick log out.
No point in encouraging them.
I only go to the Herald if Peter Bell scoops it; and that’s mainly to guage the reaction from the comments to the Unionist drivel that passes for journalism in the MSM these days.
I understand from an entirely separate source that the Herald is not a happy ship these days. Lucy Adams is going off on maternity leave and is so cheesed off with the state of the paper she is considering not returning.