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Wings Over Scotland



The corkscrew 106

Posted on June 06, 2016 by

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.

heraldfracking

And it’s a fascinating piece of work.

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The taxonomy of lies 246

Posted on May 18, 2016 by

For much of its life, this site has been warning readers that, as their default position, they should always assume newspaper headlines are a lie until proven otherwise.

headlie

Today, Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper admitted it in public.

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Call The Midwife 124

Posted on April 10, 2016 by

The Scottish press and opposition’s incandescent and somewhat vague fury at the Scottish Government working to bring billions of pounds in investment to Scotland has continued undiminished in this weekend’s newspapers. Scottish Labour in particular are getting themselves very worked up about today’s Sunday Times.

mcchina

“Incredible”? Sounds exciting. Let’s find out more.

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The murder of words 140

Posted on March 16, 2016 by

This headline appears in The Times today:

timesctr

It’s an absolute lie. But that’s not the interesting thing.

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The trick is to keep reading 74

Posted on December 13, 2015 by

We’ve lost count of how many times we’ve drawn people’s attention to the necessity of sticking with newspaper articles right to the end if you don’t want to be horribly misled by eye-catching headlines. But it never hurts to have another example.

scomailfrb

If you only read the start of today’s Scottish Mail On Sunday “bombshell” on the Forth Road Bridge (the left side of the picture above), you might come to a very alarming conclusion. But if you get all the way through it, to the paragraphs we’ve highlighted in red and enlarged on the right-hand side of the image, you’ll discover the truth.

Your half and their half 85

Posted on September 15, 2015 by

There’s been a veritable flurry of polls commissioned to mark the impending one-year anniversary of the independence referendum. In the last 48 hours alone we’ve seen ones from Survation, YouGov and Panelbase, making a variety of interesting findings. As ever, though, the trick is in the interpretation.

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Threats and menaces 145

Posted on August 13, 2014 by

With the referendum now just five weeks away and most of the polls still uncomfortably close, there’s an increasing sense of urgency and lack of subtlety about the No camp and media’s scaremongering.

Yesterday the Scottish media covered the award of a Royal Navy shipbuilding contract to BAE Systems in unequivocally political terms. “Promise of £348m shipyard contract for No vote”, blared the Scotsman, while the Scottish Sun’s front page went with “3 ships deal ‘if No vote’”. (The English edition was the rather more loquacious “Scots will land £348m Royal Navy contract – if they stay in the UK”.)

Yet the text of the articles told a radically different story.

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As casual as you like 307

Posted on July 04, 2014 by

Today’s Scottish Daily Express:

express500m

We’ve added the red lines.

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Voting No will give you cancer 141

Posted on July 03, 2014 by

Voting No WON’T give you cancer at all, of course. (Although with the English NHS now privatising cancer care, with the likely knock-on effects on Scottish NHS funding, you’d better hope even harder that you don’t get it.)

The title on this article is in fact completely unrelated to the text you’re about to read, much like Torcuil Crichton’s column in today’s Daily Record.

rosyth

Let’s take a look.

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Good faith and bad practice 160

Posted on June 20, 2014 by

The other day we highlighted a really good piece in the Scottish Sun, which while not perfect was a pretty decent stab at the sort of evidence-based journalism Scotland’s media should have been doing throughout the referendum campaign.

sunpound

Today, not so much.

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The inadequate tide 69

Posted on June 07, 2014 by

This is a story in today’s Scottish Daily Express:

sdemigrants

Now that’s what we call some rapid inflation.

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A joke and a lie 127

Posted on May 22, 2014 by

Last night, in our 10pm “And finally” comedy slot, we ran a picture of a Labour election leaflet we’d slightly altered in order to make a joke about the party’s well-documented historic predilection for postal-vote electoral fraud. Readers can form their own view about whether the gag was funny or not, but it was at least clearly flagged as an “And finally” and we also pointed out that the pic was a fake in the comments.

taxlie

We’ve been searching this morning’s Scotsman for a similar disclaimer regarding its front-page headline, but as yet we’re not having a lot of luck locating it.

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    • Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Oops that should have been “In times of famine… This is what Goebbels wrote in his diary when his boss…Mar 28, 11:07
    • Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Der giftswerg, 1941. “I’m times of famine even the devil eats flies.”Mar 28, 10:53
    • Sven on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive…Mar 28, 09:54
    • Alf Baird on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Dinna fash yersel, Northcode, mair is revealed ivvery day aboot Scotland’s colonial condeetion: “Indictment at the United Nations: A Report…Mar 28, 09:12
    • Northcode on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “In 1941, Goebbels wrote: “The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to…Mar 28, 08:55
    • Northcode on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Joe Goebbels’ ‘Big Boss’, *Adalwolf, had already written about the ‘Big Lie’ in his best seller (only rivalled in sales…Mar 28, 08:32
    • Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “@Geri I was going to lend you my first edition copy of 1984 but it would be like giving a…Mar 28, 01:18
    • Captain Caveman on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Thicko lefty.Mar 27, 23:03
    • Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “That’s an aye then & even I spotted that in two seconds flat. PS, you do know yer ballot is…Mar 27, 23:03
    • Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “That’s like asking a pedophile to take charge of the day care centre.Mar 27, 21:23
    • Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” Vladimir Lenin.Mar 27, 21:06
    • Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““The price we pay for freedom is the right to disagree.” Benjamin Franklin.Mar 27, 21:00
    • Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Are you scared James? Because if the Fascists get power in England and Wales it’s good night woo woo land.Mar 27, 20:54
    • Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Maybe Ayes an maybe Naws. Like the Indy election you’ll never know. That’s the beauty of the ballot box.Mar 27, 20:49
    • Alf Baird on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “One wonders whose rights public inquiries undertaken within colonial societies would seek to defend, the colonizer or the colonized?Mar 27, 20:41
    • Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Lighthouse TV is the channel if anyone is interested.Mar 27, 19:59
    • agentx on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Captain Caveman says: I’m a Reform voter and I’m still here. _______________________________________________- thanks – you could have said that the…Mar 27, 19:40
    • Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Have you heard what ex Tory MP Andrew Bridgen says about these gangs? Go watch him whistleblow what is really…Mar 27, 19:35
    • Captain Caveman on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “You asked were there any Reform voters left on here and I said “Hi!” Not really sure how ambiguous that…Mar 27, 19:12
    • Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Was there any to begin with? They’re just disgruntled Tories. Same shit, different party. Do we know what it is…Mar 27, 19:12
    • agentx on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““On February 25, 2026, the Scottish Government ordered a public inquiry into grooming gangs, marking a significant shift in position…Mar 27, 19:10
    • James on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Let’s hope not.Mar 27, 19:09
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “BLOG PÀRLAMAID NA h-ALBA Fiosrachadh is naidheachd bho Phàrlamaid na h-Alba Tha an seisean pàrlamaideach a-nis air tighinn gu crìch…Mar 27, 19:07
    • agentx on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Fascinating but you didn’t answer the simple question.Mar 27, 18:51
    • Mo on In Your Name: “They all need punted asap! #WomenAndChildrensSafetyMattersMar 27, 18:47
    • Young Lochinvar on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Thanks Lorncal I’m sick of “demeaning and discriminatory” whining ie because it’ll find you out. I don’t know if it’s…Mar 27, 18:45
    • Mo on In Your Name: “They all need punted asap! #WomenAndChildrensSafetyMattersMar 27, 18:45
    • Captain Caveman on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Hi! 🙂 In a similar vein, are there any SNP, Labour, Green or Lib Dumb voters left on here? ‘Cause…Mar 27, 18:27
    • twathater on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “WOW!!!! every word true and all it takes is for people to realise THIS is what has been happening for…Mar 27, 18:18
    • Young Lochinvar on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Yes indeed Geri But the “upset” gays present at the time must have been Tories who were prepared to haud…Mar 27, 18:13
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