Alert readers will of course be aware that one of this site’s most frequently-recurring themes is “phantom news”, whereby events or unpleasant opinions that newspapers or broadcasters really want to have happened are conveniently brought to life, either by some random nobody on the internet, or an unnamed “source” or “insider”.
So when Nicola Sturgeon did something today that nearly everyone in the Northern Hemisphere knew she was going to do sometime soon, but wasn’t expecting just yet, there wasn’t time to prepare actual real people with the required quotes.
In the modern media world, though, that isn’t a problem.
Our attention was drawn today to hardcore shrieky Loyalist nutter collective Scotland In Union releasing “new research” on an independent Scotland’s finances, which in fact came out last year but which for unknown reasons they’re touting again now.
Commissioned by the loongroup from a London-based thinktank that we’d never heard of by the name of “Europe Economics”, it predictably produces a doom-and-gloom conclusion that independence would have cost over £10bn in the first year.
There are so many gaping chasms in the logic we could hardly stop laughing for long enough to type, but one in particular was worth wiping the tears from our eyes for.
We were very pleased to hear Gary Robertson challenge Kezia Dugdale on the curious matter of Scottish Labour’s membership and income figures on today’s Good Morning Scotland. Dugdale flapped and dodged and waffled for as long as she could before diverting the topic onto federalism, and eventually managed to wriggle away from the subject without any sort of proper answer (through no fault of Robertson’s).
Almost a year ago we ran a short piece mocking a Scotsman headline which claimed that “THOUSANDS” of people had signed a Tory anti-referendum petition, when the actual number was a strictly-accurate-but-pathetic TWO thousand.
We didn’t think that could ever be beaten for technically-true hyperbolic exaggeration, but we’d reckoned without the bold boundary-pushing ingenuity of the Daily Express.
Hundreds of thousands? How many hundreds, exactly?
There’s a truly abominable piece of hatemongering in today’s Times. A grotesequely dishonest Nat-bashing smear job based on stupendously misrepresented fragments of quotes, it’s penned by Patrick Harkness, someone who the paper identifies as “a past co-chairman of the RSE [Royal Society of Edinburgh] Young Academy of Scotland”.
For some reason it’s chosen to leave a few lines off his CV.
It’s a well-known fact, of course, that 87% of all statistics are made up. But as this site regularly observes, if you’re the Scottish opposition and media there’s no need to invent fake ones when you can twist the real ones to present an image completely at odds with the reality.
The Sunday Times today has some fine examples of the craft of massaging figures for the purposes of deception. It carries two separate scare stories on the NHS, both of them using figures which aren’t based on any sort of news, but on opposition spin on existing stats. One comes from the Tories, under a dramatic headline:
The banner is pulling a classic trick – the £685m figure is actually the total sum spent in a decade, not the single year that most people would assume (since there’s no good reason to measure spending in decades, so headlines usually don’t do it). But remarkably it’s just about the most honest thing in the paper’s health coverage today.
Figures released yesterday indicated that the number of full-time teachers employed in Scotland had risen by 253 over the past year, despite budget cuts imposed by the UK government’s austerity programme. This obviously presented the Scottish media with a dilemma: how could such statistics be presented as an “SNP BAD” story?
Luckily, we’re dealing with experienced professionals here.
We often say here on Wings that our job is to teach people to instantly recognise the sneaky tricks used by the media to try to create false impressions without saying things that are technically untrue. (Because despite the tiny size they’re allowed to print corrections at, they’re still rather embarrassing.)
A key technique is to look at a headline or story and immediately ask what you’re NOT being told. So here’s an easy example from today’s Scottish Daily Mail.
Young Lochinvar on According As We Need Them: “Unfortunately yes. Add in the DEI obsessed LibDems onto the list though, the shark lurking under the waves on this…” Jul 13, 23:00
GM on According As We Need Them: “Very true. Nothing for it but to keep the faith and take the genuine option when it is on offer…” Jul 13, 22:58
Captain Caveman on According As We Need Them: “@Lorn Excellent post, in my humble opinion. How did we get here?” Jul 13, 22:39
Shug on According As We Need Them: “What is the Herald and National doing getting tied up with such a bunch of self serving weirdos Are there…” Jul 13, 22:35
sarah on According As We Need Them: “@ GM: I agree. I can’t wait to see the back of them. We all know people in our own…” Jul 13, 21:53
Lorn on According As We Need Them: “You still haven’t told us who these paragons of modern political action are, Dan. Actually, I read very widely and…” Jul 13, 21:52
GM on According As We Need Them: “Aye Sarah, there are plenty of good people out there. That does not make the ‘Scottish’ elite any easier to…” Jul 13, 20:41
Dunx on Just Good Friends: “And English consumers subsidise Scottish renewables. Your point is ?” Jul 13, 20:28
holymacmoses on According As We Need Them: “A tweet from our Suzanne on journalistic integrity. Her kitchen is full of pots and kettles:-) “Suzanne McLaughlin @Suzemclaughlin Not…” Jul 13, 20:08
Dan on According As We Need Them: “Maybe try being a bit more alert and receptive to actually reading and taking in what other folk have said…” Jul 13, 20:04
willie on According As We Need Them: “The Scottish Government under the SNP and the Green is a quack quango Effijy. No one should be in any…” Jul 13, 19:38
sarah on According As We Need Them: “@ Lorn at 6.34: “who are these paragons?”. I think Dan may be referring to the Independents for Independence who…” Jul 13, 19:21
willie on According As We Need Them: “If they didn’t publicly fund these faux charities and their loon ball on line trolls to pump out their unwanted…” Jul 13, 19:20
agent x on According As We Need Them: ““The Scottish National party has voted heavily in favour of introducing all women shortlists and “balanced” regional lists, reversing decades-long…” Jul 13, 18:44
Lorn on According As We Need Them: “And who were these paragons, Dan? I have never in my life simply ticked a box because the candidate reflected…” Jul 13, 18:34
Effijy on According As We Need Them: “So much tax payer cash directed to nonsense quangos. I’ve never yet seen one of these bodies produce anything worthwhile.…” Jul 13, 18:33
Campbell Clansman on According As We Need Them: “Alba would have to “make a lot of ground” to get to 2% of the vote.” Jul 13, 18:26
twathater on According As We Need Them: “ALL of this pish is our own fault because we stood by and allowed these fuckwits to gain power, and…” Jul 13, 18:12
Frank Gillougley on According As We Need Them: “And so it goes. Incestuous faux academics shall speak unto incestuous faux academics funded by us the hoi polloi. The…” Jul 13, 17:58
Dan on According As We Need Them: “Some did try to start electing decent ordinary individuals who weren’t the usual political clone dross, but youse weren’t interested,…” Jul 13, 17:53
Bill Fraser on According As We Need Them: “I am wondering if this organisations status as a charity could be challenged under the “Charity Test ” it certainly…” Jul 13, 17:51
Anthem on According As We Need Them: “Alba could make a lot of ground exposing these so called “charities “, on how much they cost the taxpayer,…” Jul 13, 17:51
Captain Caveman on Just Good Friends: ““They’rrrrre grrrrreat!” https://www.frostedflakes.us/tony-the-tiger” Jul 13, 17:27
Lorn on According As We Need Them: “The one thing about politicians that I have discovered in my life is that, male or female, black or white,…” Jul 13, 17:24
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Norway’s support per capita for our fighting friends in Eastern Europe is the highest in the world. I guess that…” Jul 13, 17:23
Gaelstorm on According As We Need Them: “Surlely te issue is what were the actual questions in the survey?” Jul 13, 17:06
Craig on According As We Need Them: “I fuckin despise Scotland now and what it has become, of all nationalities to be born, I had to be…” Jul 13, 16:46
Colin Dawson on According As We Need Them: “I wonder how much of the Scottish budget gets spent on supposed “charities” that are almost entirely funded by the…” Jul 13, 16:32
Young Lochinvar on According As We Need Them: “Oh oh! That’ll be you reported to the Polis hurry feels division Rev.. Tell them they’ll never take you alive,…” Jul 13, 16:22