Herald online sweat over “wee contempt of court issue”

Barely had this nascent blog stopped fiddling with its umbilical before a “regular” reader was discovered asking why there was no comment on The Herald’s story blaming the SNP budget for Glasgow City Council’s decision to make 425 people redundant.

“How can any national paper get away with saying that the Labour Council decision to make their announcement of axing jobs post-budget was ‘to help meet the national target of freezing council tax’? This is party-political propaganda at its worst.”

Maybe so. Or could it just possibly be a favourable spin due to longstanding and continuing links between the council and former Evening Times senior management who have now migrated to the mother ship of the group? As one established news reporter once privately remarked: “People wouldn’t believe it if you told them. It was as if an awkward silence over the dinner table was more important than real news on what the council was doing.”

But accusations of political bias are likely to be very low on the agenda this week after a supreme gaffe by the staff of the Herald website.

Apparently oblivious to such technical terms as sub judice and contempt of court, the Saturday edition managed to give prominence to two news stories involving upcoming court cases without having the foresight to restrict or moderate comments.

One story published on Friday night involved a police constable charged with assault while the other made reference to a certain former politician who has recently been charged with perjury (unsurprisingly the most popular story of the weekend).

An early call on Saturday morning saw the comments on both removed (without the usual explanation of being “due to abuse”) but not before more than 100 comments had been published, many of which would certainly be seen to be potentially prejudicial to the outcome of the trials.

As our correspondent, who had the remarkable foresight to copy the pages remarked: “They think they got away with it – but they haven’t.”

Might as well just vacuum under the carpets next time too.

Note: Comments on this post have been suspended for reasons that should be clear to (almost) everyone. Feel free to send an email to themeeja@gmail.com.

Brillo: Scots titles will be scrubbed

Is the Scottish press in terminal decline? Certainly, the sales figures indicate a bleak future for the country’s newspaper industry. The latest ABC data shows, unsurprisingly enough, a continuation of the downward trend that has thrown the industry into crisis and editors into despair.

However, just as a reminder that it can always get worse and usually does Andrew Neil popped up in The Guardian this week with words of cold comfort for The Scotsman and Herald’s respective editors, Mike Gilson and Charles McGhee,.

With sales at The Scotsman having dropped by 8% while The Herald suffered a 6% fall based on the corresponding figures last year, Neil, a Thatcherite unionist and former Scotsman executive editor, mused:

On current trends, if Scotland ever did divorce from the UK, it could end up the only independent country in the world without vibrant independent newspapers of its own; its citizens preferring instead the tartan editions of the newspapers of another country.

None of this would be a problem, of course, had Neil’s grand plan for the future of Scotland’s two major quality titles been implemented – merger.

The titles would remain distinctive but the back-office functions would join up, giving us the scale and resources to take on the English invaders.

It can be difficult to know what to make of such pronouncements from Neil, who if nothing else has made his mark on Britain’s newspaper and television industries. He has intelligence and talent in spades, integrity by the spoonful and enough personal charm to fill a tilted thimble.

As ever, managing the media presentation of his own professional exploits, he omits to mention that “pooling resources” was an admission of his failure to shore up sales at The Scotsman, a defeat signalled by his assertion that Glaswegians ought to buy The Herald while people in Edinburgh should remain loyal to his paper.

The Scottish political establishment was universally opposed - and behind the scenes Gordon Brown made it clear that SMG (then owners of the Herald, and looking for a quick sale) was on no account to sell to the Barclays. In doing so, he probably condemned the Scottish newspaper industry to extinction.

He skims over the fact that his plan would inevitably have meant a blunt knife being taken to staffing and a once-great Herald brand being reduced to the Glasgow edition of the right-wing Scotsman, a prospect that horrified staff, unions and readers alike. In effect, The Herald was to pay the price for his failure.

It is not clear then whether his assessment of the current state of affairs is a call for action, historical revisionism or merely gloating at the expectation that the titles will surely get what’s coming to ‘em.

However, Neil does flag up the prospect of a seemingly inescapable scenario in which his prophecy of doom is destined to be fulfilled.

The Herald full-rate sales for the period 31 December 2007 to 27 Jan 2008 averaged 66,275 while The Scotsman fared even worse at 50,430.

At such levels – comfortably exceeded by the Press and Journal (July figures), two national titles stand on the brink of irrelevance, particularly, as Neil points out, with tartan editions such as The Times performing relatively strongly.

It must be abundantly clear that the Scottish quality market will soon only accommodate one of the titles, perhaps offering only temporary respite for the victor in a winner-take-all battle for which neither yet has the stomach.

Unfortunately, as Neil observes, they are in the hands of companies whose main tactic is to crudely cut costs, rather than undertake the inevitable exercise of rationalisation in staffing. It seems that only external intervention could offer any hope - and there is the rub.

In the years of panic, savings have been made at the expense of quality when journalistic excellence has been most needed to demonstrate a level of credibility that would allow the Scottish parliament to bring the public along with any bid to prop up the titles.

Integrity and diligence have been filtered away as a generation has left the industry to be replaced by dull young things lacking drive or determination, talent or ideas and scornful of the work ethic of the past. They expect the job to be glamorous, quickly experience disappointment and then plan their next move into PR.

Real hard news is scarce, political commentary simplistic and unashamedly biased and, but for a few noble exceptions, the quality of writing so poor that there is little incentive for a reader to donate the cover price.

In allowing this state of affairs to come to pass, Newsquest, Johnston Press and, yes even Neil’s cherished Barclays have, presumably unwittingly, participated in a process not of decline but of obsolescence.

No place for sticky tape in political TV

For a small country, Scotland has a hell of a lot of political activity. This should be any journalist’s dream. Never mind the presence of our esteemed Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer at Westminster or the snakepits of internecine warfare that are our councils, Holyrood annually provides opportunities for kilometres of printed columns and broadcasting that runs into months, rather than hours.

In the latter area, the country is exceptionally well served in terms of talent, even if Andrew Neil and Andrew Marr now prefer to concentrate on the mother of parliaments. Pick of the broadcasting bunch is Iain Macwhirter who combines the rare abilities of being as effective in print as with the spoken word and having the gift for distilling complex political issues and presenting them in an accessible form that loses none of its intellectual integrity. The BBC, Herald, Sunday Herald and Guardian Unlimited all benefit from his wisdom – but not as much as do the listeners and readers.

Close behind is Brian Taylor – as reliable and friendly as a Labrador who effortlessly blends wit and gravitas with a faultless sensitivity.

And then there is Glenn Campbell, who is a bona fide star of the small screen. Polished and relaxed, Campbell’s marries a youthful appearance with a deep, hypnotic voice that carries a sense of the inescapable wisdom of cherished fatherly advice. His will be a difficult seat to fill when he finally leaves The Politics Show Scotland, as Gary Robertson found out on Sunday.

That was not entirely Robertson’s fault. Competent if understandably nervy and relying too heavily on printed notes, it can have helped him none at all that the show looked like it was put together with sticky tape.

The UK show started with drugs, moving to Scotland where Robertson introduced Annabel Goldie, telling us that they would be discussing drugs policy following the infamous deal at the Scottish budget. He then passed on to Sally McNair in Glasgow who moved to Christine McCormack in Aberdeen for a report on the evacuation of an oil rig.

McCormack, who appeared to still be in her coat from Sunday church, stuttered through 60 seconds of numbers without being able to shed any light on events before signing off with a “back to you Sally”. (Presumably, over and out is not favoured in the BBC style guide). Returning to McNair telling us yet again that Gary Robertson will be discussing drugs strategy “on The Politics Show in a few minutes time”.

By now the viewers should at least have been primed for the upcoming content.

Facing Annabel Goldie, Robertson strove to be provocative, mischievously opening with the proposition that, post-budget, the Tory “influence is over, isn’t it”, and later asking if the party was now part of a right-wing alliance with the SNP. In Goldie, however, Robertson was up against too shrewd and wizened a political stager to be upset at such obvious tactics.

If ever a face could be “set like flint”, it is Goldie’s (not the most desirable quality for a woman who claimed she could offer “sex” in the Holyrood election campaign debate) and if anything she appeared to gain in strength as the interview progressed.

What Robertson has yet to master is the ability of Campbell, Taylor and Macwhirter to listen carefully to the answers he is given and quickly formulate an incisive question based on them. Picking up the pace with interruptions is not enough to throw the most seasoned politicians off their stride.

He did raise some issues on the apparent conflict between the Tories as unionists “propping up” separatists, working with LibDems and Labour, and trying to reconcile those positions with national Tory policy. But without the ability to probe deeply, the interview was less than engaging and too reminiscent of all too familiar throwaway sessions that have become the norm in recent years.

A final question on the then breaking story of the oil rig evacuation after a security alert (later found to be a false alarm) belonged in a school magazine: “Is this something we should be concerned about?”

A feature on drug rehabilitation for women was followed by Robertson’s interview with Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing, who the presenter had earlier described as the “Drugs Minister”. By now growing in confidence, Robertson homed in on the disagreement on the value of methadone and had Ewing waffling uncomfortably as he desperately tried to give the impression of consensus where none exists.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the whole programme was the fact that no reference was made to the national show’s interviews with Rabbi Aryeh Sufrin, the Chief Executive of Drugsline and the former Home Secretary, David Blunkett on the re-classification of cannabis. Remarkable, but not surprising, given that the Scottish element of the show gave the impression of comprising independent units taking a guess at what the others were thinking.

There is room for sympathy when a potentially massive story begins to break just before a show goes on the air and throws the news agenda on its head. But the content and format of The Politics Show is such that it should have been easy to produce a cohesive broadcast unaffected by a flurry of newsroom activity, even if that did involve a final report from Jim Murray, displaying his thermal vest and lopsided spectacles.

Whatever the BBC pays for Glenn Campbell’s calm exterior, it’s not enough.

Mention the war? Say it with flowers

Britain is involved in two major wars – most people realise that. But how serious is the press attention given to these conflicts which are perhaps the most significant since WWII?

In the Scottish media, the coverage is questionable to say the least. The Guardian, proudly republican and revelling in its position as a quality title that is prepared to expose the flaws of the establishment might give coverage to some of the negatives like Hamid Karzai criticising British troops. In Scotland, lacking such a voice, you could be forgiven for thinking that those comments were never made.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the officially politically non-aligned Herald. It’s defence correspondent Ian Bruce, a former squaddie, seems to confine his coverage to crunching numbers from press releases or publishing “exclusives” gifted to him from various regiments with axes to grind about increasing demands and diminishing resources. Experience as a soldier might well be useful in knowing your terrorists from your territorials but Bruce and The Herald have not delivered a meaningful story on the wars that go so far to define our country’s international position in living memory.

Worse, however, was the placing of a clear piece of military PR in Saturday’s edition. Claiming that “We spent a week with the Scots Guards who could be deployed to Afghanistan next year”, The Herald ran a piece by Lalage Snow, describing war games and the emotions of the “boys” who could be heading out to war.

What the paper failed to highlight was that Lalage Snow actually gets a proportion of her income from the MoD. Her entry on the Lightstalkers website reads as follows:

Lalage Snow has recently completed a Masters of Arts degree in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at LCC (Distinction) but also works on an ad hoc basis for AFP and British Army, IPC Media titles, Glasgow Herald, the Guardian and private clients. She has lived and worked in Bangladesh, Argentina, Paris and the Middle East. She is, of course, available for work.

Her picture caption is seen on a recent MoD article on its own website.

Snow’s blog describes her exploits and gives some clue to her qualities as a journalist. The following is cut-and-pasted:

We won again and then kicked about in the grass waiting for the helicopters to take us back to MPC on East Island.

As soon as we took off I was off in a world of my own. You see, and I think this is how soldiers see it, when you live in such close quarters, personal space becomes secondary so you snatch it whereever you can - even if it is only defined by noise. All I could hear were blades and engines and so I was off, floating from Dhaka to Paris to home in France to school to paranoid delusions. Little wonder then that after a shower (during which I realised that cam cfream had become ingrained beneath the paperlike skin now covering my face due to wind and sun, and that untill it peeled (nice), my youthful exuberance (ahem) would be marked by thin green, brown and black lines. And no, it was far too painful to scrub), I fell fast asleep for a very long time.

Tumbledown, as i said happened the next day, after which there was a parade through Stanley. Which, by the way, is not unlie devon, except everything is build of wood or metal, rather than stone. Found the national newpsper too.

On lookers were stopped in their tracks by the pipes and quite a croud gathered. A few of stayed on in the globe, a bar highly decorated with UK flags, all signed by serving soldiers over the years.

Next few days were intermitently spent writing and editing for the G Herald and sourcing info and quotes. Followed by a platoon party (as in the film, platoon). I went as.... yep, a war photographer. not that there IS one in the film as far as I recall, but still. Nearly a week later and I am still getting the sodding cam cream off (i was attacked). Oh, and I had a cylume (that glow in the dark glow stick gel) fight with a sergeant. Got to bed as it got light then carried on for breakfast. And lunch. and As supper came and went foundmyself back in the mess supping on G and T's. Back to the illegal bar till the small hours again before finally awaking in the afternoon. Nice. Havent been that wild since being a teenager at univeristy. Crikey.

Still, when in Rome...(or hanging out with soldiers).

Did the Glasgow Herald pay for this? Or was it supplied by the MoD? Where exactly does the line between reporting and propaganda now lie? And does a newspaper claiming 225 years of “fearless journalism” still have a duty to distinguish between the two?

Travel writers often get free trips, ostensibly as it would be impossible to write about a country or resort without visiting it. People accept that this is also a chance to be very nice to the writer who will then compile a review.

Product reviewers tend to get a harder time – they are commonly given use of a high value item to test with the understanding that a review written in return for £2000 of audio equipment is worse than useless to a reader.

The embedding of journalists became a much more profound issue. Those with military units got the stories along with the protection and scrutiny of hundreds of armed troops. Some of the others were killed in friendly fire incidents. Maybe it’s a coincidence that as the casualties amongst journalists have decreased, so the level of incisive investigative reporting has diminished.

In using copy from someone known to be in the pay of the MoD for such a trivial feature, The Herald has not so much crossed the line as allowed itself to be transported over it.

Hacks flop as Wendy wins

It’s been quite a week for Scottish politics – Alex Salmond threw down the gauntlet / grandstanded his way to a successful vote on the SNP’s first budget on Wednesday. Then Wendy Alexander received the long-awaited verdict on her “impermissible” donations.

Wendy’s relief at the news that the Electoral Commission chose not to forward her case for possible prosecution was short-lived. The public and political reaction to the handling of the case has her at the centre of yet another bitter slanging match between the SNP and her Labour colleagues.

That, though, is what we expect of politics. The quality of political journalism on the matter, on the other hand, has been to say the least disappointing. Rushing to hit the airwaves or websites, The Scotsman and The Herald trumpted: “Wendy cleared”. Very nice for her – except of course she wasn’t.

The Commission’s own report indicated that:

In respect of a possible offence under section 56, the Commission has concluded that, while Wendy Alexander did not take all reasonable steps in seeking to comply with the relevant legislation, she did take significant steps.

The inaccuracy of the headlines immediately prompted a torrent of angry comments on the titles’ websites while Labour supporters gloated, pointed to the headlines and went off to celebrate.

The Herald’s commentators have come in for a particularly rough ride of late, with the pressure apparently getting to Douglas Fraser, who chose to brand some anonymous correspondents as “internet vermin”. Fraser has apparently been the recipient of personal abuse as well as accusations of pro-Labour bias though Robbie Dinwoodie is faring slightly better.

In his blog, Dinwoodie says :

Ms Alexander herself seemed to favour "vindicated" which I find a bizarre word to use in connection with and admitted breach of the law. She also referred repeatedly to her being "cleared" by the commission, a word which of course appears nowhere in their finding.

Is there an implied admission that his own title – at least the website – got it badly wrong?

The message of how to accurately report what was actually said was apparently lost on The Scotsman’s Hamish Macdonell whose later piece on Wendy came under the headline: "In the clear (for now)". Macdonell goes on to say:

There had been speculation Ms Alexander would be cleared but Mr Gordon would not – because an illegal donation had been received and Mr Gordon was responsible for securing it.

But when the commission issued its report, both Mr Gordon and Ms Alexander were cleared of any offence.

Notably The Scotsman also copied the previous day’s Scottish Daily Mail with a montage of the many expressions of the rubber-faced Alexander.

Even the Labour-supporting Daily Record, which appears to have abandoned Alexander, was more forthright in its reporting with the strapline: “Watchdogs Won't Call Cops But Rule Labour Leader's £950 Donation Was Dodgy” over Magnus Gardham’s piece:

The Electoral Commission found she broke the rules but said it was "not appropriate or in the public interest" to call in prosecutors.

The ruling was slammed as a "whitewash" and a "not proven verdict after a guilty plea" by SNP MSPs.

The paper's leader left the SNP and Labour to fight amongst themselves while still delivering a solid kick to Alexander while she is down:

Alexander said she had been vindicated. Her opponents cried "whitewash". Neither was quite right. The Electoral Commission decided it was "not in the public interest" to report Alexander to the procurator fiscal.

They did not, however, clear her completely. They found the £950 gift - from a tax exile who is not allowed to make political donations under the rules - was, indeed, "impermissible". And they found Alexander failed in her legal duty to "take all reasonable steps" to ensure the donation was above board.

In mitigation, she did take "significant" steps to check and, as we already knew, she handed the cash back as soon as she knew it was dodgy. So watchdogs decided to leave it there.

They were immediately criticised for not being tougher. But the black mark they left next to Alexander's name means they can't be accused of a total whitewash.
She has survived the scandal - but only just. And big questions remain about her ability to bounce back and turn Labour into an effective opposition at Holyrood. The party have lurched from disaster to disaster during her short reign as leader.

The tabloids regularly take a battering (quite often deservedly so) but they have left their quality rivals standing in terms of accurate balanced reporting on this one.

Meanwhile Brian Taylor made the simple observation:

Has it damaged Labour? Yes. Quite simply, yes. Asked if she’d considered resigning, Ms Alexander replied: “Not in a meaningful way, no.”

In a meaningful way, she now has to show she’s up to the task of taking on Alex Salmond.

One wonders will the papers learn any lessons themselves – in a meaningful way.

So what’s all this about?

Welcome to The Meeja – a new, totally biased collection of personal rumblings on all the Scottish media.

Why? Because it’s high time that the readers got to say what they really feel about Scotland’s newspapers, magazines, broadcast media and websites in all their forms – and the people who make them what they are.

As with all subjective comment, we aim to be fair – but make no promises!