{"id":2146,"date":"2018-05-17T16:00:50","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T16:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/?p=2146"},"modified":"2018-05-17T16:03:53","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T16:03:53","slug":"the-fourth-estate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/?p=2146","title":{"rendered":"THE FOURTH ESTATE?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cThat a man thinks as his newspaper directs him \u2013 discuss.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The above was my choice of essay in the Higher English exam in 1960 \u2013 how time flies.\u00a0 Now apart from the fact that the question seemed to assume that only men read newspapers, this subject nevertheless captured the attention of\u00a0 this 16 year old \u201cwoman\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The points raised by this question seemed to be 1) Do we choose our\u00a0 newspaper to echo our beliefs? Or 2) Have our beliefs been moulded by the newspaper we read?\u00a0 My own experience of my family\u2019s newspaper habit was, I felt, not typical.\u00a0 My parents took the Daily Record everyday and yet they were both card-carrying Tories!\u00a0 My Father claimed to choose that paper because it had the best football coverage, while my Mother simply said \u201cI don\u2019t like a big (broadsheet) paper\u201d. That meant on Sundays we got the Sunday Post and the Sunday Mail.\u00a0 Maybe this was typical in homes all over Scotland, but I felt it was not. But then at 16 we tend to think that our parents are odd and hopefully not typical.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Anyway, in the conclusion of my essay I decided that newspapers, in the main, reflected rather than moulded their readers opinions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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60 years on and where do I stand on the Fourth Estate?\u00a0 Well, now we get our news from many sources, but newspapers still seem to project the type of\u00a0 opinions that will lead the various newsfeeds \u2013 24 hour television, social media etc. all tend to reflect the day\u2019s headlines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So where does this leave the 48% of people in Scotland who believe in Independence?\u00a0 Sadly lacking in their views being reflected, I would contend.\u00a0 Here I give you a few recent examples.\u00a0 Last Sunday we had a so-called independence leaning paper, The Sunday Herald, photo-shopping a picture of our huge march for Independence making a few arch unionists appear to have a similar turn-out.\u00a0 (It actually amounted to a motely crew of, at most, a dozen angry Orangemen!) There goes the Sunday Herald as my paper of choice!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A similar example was seen on the day of Ruth Davidson\u2019s \u201cgubbing\u201d by the First Minister at FMQs, on the subject of the power grab by Westminster.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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(After Brexit, their cunning plan is to hold on to 24 currently devolved powers, thus substantially reducing the remit of our Scottish Parliament.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nicola, in no uncertain terms, told Ruth that she was \u201cnot on!\u201d\u00a0 It was game, set and match to Nicola again!\u00a0 Surely the assembled political journos would be eager to report on this?\u00a0 BBC Reporting Scotland rightly, led with this story on their lunch-time news. But by tea-time it had dropped off the running order completely in favour of \u201cRuth Davidson expecting baby.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Now that is lovely news, but hardly the stuff of \u201chold the front page!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We can all argue about what constitutes a lead story but surely, in a serious media operation, a solid political story, like the very future of our Scottish Parliament, must trump a human interest story, no matter how nice and heart-warming?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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However, to me, this was less distressing by far than the picture, front page in The Sun, of a burning baby box.\u00a0 Not only \u201cjournalism\u201d in its lowest form, but totally thoughtless and irresponsible.\u00a0 Given a lighter, I could burn a cot, Moses basket, pram you name it \u2013 it will burn.\u00a0 To frighten new mothers in this way is beneath contempt.\u00a0 The baby box is a lovely way to welcome children to our nation, to say you are valued, you should be loved and we consider all babies to be equal.\u00a0 Believe me, as an old social worker, these boxes will be treasured by all who receive them.<\/p>\n

Having witnessed the distress and guilt felt by instances of\u00a0 roll-over cot deaths if\u00a0 the baby box, used as a cot, saves one precious life then this universal gift is worth its weight in gold!\u00a0 Shame on you The Sun.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In spite of all their mis-reporting\u00a0 in Scotland, I do not wish to see the daily newspaper continuing its slow death.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Record, Sun, Express and Mail were never an option for me.\u00a0 The Scotsman lost me when Andrew Neil became Editor, and as for the Herald, which had been my daily paper for many decades, their daily dose of SNP bad headlines has proved too much for me to take.\u00a0 Newspapers purporting to cover news in Scotland must up their game and respect the views of almost half the Scottish population.\u00a0 Let us hope that the National remains to reflect our views.\u00a0 I am running out of newspapers to enjoy in the morning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And yes, I passed my Higher English!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThat a man thinks as his newspaper directs him \u2013 discuss.\u201d The above was my choice of essay in the Higher English exam in 1960 \u2013 how time flies.\u00a0 Now apart from the fact that the question seemed to assume that only men read newspapers, this subject nevertheless captured the attention of\u00a0 this 16 year old \u201cwoman\u201d. The points raised by this question seemed to be 1) Do we choose our\u00a0 newspaper to echo our beliefs? Or 2) Have our beliefs been moulded by the newspaper we read?\u00a0 My own experience of my family\u2019s newspaper habit was, I felt, not typical.\u00a0 My parents took theRead More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2146"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2149,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146\/revisions\/2149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}