Hardly unbiased

I am amazed at Douglas Young’s claims (‘Notable exceptions’, SN 21/3/15) that “regardless of which political side of the fence a news media sits on, it should still be able to report news in a balanced and unbiased manner”.

He puts The National, which is a Scottish daily newspaper owned by Newsquest that began publication on 24 November 2014, and the first daily newspaper in this country to support Scottish independence (hardly unbiased) in the above unbiased category. Launched as a response to calls from Newsquest’s readership for a pro-independence paper in the wake of the 2014 independence referendum, which they lost. 

Despite having details of its launch announced at an SNP political event, the newspaper has stated that it is politically independent of that party.” But in The Guardian’s Libby Brooks suggested that launching The National at an SNP political rally “might not have been the most auspicious of starts” for the newspaper. While Labour peer George Foulkes quickly dubbed it “McPravda”,a reference to the political newspaper associated with the Communist Party of Russia. 

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Damian Thompson an editor with , The Spectator, described the launch event as “creepy”, (I wonder why).  Alan Roden, political editor of the Scottish Daily Mail, claimed it had “rehashed SNP press releases” and was too expensive for its size. 

Perhaps if The National and its stable mate The Sunday Herald, followed the example of the Shetland News and Shetland Times they would be classed as unbiased and impartial, but in reality they are a thousand miles away from being so. I honestly would have thought that Douglas as an “ex” press officer for the SNP would have better judgement on what is and what is not a nationalist / SNP rag.

Having read The national on several occasions I have found it to be the public mouthpiece of, believe it or not, the SNP. Something I find strange about this paper is that as SNP membership grows The National’s readership shrinks, from 100,000 at the start to 20,000 now, and I ask myself why? I think it is because there is a bit of hanky panky going on when it comes to actual SNP membership, which I find reassuring with only 48 days to go until the general election.  

Here is a truthful view on The National, well worth a read.  http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/03/the-inward-looking-insecurity-of-scottish-nationalism/ 

Gordon Harmer

Brae