´óÏó´«Ã½

With all respect to Douglas Fraser's greater knowledge, as a reader of The Herald, Scotsman, Telegraph and FT, the reason underlying the decline in sales of the main Scottish papers is the almost non-existent, nay weak, level of balanced analytical comment.

All too often, the journalist "adjusts" the facts or adds unjustifiable weight to minor points to produce the answer he / she wants to promote. The real facts get in the way. A good current example has been the emotional over-reporting of the possibility of another offer for HBOS while giving scant coverage to comments from an investment director of Standard Life - his well-informed opinion was barely covered as it did not conform with the paper's pitch.

By way of contrast, the FT presents many, very well informed analyses of a major issue and allows the reader to reach his / her own conclusion. Quality comment will always survive.

A final observation - one of the standard gags is that if anyone wants to know what will be in the financial section of the Herald in two days time, all they have to do is read that day's FT.

I echo the above comments except to go further. The absolute craven , sycofantic, cosseting of Labour and the constant venom and unsubstantiated lies directed at the SNP is a large part of why newspaper circulations are falling. I am afraid to say Dougie you were / are as guilty as the rest.

No one objects to the SNP being held to account but when newspapers take it upon themselves to collaborate in trying to bring down a legitimately elected government then we have a problem ... a big problem.

Does the Scottish Sun have images of pretty young ladies wearing only a sweet smile and a sporran in their Page 3 ??

Perhaps, in these depressing times, that could be the reason it's doing so well !!

Hi Douglas, I hope you are enjoying your new job.

Now that you are away from the Herald surely you can acknowledge that the quality of journalistic output needs to improve? The political content has been quite bad and suggestions of Labour bias at these papers have been numerous.

Standards at the Herald and the Scotsman have been very poor for quite a while now, though I have been impressed with Mike Settle and Torchuil Crichton to an extent.

Here's hoping things improve and that the political coverage becomes fairer. If it did I would certainly buy the Herald again.

"Scotland's flagship quality papers."


Hmmmmmm, you mean quality as in impartial, unbiased, fair, even handed, investigative, scrupulous, crusading?

Can't see anything that fits the above in Scotland...

The Press & Journal is still pretty good and some of its supplements - especially Energy which comes out monthly - is excellent.

However - I miss Business AM for its complete irreverance.

The first five comments say it all.

Welcome Douglas to the ´óÏó´«Ã½....

It is a fight for survival...

1. Maybe Scotland is just "over-mediaed" - with a small readership being bombarded with Scottish versions of all the national broadsheets, all the national tabloids, and the indigenous broadsheets.

2. The facts are that both the Scotsman and the Herald (and the Press and Journal for that matter) are chronically dull. For almost everything the Herald/Scotsman writes you can get it better written and analysed online, so why bother reading them.

3. The Scotsman and the Herald have not really done their role to challenge the political establishment at a local or national level in Scotland. Going after Wendy Alexander or David McLetchie for errors involving tiny sums of money is hardly exciting reading or cutting edge journalism when we have real issues such as health, poverty, lack of entrepreneurialism, huge levels of government employment, etc holding us back.

4. Most journalists on Herald/Scotsman are people who will never leave Scotland so are too scared to rock the boat and thus jeopardise their future employment.

5. Both rely heavily on their Property sections and that over reliance is going to kill them in the coming years.

I'm not sure what the point of this blog is.

Is regurgitating ABC figures insightful comment?

Surely an opinion might be worthwhile rather than telling us what we know already?

I cant help but agree with most of the above posts, i stopped buying newspapers and took to reading them online via my pda. This has allowed me to get a broader picture of Scotland ,UK ,Europe and the world and how the world views the UK, having done this you begin to see that in this global village other countrys are doing as well as the UK and in a lot of circumstances better.
On that note France 24 news is being watched more and more as it gives a more balanced European viewpoint .

'Current Bun' Surely 'Currant' ?

Anyway, the sad news is that local papers are unlikely to survive in the medium term. Well, not if one looks at the American experience.

Advertising is migrating to the internet, and making 'local', 'regional' or even 'national' Scottish or Welsh papers under threat.

The Bath Chronicle has gone weekly. The London based 'Evening Standard' is having to compete with the 'free-sheets', and paid-for 'nationals' like the 'Western Mail' are changing owners.

At least that latter one is the 'main' newspaper for Wales, so does have some power as a 'monopoly provider'. But there will, I'm afraid, need to be some rationalisation in Scotland.

One suspects that papers like the Herald and Scotsman would do well to consider a merger, rather than fall victim to 'divide and conquer' from their competitors.

But don't you, as a ´óÏó´«Ã½ journalist, feel some guilt for this problem yourself ? Local news is limited in amount and interest, and if the Beeb covers it to even a small extent where is the need for a customer to buy a paper ?

Okay, the Scottish Daily Record appeals to a slightly different demographic, but isn't the Beeb 'cannibalising' some readers of at least their on-line editions ??

Its a shame you didn't show the figures for, or have a link to the rest of the Scottish Dailies, like The Courier, and the P&J.

But their not Central Belt papers, are they?

Throughout the Glenrothes by-election campaign The Herald produced a series of articles specifically relating to the campaign, each article headline usually favoured one or other of the parties.

A list of the 31 articles relating to either Labour, SNP or independence has been compiled below.

Where possible a tiny url is also included in order to view the actual article and authenticate the accuracy of the statistic.

A ‘bias running total’ is presented beneath each article headline, I have added to the Labour total where articles attack the SNP or independence.

The final score shows a bias towards Labour with 21.5 articles favouring them to only 10.5 for the SNP, a ratio of over 2 : 1.

This may go some way to explaning why sales of The Herald are plummeting.


Here is the list:

Interpretation of homecare costs splits parties in battle for votes
tiny.cc/vwQdQ
SNP 0.5
Lab 0.5

Salmond set to go ‘toe-to toe’ on the economy and independence
tiny.cc/5CbJS
SNP 1.5
Lab 0.5

Salmond throws down debate gauntlet to Brown
tiny.cc/zSgJ1
SNP 2.5
Lab 0.5

Premier whips up support for his candidate
tiny.cc/EPrG5
SNP 2.5
Lab 1.5

Glenrothes by-election: Labour sets out action plan
SNP 2.5
Lab 2.5

Goldie warns voters against ‘passport to independence’
tiny.cc/80jpW
(Negative on independence, plus 1 for Lab)
SNP 2.5
Lab 3.5

Glenrothes hopefuls spar ahead of poll
tiny.cc/Sr1V9
SNP 3
Lab 3.5

PM set to break convention and join campaigning in Glenrothes
tiny.cc/d36Bl
SNP 3
Lab 5
.
‘Party rebellion over’ as by-election date declared
tiny.cc/rjBmV
SNP 3
Lab 6

Labour's Glenrothes candidate banking on Brown's support
tiny.cc/AaYEr
SNP 3
Lab 7

Glenrothes hurdle looms as PM wins some breathing space
tiny.cc/5G4z2
SNP 3.5
Lab 7.5

Brown set to take fight to Glenrothes by-election as he puts case to public
tiny.cc/rxXst
SNP 3.5
Lab 8.5

Sarah Brown to meet voters in Glenrothes
tiny.cc/xLDrg
SNP 3.5
Lab 9.5

NHS is ‘our territory’, says Johnson as he tells SNP to run own budget
tiny.cc/3fYg0
SNP 3.5
Lab 10.5

Help for families takes centre stage as parties attempt to woo the voters
tiny.cc/Fq1OK
SNP 4
Lab 11

SNP claim Glenrothes victory would lead to action on energy bills
SNP 5
Lab 11

Labour’s ‘secret weapon’ joins the campaign
tiny.cc/G3OOj
SNP 5
Lab 12

Brown to sit down and chat with the voters
tiny.cc/BQ23n
SNP 5
Lab 13

Swinney trumpets success of business rates relief scheme
tiny.cc/MUKwS
SNP 6
Lab 13

Glenrothes By-Election: Chancellor joins Labour campaign
tiny.cc/Me1PB
SNP 6
Lab 14

PM to rejoin ‘Fight for Fife’ as Salmond plans his eighth visit
tiny.cc/XOvRY
SNP 6.5
Lab 14.5

Darling and Salmond clash over £120m energy cash
tiny.cc/UBUZx
SNP 7
Lab 15

Sir Alex Ferguson urges voters to back Labour in Glenrothes
SNP 7
Lab 16

Salmond accused by Goldie of putting SNP before Scotland
tiny.cc/Lh1cO
SNP 7
Lab 17

Brown back on the stump to ‘fight for every vote’
tiny.cc/az7dA
SNP 7
Lab 18

Parties launch attack on Labour
tiny.cc/IGfuN
SNP 8
Lab 18

Grant is ready for battle to go down to wire
tiny.cc/4yDF7
SNP 9
Lab 18

Sarah Brown spends another weekend knocking on doors
tiny.cc/mK4zM
SNP 9
Lab 19

Glenrothes by-election: Labour insists race is wide open
tiny.cc/RrcS6
SNP 9
Lab 20

Main players both claim victory within their grasp
tiny.cc/CHxt9
SNP 9.5
Lab 20.5

Political battle fought in the shadow of world events
tiny.cc/zeCgU
SNP 10
Lab 21

Voters choose between the Brown bounce and Salmond’s honeymoon
tiny.cc/e7eS3
SNP 10.5
Lab 21.5

Congrats Douglas on the debut of your blog....

~Dennis Junior~