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News papers are declining in Scotland because no one can trust them, they are full of tat and over sensationalised sex related stories and politically bias news . on the same subject by the way, why no political blogs from Mr Taylor in the last few days. Especially on the day the American Senators place blame on the Labour party for putting pressure on the Scottish Government to release Megrahi, as usual its what the ´óÏó´«Ã½ DON"T report that is of most interest. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ focused on the doctors issue and washed over the alleged labour party/UK government pressure, surprise surprise!

Who in Scotland cares about the Mail Douglas which is irrelevant to us up in north britain.

This story is more relevant as it OUR future not some distant land.

I'm truly horrified that the Daily Mail came out top. It must be a consequence of thirteen years of Labour managed dumbing down.

Scotland desperately needs an independent paper, produced and edited in Scotland by Scots and marketed for the Scottish people instead of the London controlled biased propaganda garbage that's thrown in our faces just now.

What you talking about, all the press in Scotland, particularly the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is "foreign".

Why do you think more foreigners than Scots read it?

For example would a non-"foreign" press organisation ever have backed a "foreign" senator’s so called word, against it's own country's government in the 'balanced', aye right, more like 'treasonous' manner that your dodgy press organisation has just done.

There are much more balanced sources of News on the internet in Scotland than this!

For example; try

It would at least help balance things up a bit.

Any newspaper online or otherwise that takes the average Scot more than five minutes to look at pictures and read the sparsley populated domestic / odd international paragraphs, will be doomed to failure! Unfortunately, its all about having the mind-set of a goldfish, once round the bowl it forgets and here-in is the problem, well perhaps for some of my fellow countrymen / women. But hey-ho not me, lost count of the day's but I'm sure the former foriegn resident of HM (Scotland) will get to see in the new year! He'll be toasting a dram when big ben chimes(don't believe everything they want you to, I'm afarid the consumption of oor ither national drink is alive & kicking no matter what is prohibited in far & distant lands, certainly no calories unless you mix it with the ither national drink variety.......

Extremely interesting figures. No surprise that most of the British press has been caught on the hop by the huge sea-change of the Internet. History repeats itself...
I was a journalist in Scotland for about 20 years (12 of them with The Scotsman). In the early 1980s, I could see that computers were about to change the publishing industry forever, and began to learn about them. By 1984, I was producing newspaper and magazine pages on a Macintosh computer and Apple laser printer using desktop publishing software, in conjunction with my friend and collaborator Derek Gray.
Derek decided to hold a seminar in Glasgow to show the technology to Scottish journalists. Not one turned up. But within a few years such systems had begun to take over. Journalism and print unions fought in vain against the changes in the best spirit of King Canute, instead of understanding the technologies and being proactive. With newspaper revenues falling and costs rising, the end result was inevitable. The process that began then has accelerated dramatically in the past two or three years.
In 1985, a small Scottish company - Office Workstations Limited, based in Edinburgh - showed a product called Guide, which was the first hypertext authoring system for the Macintosh, and a sign of what the future held for those with eyes to see it. (I wrote the user manual - that was back when software still came with a printed manual)
In 1986 I left newspapers for the software industry, helping Derek to set up the European operations for Aldus Corporation in Edinburgh (later to be taken over by Adobe).
That technology changed the printing industry forever. Yet it changed only one aspect of the industry - production - by making it more efficient and cost-effective.
When the Web began to emerge in 1993, then with the full Internet explosion that began in 1995, it was again obvious that this was the next - and even more revolutionary - wave. This would change not only production, but distribution and consumption of news.
Distribution was always a core strength of the established news industry; the ability to deliver different editions of newspapers to customers in different parts of the country in time for them to read them at the breakfast table depended on a transport network which could not easily be duplicated by would-be competitors.
The Web not only made distribution utterly democratic - anyone with a Web connection and access to a computer could distribute news - it also made it virtually instantaneous.
In 1995, I was recruited by Microsoft in the USA. I pretty much got to define the mission of the team I ran. It was to improve readability on computer screens to the point where reading on screen would be as good as reading from paper - at which point all the other benefits of the technology, search being just one of many, would combine to make reading from screens the most revolutionary change in information flow since Gutenberg's moveable metal type, press and ink.
Through all of these changes, newspapers have failed to fully embrace the Web. I haven't been following UK print circulation figures, but I was not surprised to see a story a few weeks ago which quoted Glasgow Herald and Scotsman print circulations approximately half the size I remember.
I visit the Herald and Scotsman sites from time to time (I now live in the USA of course). I see outdated technology.
I'm not a fan of the Daily Mail. But it does seem to have firmly grasped the nettle of change.
I read the New York Times most days - on my iPad. I read all my magazines and books there, too. I carry my library with me. I have never - ever - found myself with a battery charge low enough to prevent me from reading.
Newspapers - and any unions which still survive - need to accept that print is dying fast. They need to plan for a transition if they intend to survive. Most won't.
Business models are still problematic. However, it's up to newspapers to find ones that work, or they won't have a business at all within ten years.
There are technologies emerging which should make it much easier for newspapers to deliver the same, single content base to the whole gamut of devices on which it will be read. The same technology is capable of delivering the print version, for as long as they decide to keep that going.
I'd hate to see papers like The Scotsman and the Herald go to the wall. "Citizen journalists" and bloggers are all very well. But the combination of professional writers and editors - belonging to an identifiable news organization which can be sued for libel, or called to account for its mistakes - would be sorely missed.
Newspapers should be thinking and planning now for the worst case, The Death of Paper. It may take a few years, but it is inevitable. Does anyone seriously believe that, say, 50 years from now, we'll still be pushing molecules of ink stuck to shredded trees around the face of the planet in order to communicate information? No. So it's only a question of where, over the next 50 years, the Event Horizon sits. I suggest it's more like 10, at the very outside.

Douglas,

I'm having to put my comments here because Brian Taylor's blog always seems to be closed for business these days, and the comment is related anyway.

If Vince Cable has such an attitude to Rupert Murdoch, then is it not possible that he also has such an attitude to students, and since the tution fees policy is his policy, is it not possible that this policy is flawed in more ways than one?

I think therefore that all policies suggested by Mr Cable should be reviewed urgently to ensure that proper procedure was followed.

This is the only sensible path to take if the coalition is to maintain any credibility.

#9 Bill Hill

Good post. Thanks for that.
You were a journalist in the golden age of Scottish newspapers so you would remember that then the papers had their own journalists all over the country producing unique articles and although most papers were politically affiliated the news was generally unbiased and truthful.
Today all newspapers take their articles from a couple of global media sources churning out the same guff and propaganda much of it untrue.
The last national paper I bought regularly was the P&J which was generally unbiased and the journalism was of a high calibre but unfortunately that too has fallen into the blatant political propaganda category and as a result lost many loyal readers.

Yes, I miss the printed editions, but if the press continue to treat it's readership with contempt then it's demise is only to be welcomed.

9. Bill Hill
Excellent blog Bill. Yes, once upon a time you could pick up almost any Scottish broadsheet and be reasonably assured that what you would find was unbiased, well researched articles that were informative and enlightening. This was in an age where reporters really were investigative journalists who took a pride in their work, and did not write soley to impress the editor. Nowadays most "journalists" seem to be kids with an english higher, and making sure they "toe the editorial line" is far more important that informing the readers. The standard of journalism in Scotland is woeful. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that all the Scottish papers are now foreign owned, and all have an agenda that has nothing to do with journalism. The same can be said for the broadcast media in Scotland.

PS Why has Brian stopped "blethering"? With such a plethora of interesting Scottish political stories available one would have thought he would have been more active. Perhaps the amount of critisism his blog has come in for recently has undermined his enthusiasm. Or perhaps he doesn't like having to "toe the editorial line".

13. At 11:19am on 22 Dec 2010, X_Sticks wrote:

Or perhaps he doesn't like having to "toe the editorial line".

I was thinking that myself.
To give Brian his due he never smears or attacks the SNP or any other party just to score cheap political points.

14. Harry Stottle
"To give Brian his due he never smears or attacks the SNP or any other party just to score cheap political points."
Agreed, however, there has been a noticable avoidance of ANY of the controversial political stories. I strongly suspect that this is "editorial" in nature. I think "they" hoped the much looked for "silent majority" would support the editorial line, much as Sheereen were looking for them regarding the Megrahi affair. Unfortunately for the establishment the silent majority are staying silent. Even the few who appear on the blog have largely dissappeared. The only supporters of the establishment status quo are one off entries/bloggers who are obviously stooges from the said establishment. Just as well there are other sites which cannot be named here!

@13-15,

Perhaps it has been decided that a "blether" should, by definition, exclude any topic of consequence or importance. If so, a re-titling of theat blog is necessary.

As to Douglas's reporting of the increased visitor numbers to the Daily Mail's online presence, the political leanings of DMGT's publications is the nearest alternative for those casual browsers who had hitherto frequented The Times but are unwilling to pay for the privilege of continued access.

Indeed, much of the increased visitor numbers to all of the UK newspaper websites is likely to be a consequence of the redistribution of The Times' freeloader customers (of which I was one).

#16
I'm glad Dougie plugged the Daily Wail.

I would like more people in Scotland to visit the site and read the comments.

If they don't know what racism or media propaganda and lies are they soon will.

There certainly is a need for an *online* quality news & comment 'newspaper' for Scotland and (especially) its ex-pats.
Please don't bother to visit the Mail site if you want intellect, balance and hard news. It is, however, good if you want to learn how to be truely xenophobic - it all depends on what you want for Scotland.