Neutral Like a Knife in the Back

If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed.  If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.  – Author unknown, commonly attributed to Mark Twain or Thomas Jefferson

The recent stooshie about the Libdems being told to attack the SNP by the Scottish media or receive no coverage may have been disgraceful but it wasn’t particularly surprising to any who keeps an eye on these things.

I’ll give you a quick example.

Every day I get a google alert on the search term “Scottish Independence” so I can see what people are writing on the subject.

I don’t necessarily read all the stories, in fact I tend to concentrate more on the clearly lunatic ones and there are plenty of those.

Nevertheless, a quick analysis of just the titles that come up should show you a pattern.

Bear in mind before you read this that about half the Scottish public voted for an Independence supporting party so you would expect to see that reflected in the title, wouldn’t you?

I’ll list the ones for the last few days, only omitting those that are not actually on the subject of independence. A search can sometimes throw something up that might be along the lines of  “Scottish Schools ask for more Independence from local councils”. Something like that isn’t relevant, so as I said, only omitting those ones lets see what we get…

Peer demands England gets a say on Scottish independence – Herald Scotland

Grassroots campaign to back union – The Press Association

Scotland’s top civil servant faces ‘gone native’ complaints – Telegraph.co.uk

Sir Gus O’Donnell told to ‘read the riot act’ over Scottish independence – Telegraph.co.uk

Scotland debates whether Scottish residents would be better or worse off in an … – PRunderground

Ed Miliband: Independence for Scotland would be ‘a bad idea’ – Scottish Daily Record

SNP budget for big cash switch ‘missing £200m’ – Scotsman

‘Westminster should call Scots independence vote’ – Scotsman

Stay positive to beat SNP, urges Ed Miliband – Scotsman

Independent Scotland Will Have A Catastrophic Debt Burden, Warns Debt … – PRunderground

Concern over ‘independence’ post – BBC News

Exclusive: A war of independence: PM squares up to Salmond – The Independent

Kenny Farquharson: Why Union’s fate depends on Fraser – Scotsman

Both sides of independence debate must be considered – Herald Scotland (oh really?)

Jim Murphy: David Cameron treats Scotland like Slovenia – Telegraph.co.uk

Westminster needs to adopt the ‘Plan MacB’ approach – John O’Groat Journal

Forget SNP rhetoric. Scotland’s public finances are in trouble – The Guardian (blog)

Scots independence: beware your tax bills would be high – Daily Express

Veering a little more one way than the other, aren’t they?