Hostile Media?
New Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay kicked-off the week with an exclusive interview with Holyrood magazine saying (‘SNP has created ‘hostile’ environment towards media scrutiny, Russell Findlay says‘): “I think from Alex Salmond through to Nicola Sturgeon and continuing, there has been this fairly unpleasant hostility towards journalism and journalists and any scrutiny.”
This, from a former Sun journalist is rich.
This is an attempt to frame the nationalist movement as akin to the Trump movement of having a war on the media: “Trump has habitually attacked the news media in rallies, responses to reporters’ questions, and many hundreds of tweets. He has repeatedly called the press “fake news,” “the enemy of the people,” “dishonest,” “corrupt,” “low life reporters,” “bad people,” “human scum” and “some of the worst human beings you’ll ever meet.” [see Leonard Downie Jr. The Trump Administration and the Media]
This is a bad faith argument and an incredible one given the (still) absolute minority of MSM that supports independence, despite the fact that as of recent polling this is a position supported by upwards of 54% of people in Scotland.
The reality is not just of The Sun creating a ‘hostile media’ for whole sections of society for decades, from the feckless work-shy poor to single mums, to immigrants, to football fans and indeed any minority they can lay their hands on – but an entire battery of news outlets that are completely opposed to any constitutional change at all.
The Scottish media is littered not just with pro-Unionist newspapers and broadcast journalism but attack-dog columnists who do nothing but relentlessly pursue any pro-independence politician with an ideological fervour.
This frequently spills over into a sort of grand-narrative that assumes every single institution in Scotland is awful, and, by definition, worse than other parts of the UK, even when evidence points to the contrary. This has become repetitive and embarrassing.
This doesn’t mean that there aren’t many good journalists working in legacy media, there are. It doesn’t mean that the Scottish Government haven’t been, at times. centralised and secretive, they have. It doesn’t mean that journalists everywhere don’t have a duty to hold the government to account, they do. It also doesn’t mean that certain sections of the nationalist movement haven’t been obsessed with the mainstream media bias, they have, and I think this has its limitation as analysis.
That there is a structural systemic bias for the Union throughout the Scottish and UK media is undeniable and demonstratable. If anything the hostility in the media is overwhelmingly from the tabloids against any progressive social policy or any attempt to articulate that Scotland might have different political or cultural goals or aspirations.
Some of Findlay’s arguments in this interview were exercises in absurdity. He said:
“I mean, even taking some of Nicola Sturgeon’s Covid briefings, which were little more than political grandstanding half the time and seeking to build her brand while differentiating from the rest of the UK for no discernible benefit to the people of Scotland, that was often laced with a kind of arch antagonism towards particular journalists that I found to be quite inappropriate and quite disturbing. It’s about shutting journalists down, stopping scrutiny, and that is fundamentally wrong.”
So, taking daily questions from journalists was shutting down scrutiny?
Findlay also claimed the Conservatives was the “anti-establishment party” in Scotland.
and, gloriously:
“Who’s to say that Scotland couldn’t actually one day have a Conservative first minister or government, or some form of government that includes us?”
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The level of anti SNP vitriol in the print media is astonishing compared to where we were 20 years ago. One of the consequences is that Unionist politicians have discovered they can lie with impunity. And that they might as well tell big lies. Sarwar’s absurd flip-flops on winter fuel and/or the two child cap only get attempted because there is no media accountability. It’s why we don’t have a bottle return scheme. It poisons political discourse in so many ways. And now we have seen Findlay banging the racist drum with very limited pushback, it will get worse.
Not specifically related to this article (apart from bad faith, ideological fervour and establishment conservatism), but does Bella intend to cover the ramifications of the Scottish Government’s consultation on Schools – religious observance and religious and moral education?
https://www.gov.scot/publications/consultation-paper-proposals-amend-legislation-religious-observance-religious-education-schools-support-alignment-united-nations-convention-rights-child/pages/1/
It would be unsurprising if Christian conservatives resisted this tentative move towards secularisation and respecting the Rights of the Child in Scottish education, but apparently for Scottish humanists this proposed change doesn’t go far enough: it doesn’t allow the child to choose to opt out (which I would certainly have done if given the chance).
I think the idea that religious organisations should be giving moral instruction to children is abominable. Perhaps if Bella touched on the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry too, it would put these critiques in their proper context. If the idea is to break with Scotland’s conservative, superstitious and deferential past, of course.
I think the idea that anyone should be giving moral instruction to children is abominable.
I know you deal in dialectic provocation but this patent nonsense. A parent by default is giving moral instruction to its child all the time, even if it does not think of it like that: ‘don’t hit your sister’, ‘it is good to share’, ‘school bullies are wrong’, ad infinitum.
Indeed! And dialectical provocation (‘What makes hitting your sister right?’) is preferable to moral instruction (‘Don’t hit your sister!’). Dialectical provocation opens up dialogue and, with it, the possibility of moral growth. Moral instruction shuts it down.
Yeah but it isn’t a real dialogue because at the end of the day the parent will not settle for anything less than a stop to the the hitting regardless of any discussion. And if necessary that will happen by demand, restrained force even, not dialogue.
But yes, some kind of discussion as to why it is wrong is good and would lead to deeper understanding and development, but that will be the tenor of it, not one which seriously suggests the idea it might not be. ‘What makes hitting your sister right?’ (more likely, ‘why did you hit your sister?’) is not an invitation to discuss its possible rightness, but its wrongness.
Yes; but we’re not talking about safeguarding; we’re talking about instruction vs dialectical provocation in [religious and] moral education (which is itself a safeguarding issue, concerning whether children should be told how to lead their lives or whether they should be led to discover this for themselves).
It never did me any harm. I had a religious upbringing (Sunday school etc) which contained endless moral instruction. It didn’t stop me thinking what I was being told was sometimes wrong (my parents encouraged me to question), nor giving it all up in my late teens. I still learnt a lot and have respect for some of the basic tenets of the Christian faith.
So too much fuss overall I think.
There is also hypocrisy here – if we really think school religious moral instruction should be outlawed why do we allow faith schools and why do we pander so much in society to people’s religious sensibilities both socially and in law? Those things matter much more.
Yes; there’s an argument that moral instruction is important because it gives children something to rebel and define themselves against.
And do faith schools still provide moral instruction? With doubt having come more to the fore in our religious institutions, do they not now encourage moral questioning instead?
My understanding is that a lot of print media are in circulation free fall. They are cutting costs on staff and consequently spending more time skimming internet and cutting and pasting articles. This leads to an increasing group think mentality. The print media were generally anti independence and this trend has been amplified in part due to changes in practice.
BBC appear to be more controlled by a politically appointed conservative leaning board of directors. The introduction of GB news as an openly right wing biased channel has exposed Ofcom as the toothless regulatory body many had always suspected it to be.
Difficult to see this media outlook changing in near future so the onus is on independence supporters and others to call the media to account and for political representatives to ensure they pushback and present their case in a clear and assertive manner.
The SNP used to get a relatively easy ride from the gutter press until independence became a big issue again. They kept UK Labour numbers down and were always good for a Labour leader in SNP leader’s top pocket poster. I’ve been keeping a tally of SNP / independence related articles on MSN since Nicola Sturgeon announced the date of the referendum that wasn’t.
SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE BIAS WATCH
Independence related articles on MSN since referendum date announced
Anti-Neutral-Pro = 1096-32-37
Lord Sarwar, Lord Murray & Baroness Baillie (titles to come) are only too pleased to latch on to the bias and regurgitate it as truth. In fact the latter must be the most quoted Labour politician ever in the Express, Mail & Telegraph.
Putting up easily checked facts and figures on MSN to expose the bias almost always leads to massive thumbs down and howls of execration from the yoon MSN forum users. It’s almost like they want Scotland to be the worst at everything and any post that suggests otherwise is seen as a betrayal.
It started with the tory party, they sent members and paid others to participate on discussion boards with the intention to disrupt by stating complete nonsense and lies. The result, any informative interaction was tainted and ruined rendering all discussion to the level the tories had sunk to in Westminster.
The state broadcaster being a good example along with most papers in Scotland.
Demonising SNP leaders became the norm, first Salmond, then Sturgeon and now Swinney. It was ironic and hypocritical to see the state broadcaster and the press have to switch to reverse gear due to Salmond’s sad and premature death, but even then it was couched in the terms of this is now the death of the independence movement, when clearly a solid base of 50% and labour in Westminster have ensured its not.
How much should we think the importance of the press is? The right wing press trumpeted Liz Truss’ budget, only to see it collapse in days along with catastrophic impact on the economy and peoples lives. Then we had the recent SNP budgets which they slagged mercilessly whilst independent observers thought it smart, good for people, good for the economy and politically astute placing opponents on the back foot.
The state broadcaster will never give the independence movement a break, nor will the foreign domiciled press barons, we just have to factor this into our actions and strategy and work round them and without them. They will never be impartial or fair, ever, to think otherwise is to delude oneself!
“we just have to factor this into our actions and strategy and work round them and without them” this is key I think, one of the probable failings of the indy movement is to feel we need to win over hearts and minds, not acknowledging this will never happen in the unionist & right wing press& circles where the hostility is most visible. The romp of love, joy and optimism that led up to the 2014 ref was exhilarating but to win, to effect real change we need to improve our tactics, recognise our strengths and fight back
I think Mike touches on that when he writes about how Trump and Musk tactics are being introduced here, just as James Kelly on SGP writes about the danger of Reform influencing (infiltrating?) Alba. Trump, Musk, Farage et al aren’t held back by a code of ethics, a vision of a fair fight, a reluctance to fight dirty or to buy support. We either ditch our scruples or study how successful left wing groups gain power to guide us forwards. But we have made a start – we can access alternative media (tv, newspaper, blogs, podcasts, radio etc) which although it might be less analytical than Mike would like at least provides a balance or alternative to the constant negativity. So we need to build on this, each and every one of us following blogs can contribute to this conversation through comments, and share the posts with friends to build up momentum, and add constructive criticism where required without rubbishing other folk’s views
aye min, it reminds me of the plain package branding introduced to a twenty deck of cigarettes a few years back slainte bha
The SNP is the party of government in Scotland. Of course the fourth estate has a duty to rubbish it.
They have a duty to hold it to account, not rubbish it. A media that by default rubbishes the government that people have voted for is not a responsible media but is a recipe for political stagnation, if not chaos.
But I would say the same about the media rubbishing the Labour government, not something that would trouble this website.
Critical media is crucial, but we do not have a pluralist balanced media in this country, that’s an undeniable fact and the reason for this sites existence
Oh I agree. I was making the distinction between being critical and setting out to destroy. The latter is not really news media in my book but propaganda.
Yep; ‘rubbish’ was ill-advised. I actually changed it from ‘oppose’; on reflection, I’d change it back. The fourth estate should, along with the other three (our religious institutions and both houses of parliament), form part of the opposition to the Crown and its ministers. But Mike’s right; much of it fails to carry out this function. Thankfully, however, the media is such that the electorate has access to a plurality of disagreement; though it doesn’t always avail itself of that plurality.
This is interesting. Have we entirely given up on the idea the media should report and inform as its main function rather than give opinion and only seek out things that bolster that opinion? Again, I would say that is propaganda. In fact it is what we have from most of the media, it is just that it is (seen as) operating in too narrow a bias.
Like anyone I can gravitate towards the media that confirms my own opinions, in it general editorial stance but if I think that is affecting how it reports things in terms of informing people fully of the varied aspects, then to me, it i failing badly and is not proper journalism.
As you hint at, ‘having a media that [gives] access to a plurality of disagreement’ mostly leads to people being less informed, as they do not care about seeking out that plurality they have taken their daily dose of confirmation bias, not more, and this not about to change. It is in many ways, a disaster.
I think we long ago gave up on the idea of a media that impartially reports ‘the view from nowhere’ (the objective truth about what’s going on), and came to hope instead for a plurality of different perspectives or ‘takes’ on what’s going on (none of which is objectively true but all of which we can each weigh and balance against one another in the formation one’s own subjective take on things).
That’s where I understand things, and the idea behind the 5th Estate. However there is an important role in verifying (recent example in Syria) stories and facts and fact-checking and corroboration – and I think trusted sources establish that trust from obiding by basic journalistic standards.
There’s no way the bias is ever balanced. Owning newspapers / TV channels is an expensive business such that the majority will be owned by people whose interests lie with the right-wing being in power. Go into any waiting room that has newspapers lying about. How often do you see the Guardian far less the National? It’s not just people who buy newspapers who are exposed to the bias. Take a look at https://www.msn.com/en-gb/ and play spot the pro-SNP / pro-Labour article.
And if people are content to get their daily dose of confirmation bias, then hell mend them.
Opinion is opinion but there is such a thing as objective truth, at least in the everyday world which is what matters.
And it really does matter that journalism strives to find that truth at least as best as it can and we really do need journalism that we can trust to be doing that. If we give up on that idea then we end up with fascism, dictatorship and oppression because that is the ideology that always thrives in such an atmosphere of total distrust.
Fact-checking and corroboration are all very well. But the problem is that, in journalism, as in any hermeneutic science, there aren’t any ‘facts’ as such; there are only reports and testimonies, which are naturally perspectival (i.e. someone’s interpretation of ‘the facts’ from their partial point of view).
So, in journalism, the best we can do is compare and contrast as many of the various and conflicting reports out there as we can, draw from that plurality whatever tentative and doubtful conclusions we can, and hold those conclusions only provisionally, keeping them always under review. It’s ‘the only way I ken/ To dodge the curst conceit o bein richt/ That damns the vast majority o men’.
No; in the everyday world in which it matters, there’s no objective truth (or at least none that we as existential subjects can know). That’s what we mean when we say ‘God is dead’: there is no view from nowhere; there is only the plurality of our various perspectives.
But ‘the media’ is much, much wider than TV and newspapers, Tom. There’s a bubble cum echo-chamber for everyone nowadays.