The National
I get The National newspaper every day and occasionally have a quick look at their Facebook page. I may have to stop because it's bad for my mental health. Yesterday I found myself shouting at the cat: What is wrong with these people? One day, Missy will answer me back and then it really will be time for sedation and a darkened room.
There are 38 newspapers published in Scotland, dailies and Sundays. 36 of these are openly hostile to the idea of Scottish independence. That leaves a Sunday - the Sunday Herald - which was just about getting by until it printed a totally misleading photograph from an All Under One Banner march which seemed to suggest there had been 'clashes' between marchers and Unionist supporters. There weren't, but here you realise the power of a single photo.
Naturally, people who had been on the AUOB march were angry and the Sunday Herald's circulation took a nosedive. Now it's to be amalgamated with the (Unionist) Herald, so that'll be the pro-independence press in Scotland down to one daily newspaper: The National.
I occasionally contribute to The National's letter pages (they have two every day) but I rarely comment on anything on their Facebook page. Not that I don't have anything to say. It's just that their Facebook page is hoachin wi Unionists and some of their comments are beyond satire: last week, for example, a woman claimed BBC Scotland 'favours' the EssEnPee (as it's always called on Facebook). The absolute opposite of what actually goes on.
The First Minister is never referred to by her title or by her name. She's always 'wee Nippy' to these people. A few contributors seem to be under the impression that Alex Salmond is still in either Westminster or Holyrood and still in charge of the SNP.
Yesterday, a contributor raved at the Scottish Government for handing over £100,000 to asylum seekers, apparently unaware that the settlement and financing of refugees is the business of Westminster and the Home Office - or that, even if the Scottish Government did hand over that sum of money, it would be a drop in the ocean of the total Scottish budget of £27.6 billion annually. And, of course, there are those on The National Facebook page who still haven't got their wee heads round the idea that Scotland makes a major contribution to the UK economy and the Scottish 'budget' from the Barnett Formula is simply us getting our own money back, but in such a way that it makes it look like a hand-out. No, according to them, the EssEnPee is ruining the country: look at all these homeless people, for example. Or maybe that would have to do with austerity and the Tories driving the sick, disabled and poor into the ground, so fast and so badly that life expectancy in the UK (as it has in the USA) has stalled for the first time in living memory.
But the big question I would like answered is this: do these raving Unionists also go on to the pages of other newspapers and talk shite or do they save their nastiness for The National? They surely can't feel threatened by one potted-heid wee local paper (daily circulation: under 10,000).
Just occasionally, I detect a note of desperation among these Unionists. They have no arguments to justify staying in the Union, just reasons for Scots being unable to run our own country. It's sad to see centuries of social conditioning bearing fruit like this. Tell people they're stupid often enough and they believe it. And that, friends, is the power of the press.
There are 38 newspapers published in Scotland, dailies and Sundays. 36 of these are openly hostile to the idea of Scottish independence. That leaves a Sunday - the Sunday Herald - which was just about getting by until it printed a totally misleading photograph from an All Under One Banner march which seemed to suggest there had been 'clashes' between marchers and Unionist supporters. There weren't, but here you realise the power of a single photo.
I occasionally contribute to The National's letter pages (they have two every day) but I rarely comment on anything on their Facebook page. Not that I don't have anything to say. It's just that their Facebook page is hoachin wi Unionists and some of their comments are beyond satire: last week, for example, a woman claimed BBC Scotland 'favours' the EssEnPee (as it's always called on Facebook). The absolute opposite of what actually goes on.
The First Minister is never referred to by her title or by her name. She's always 'wee Nippy' to these people. A few contributors seem to be under the impression that Alex Salmond is still in either Westminster or Holyrood and still in charge of the SNP.
Yesterday, a contributor raved at the Scottish Government for handing over £100,000 to asylum seekers, apparently unaware that the settlement and financing of refugees is the business of Westminster and the Home Office - or that, even if the Scottish Government did hand over that sum of money, it would be a drop in the ocean of the total Scottish budget of £27.6 billion annually. And, of course, there are those on The National Facebook page who still haven't got their wee heads round the idea that Scotland makes a major contribution to the UK economy and the Scottish 'budget' from the Barnett Formula is simply us getting our own money back, but in such a way that it makes it look like a hand-out. No, according to them, the EssEnPee is ruining the country: look at all these homeless people, for example. Or maybe that would have to do with austerity and the Tories driving the sick, disabled and poor into the ground, so fast and so badly that life expectancy in the UK (as it has in the USA) has stalled for the first time in living memory.
But the big question I would like answered is this: do these raving Unionists also go on to the pages of other newspapers and talk shite or do they save their nastiness for The National? They surely can't feel threatened by one potted-heid wee local paper (daily circulation: under 10,000).
Just occasionally, I detect a note of desperation among these Unionists. They have no arguments to justify staying in the Union, just reasons for Scots being unable to run our own country. It's sad to see centuries of social conditioning bearing fruit like this. Tell people they're stupid often enough and they believe it. And that, friends, is the power of the press.
Comments
Post a Comment