News - fact or fiction

[Alastair]

Just to keep myself current on how things are going in Scotland I get a daily email in from the Scotsman, Herald and the Scottish Government as well as the Business Insider.

I find with the Business Insider I rarely click on any link in their email as its mostly to do with some company winning a contract or having problems so it doesn't offer any real picture of what is happening in Scotland generally.

When it comes to the Scottish Government I would guess that I only click on one link every week on average.

When it comes to the newspapers, Scotsman and Herald, I find that one week there seems to be positive news and the next negative news. It really bounces between the two views. So one week it will tell you that business is optimistic and then the next week figures suggesting a negative view. There really seems to be no trend that is discernible.

I am aware of a couple of online newspapers but have to say I rarely read either of them and it's only when I get an email in telling me of some news story that I remember to visit them.

In my view all the media is biased one way or another so it's sometimes hard to decide on where Scotland is heading. Like you get a report that the oil is going to last a lot longer than we thought and then you read another report that the income from oil is likely to fall dramatically.

Another story I'm following is the Eurozone crisis. As you may know the EU is not a democratic organisation. When you tie your currency to the Euro you lose part of your control for fiscal matters to the EU. It is becoming clearer that to fix the problem the EU say they need tighter fiscal integration which means they will decide on a countries budget. It just seems to me that a political union is where the EU is heading and thus likely a bit like the USA. However from an Independence point of view were Scotland to vote for independence then having won our independence by staying in the EU we'd then give away much of our independence to the EU. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I'm not sure where we're heading as far as news gathering is concerned but it just seems to me that the news industry is not delivering. So are blogs and other social media taking over? The answer must be Yes to that but whatever you follow is going to be biased. And how many of us have the time to try and find a balanced view on news?

You can see the current grid lock in the USA as people simply won't compromise and thus nothing gets done. Does this mean that the party system is dead? Do we need to seek a new form of democratic government where everyone is an independent? Also looking at how America votes for their President seems to me a total waste of time. These very long campaigns to be selected as the Presidential nominee seems to me to be ridiculous. And the length of the Presidential campaign equally ridiculous. Nothing gets done for around 18 months while all that is happening.

And when you look at the news all the news media wants to do is bring a Republican or Democrat in to get their views or a Conservative or Labour person and you just know both will have opposing views so is it even worth watching that? In fact in some ways the so called news anchor seems to speak more than the invited politician.

There has to be a better way to run a democracy.

So you might say I'm confused as to where to turn to get to the facts!

Alastair

[Glesgalass]

Alastair,
You are correct about the newspaper media not always getting the facts straight and biased reporting and just copying verbatim what they read in international reports.

Many years ago I used to be the publicity officer for the Little Athletics club in which my kids were members. It used to frustrate me no end when the report I'd given to our local newspaper got mangled. They would print exactly what I'd written most of the time but sometimes they obviously needed to cut out a couple of lines or sentences in order to fit my report in. Without fail they would edit it so the the whole context of the report was changed.

Years ago when the Pope made his first visit to Australia, ground engineers in Qantas went out on strike. Newspaper headlines said that they were striking because of the Pope's visit. What actually happened was that at 9.00am some idiotic middle management guy made an announcement over the intercom that all cars parked alongside Qantas drive (staff parking) had 15 minutes to move their cars somewhere else. The jet base is a huge place and by the time some staff got there, cars were being towed. Now, the Pope wasn't arriving until 9.00pm so this middle management guy caused such a furore that the unions immediately called a meeting at which they all voted to strike for the day. Nothing at all to do with the Pope's visit.

I take whatever I read in the newspapers with a pinch of salt.

Elda

[Alastair]

I can well see there delight in announcing a strike due to the Pope's visit Elda. They look for sensationalism instead of facts.

Alastair