Professor John Robertson OBA
The small-circulation Scottish Housing News has the report but it’s nowhere in the MSM despite their gleeful responses to the flawed Joseph Rowntree Foundation claim that nothing has changed. That claim is based on the level of child poverty being static and ignoring the achievement of keeping it so against the background of new Labour austerity policies which have caused it to surge across the rest of the UK.
Every professional journalist in Scotland got this by email yesterday and has chosen, chosen, to ignore it:
Projects aimed at tackling child poverty across the country will receive increased, multi-year funding thanks to a boost from the Scottish Government.
Successful applicants to the third round of the Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund, now worth more than £1.8 million, will receive grants of up to £100,000 over two years to improve local services.
The Scottish Government has already invested over £1.4 million to support 21 projects across Scotland over the first two rounds of the fund, having launched in 2023.
Previous grants have been used to improve the use of data to identify families who need support, to improve access to financial advice services, and to support parents to engage with employability services.
The fund sits alongside other innovative measures, such as the Five Family Payments, including the Scottish Child Payment, which are helping to reduce child poverty in Scotland.
Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said:
“Eradicating child poverty, supporting families and giving children the best start in life are the driving principles of this government.
“That’s why, alongside a range of measures, we have reopened this fund to help local authorities and health boards to go further, aiding the collective effort to confine child poverty to history.
“Work through the fund has previously helped maximise income and to tackle household debt, which is vital to easing the strains felt by households as the cost of living rises, and I look forward to receiving many innovative proposals.
https://www.gov.scot/news/more-funding-to-tackle-child-poverty/
“Our collective measures mean that Scotland remains the only part of the UK where child poverty levels are falling.
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Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
‘Every professional journalist in Scotland got this by email yesterday and has chosen, chosen, to ignore it.’
Just a NORMAL DAY in newsrooms then? These journalists get an e-mail at a few minutes past 1600 hours EVERY working day. It place directly on their smart phones or their computers the Scottish Government’s collection of press releases issued that day.
For the most part, it’s not even as if the journalists pick up the topic and then go on to rubbish the content of the Scottish Government’s communication. No, for the most part the press releases are SIMPLY IGNORED.
For BBC Scotland the situation is even more extreme – this so-called PUBLIC SERVICE media organisation, with its hubristic claims of journalistic integrity and quality, exemplifies bias by omission in a Scottish context whilst amplifying and aggregating opposition to the present Scottish Government via press statements from Unionist politicians and front page headlines published by their mainstream media allies. Typically, what is published gives no context, no perspective, no cross-UK comparisons – except where unfavourable to Scotland.
Every now and then, the EVIDENCE OF BIAS BY OMISSION is as clear as day. My own most recent example is documented here: ‘A tale of BBC Scotland’s response to Scottish Government press releases – how widespread, how blatant is bias by omission becoming?’ (see https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2025/10/03/a-tale-of-bbc-scotlands-response-to-scottish-government-press-releases-how-widespread-how-blatant-is-bias-by-omission-becoming/ )
And then we get this from the BBC. From BBC Bitesize, prepared for students taking a GCSE course on ‘Media law, ethics and regulation – The role of journalism in society’:
‘Journalism plays a very important role in democratic societies.
‘One of its main purposes is to supply voters with the information they need to make informed choices, for example, about how they are going to vote in an election.’
Aye right!
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