Pushing three weeks with no deaths and infection level at average of less than 20 but media still harping on about the past: And on and on… Continue reading 8% of the population 3.4% of the new cases and 0% of the deaths so ‘different enough’ for the media to recognise?

The graphs above from Ofcom’s Media Nations Report 2020 Q1, reveal an ‘uptick’ in the reach of the BBC’s local radio in Scotland, in the first quarter of 2020, as listeners sought regular updates on the outbreak. The Tusker also surged, doubling its audience between January and May but then falling again in June and July. It will be interesting to see how the BBC figures adjust as we emerge from lock-down. There seems little reason to doubt that they will fall too. Looking at the trend until the outbreak, the reach of the BBC’s local radio in Scotland had … Continue reading Can Covid-19 halt the steady decline of Radio Scotland?

Maybe I’m being a bit thick or they’re being a bit duplicitous. If I know that word, can I be thick, really? I thought that headline meant there had been an outbreak of coronavirus in a school of some kind. I know that pupils are not yet back but are some teachers, admin or maintenance staff in? It seemed a reasonable reaction to think this was in a school. See that ‘after’, it’s the same one BBC Scotland use when babies die in hospital ‘after’ pigeon poo is spotted in the boiler room. How many million other things happened, just … Continue reading The dark art of misleading headlines

Joining her corporate and state buddies, once again, the National reminds us of the unavoidable limitations of a pro-Independence news source wedded to bourgeois notions of journalistic standards and staffed by interlocking elites, too close to BBC Scotland and the MSM. I know they publish a lot of very high quality reports entirely favourable to the cause but there is clear agenda to undermine the SNP on a regular basis with reports identical to those across the lobby in the Herald that, in so doing, undermine the wider movement. They, some of the celebrity hacks clearly ambivalent and often recent … Continue reading Fury as National reminds us it will always weaken the Yes campaign to snipe at SNP Government

Just as with the single hospital cases, among thousands and thousands too successful for words, morbidly presented, after ‘ambulance chasing‘ with opposition politicians, to suggest something wrong, so BBC Scotland’s campaign to find fault with an otherwise astonishing piece of recovery, preserving the futures of thousands, consists of reports like the above. One student seems justifiably upset and, last year, would have appealed against the grades awarded. The story would not even have made the Motherwell Times but this year, it’s big news. I seem to remember seeing two ‘A students’ in Stirling, similarly indignant, on Reporting Scotland. I’m sure … Continue reading ‘School-bus Chasing?’ Thousands appeal every year and BBC Scotland pointlessly reports a tiny handful of this year’s group

In the Herald today, from Rosemary Goring (no relation 🙂 ) Last month, when protestors in saltire and tartan masks stood at the Scottish Border near Berwick bearing placards telling the English to turn back and keep Scotland Covid-free, a shudder ran up many spines. Really, I think not. I’m guessing most of us just laughed. ‘Protestors?’ Four the first time, two the second and now, gone? Goring seems to have little of substance to base her anxious headline on. Admitting that there is no evidence of such behaviour from the thousands of AUOB marchers, she relies on the two guys in … Continue reading Opinion: Anti-English prejudice is very rare indeed?

Spotting an error in the Herald’s headline, below, the Tusker’s ‘night watchman’ has finished it off so that it makes sense in the light of recent opinion polls. It looks as if the Herald’s headline editor has fallen asleep over the keyboard at a crucial moment, leaving the headline looking frankly laughable. If history tells us anything about promoting macho males with a love for footie, then the Scottish Tories’ own ‘Jim Murphy’ figure seems unlikely to last the full 90 minutes. Continue reading The Tusker helps the Herald out after embarrassing error on Douglas Ross

In the New European, Michael White of the Guardian writes: The painful fact is that both administrations look unimpressive from the outside and have done much in near lockstep during the pandemic, including the latest Spanish quarantine. Strip out England’s less populated regions along with the Highlands and Borders and the Covid casualty rates in dense urban areas and care homes won’t be very different. As I rebut the same lie day-after-day, it feels like I’m batting back balls fired at me by a tennis machine but hey, you never know, I might correct the thinking of even just one more reader, if … Continue reading Nazi dentist’s astonishing fabrication to suggest Scotland’s covid-19 performance ‘not very different’

From BBC UK but of no interest to BBC England or BBC Scotland: Researchers from UCL and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine used computer models to see how the virus might spread in the UK as pupils returned to the classroom and their parents were more able to go back to work or resume other activities. They found fault and suggested that: Current testing and contact tracing is inadequate to prevent a second wave of coronavirus after schools in the UK reopen. However, on more thorough reading, it becomes apparent that this warning is only explicitly for … Continue reading Researchers imply Scotland’s test and trace system IS good enough but BBC Scotland not interested

Needless to say the Herald and BBC Scotland found something to sadden the day of thousands of students and parents. Here are some of the facts that would have helped readers and viewers to make their own informed assessment: 1 Pass rates up: In 2020: the National 5 pass rate was 81.1% the Higher pass rate was 78.9% the Advanced Higher pass rate was 84.9% In 2019: the National 5 pass rate was 78.2% the Higher pass rate was 74.8% the Advanced Higher pass rate was 79.4% So pass rates up in all three exams painting a far more optimistic … Continue reading Pass rates up across the board but standards maintained and poverty gap narrowed