Since August, every time we travailed over town, we have returned with a bundle of newspapers. This was in response to a spiel we saw in a newspaper inviting entries for Newspaper of the Year, Journalist of the Year, Columnist of the Year and childish nonsense like that. You could simply nominate yourself on payment of £21 to The Scottish Newspaper Society and we seriously thought about it. However, as we are of little imagination and on the reverse side of bright, we thought better of it but we had to find out for ourselves what all the hype was about in current daily newspapers.
First, The Sun (cost 70p), as delightful and as irreverent as ever. We've always liked it and it's always on our list. However, try as we might, we couldn't see any reason why its distant cousin, the Daily Mirror, continues to survive. Somebody should put it out of its misery. Ditto the Daily Telegraph, owned by the infamous Brothers Barclay so, for that reason alone, we wouldn't touch it. As for the Scottish Daily Express, this is a hysterical rag that shouldn't be allowed outside the door. It's awful. We couldn't find a copy of The Scotsman at all over a period of 5 months - perhaps it has given up the ghost?
Moving on to the Glasgow-produced Daily Record (£1.10). This newspaper has taken a massive hit in circulation in recent years and no wonder. The problem for the Record is that, while it is basically and potentially sound, it is completely devoid of quality journalists and editorial leadership. It is very obviously starved of sufficient funding. It's sad, but a new editor with the proper resources could work wonders. The Guardian (£2.50) surprised us. It is still wet behind the ears and rather highbrow but, essentially, a decent newspaper. It is a pity it doesn't cover more local stuff up here but it is a national newspaper based in England so it won't have that sort of coverage.
The SNP-supporting Herald (weekday cost £2, more on Saturdays) is woeful. At one time, this was the newspaper to take but that era has long passed. There is little news, at least of a Scottish nature, and much of that particular problem is caused by (a) a dearth of able journalists and (b) no local editor as the paper is edited at Newsquest headquarters in the South of England - and most of the news features relate entirely to the South of England. Essentially, the paper is reduced to the opinion ramblings of Lesley Riddoch, Neil Mackay, Alison Rowat, Catriona Stewart, Teddy Jamieson, Vicky Allan, Kevin McKenna, Robert McNeil, Rebecca McQuillan, Brian Beacom et al; in other words cheap, third-rate journalism and no news at all. But, if your thing is the opinion ramblings of the dreaded G12 luvvie journalists rather than hardcore news and features, this is the newspaper for you.
The Herald does, however, retain two excellent freelance journalists, The Rt Hon Brian Wilson CBE and Professor Adam Tomkins. These are the only two people who can, actually, write a critical analysis for others to read. But the reverse side is that any newspaper that employs Lesley Riddoch doesn't deserve to survive. Not only is she unreadable, she is barking. No wonder circulation has fallen to 12,000. Frankly, we don't hold out too much hope for The Herald even in the short term.
Plainly speaking, The Herald thoroughly deserves to wither. Its support for the SNP has caused its core, sensible, middle-class readership to desert in droves. Those who run the paper aren't bright enough to realise that if you run with the SNP Devil your are going to die with the SNP Devil - and SNP death may not be terribly far away either. Beyond Scottish Nationalism, The Herald's other preoccupations are (a) when a favourite eaterie folds and the precious little world of those wimps and luvvies at the newspaper is turned upside down and (b) the Letters Page (also known as the Mad Buggers' Page) where every fruitcake on earth is given a voice.
Two newspapers surprised us way, way above our expectation. Firstly, The Times (Scotland), stunningly cerebral at £2.50 and also the Scottish Daily Mail, astonishing value at 90p. Like ourselves, they live in the real world with hardcore news and hardcore features in abundance. Those two newspapers know what the public wants for their money and are not afraid to nail their colours to their own particular mast - that mast may not, necessarily, be our mast also but, at least, we know where they are coming from. These are our newspapers of choice from now on.
Newspapers have been in decline universally in recent years and mostly of their own making in that those involved thought the good times would last forever without any great effort. Laziness, in other words. Sadly, the newspaper world is also over-populated with journalists who cannot write and and with editors who simply haven't a clue. Until those problems are rectified, it will be downhill all the way.
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