I’d never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it in writing, in an article on the slippery-sloped, shoogly-pegged Hootsmon’s news site (if ever there was a newspaper that hasn’t kept up with the significant changes that are going on in the country that it purports to write accurately about over the last twenty years it’s that one, and it’s about to disappear as a consequence).
Apparently, according to broadcasting regulator Ofcom, the First Minister of Scotland has been wronged during a TV interview by a British television channel. It’s official! Who would ever have thunk it?
Surely not? How can this possibly be, when First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is so used to the easy ride of cosy media fireside chats in front of the cameras, occasions which unfailingly allow her to discuss her party’s policies at length, without the requirement of interruption or questioning from whichever bedazzled gushing interviewer has the privilege of having her on their show, appearances which let her share her personal ambitions with us, the viewing masses, that and her thoughts about marzipan and butter icing when we’ve seen her slots on popular cake making shows, and giving us real insight into how she felt about her photos, dressed in a Kevlar vest and a jumper with a prominent union flag on the sleeve, for the Sunday supplement spreads, dismantling landmines in a disused factory space in war ravaged Partick.
Oh no, wait a minute, that’s someone else I’m thinking about, isn’t it?
Back in the real world Ofcom found that during a disgraceful pile-on by Good Morning Britain hosts Ben Shephard and Kate Garraway the First Minister was subjected to behaviour which breached broadcasting guidelines on accuracy and impartiality, behaviour which had a significant impact on the interview.
Shephard in fact argued falsely during the interview that a quote that he was reading out-loud was from the Scottish Government’s Growth Commission report when it wasn’t, which the First Minister, whilst being dismissed and ignored, tried several times to point out. In their findings Ofcom also noted that “this potentially left viewers with an erroneous impression that Ms Sturgeon was either unclear about the contents of the report or deliberately misrepresenting its findings.” Och well, the viewing public got the wrong impression again eh, oops!
This follows on from a similar ambush recently on the same channel by the ever-so-nearly former editor of the Wormwood Scrubs gazette, and friend of the great orange Trumpet, Piers Morgan, and Susanna Reid, where the usual diatribes based on deficits (under Westminster’s watch, let’s fix that by moving Trident to the Thames estuary and transferring all the civil service jobs based in London attributed to Scotland geographically to actual Scotland), a bizarre ludicrous statement that Scotland has great influence at Westminster, and the new slogan of the last two years “Independence would put the UK internal market in danger.”
In reality if ever there was a politician more than able to handle any of this fallacious ill-prepared and biased rubbish, It’s Nicola Sturgeon, It’s water off a ducks back to her because she faces it all the time. She never gets an easy ride, and to her great credit, she answers the questions that she is asked, no matter how feckin bonkers, falsely accusatory, simplistic, or badly researched in order to try and provoke an emotional response they may be. This she unfailingly does courteously.
Contrast her with the dumplings of power at Westminster, where softly softly interviewers generate the sight of robotic crazy dancers spewing out, like diced carrot confetti, heavily scripted repetitions of phrases which include up to two power word per sentence, like “Strong and Stable” (or more accurately “Bewildered and Demented”), phrases thought up by rooms full of PR onanists who can’t help themselves from saying the inane “lets unpack that idea’ every ten minutes.
There is no comparison. Nicola Sturgeon leaves them in her wake. The right person, in the right job in Scotland, at the right time.
Every time I see one of these British state media ambushes of the First Minister, which is often, my already unquestioning strong belief that my country should govern itself is renewed, and if possible that belief is strengthened even further.
The sooner Scotland returns to its rightful independent status as a self-governing independent country the better. That way we can but hope that our news media in Scotland will set itself to the task of holding our politicians to account, for the benefit of the people those politicians represent, not for the benefit of the media’s London overlords.
itisintruthnotforglory 