This event
was hosted by journalist Ruth Wishart,
and with fellow journalists Iain
MacWhirter (Herald) Stephan Khan
(Observer London) and Niki Seth-Smith
(Common weel).
They spoke
of the vigorous diversity of the Referendum debates in particular online
websites such as National Collective, Kiltr, Bella Caledonia etc.
Iain MacWhirter (Herald)
He said that
professional Journalism allows for long form research.
He talked of Online
Journalism. Citizen
journalism provides more and cheap instant views, when journalism becomes often
opinion journalism. Media used to be the privileged elite but now everyone has
a voice. There is a difference between
sharing information though, instant opinions and researched facts.
The Decline
of Scottish press stood at a drop of 100,000 sales per year, that it maybe had
5 years left. .
Most of the
Scottish press was now foreign owned and The Scotsman had been taken over and
had become the Daily Mail of Scotland. He said the dead
tree press (professional journalism) are the cultural curators. The business
model doesn't work on the internet though and the trouble is that real
journalism cant' be done for nothing.
He spoke of the one-sided
media right now in Scotland
which is hostile to independence. What is happening here would be illegal in Scandinavia as the constitution is to have diversity of
press.
We have only
had the one newspaper here - The Sunday Herald - supporting independence in Scotland. He said that the BBC is still dependent for
news on the dead tree press.
Stephan Khan (Observer London) spoke of the plurality of press
He said the
new consumer was more sophisticated. The problem with new media is there was
often no raw copy and no research online.
The question
now is what happens after the Referendum.
There was
good online media and entrepreneurship but which do too often relies on press
stories.
He said, 'Comment
is free, facts are sacred.'
He spoke of
the need for objectivity and the blurring of the line between comment and fact.
Journalist will also make academic
papers readable for the general public.
Niki Seth-Smith (Common weel) stated that online there were also often
multiple drafts and editorial time too to provide decent facts with rigorous
fact checking.
MacWhirter
suggested public funding for say a National Enquirer paper that was for factual
news gathering rather than opinions or speculations and to help to ensure
diversity of expression was properly informed.
The BBC is
struggling with devolution or what it is really about. Scotland has national politics and
no national press. I notice now that many of the respected in this debate are
not going on the BBC news programs - understandably.
They thought that the best bet for small
democracies was an open democracy that also pays contributors.
Twitter
feeds are difficult at reflecting on news with no longer articles and they felt
that Print still has a future.
