The Paper Thistle: 200 Years of the Scotsman


The Paper Thistle: 200 Years of the Scotsman

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For 200 years, it's brought the world to Scotland

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and has spoken for Scotland to the world.

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The Scotsman is one of the most prestigious names in the world of

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newspapers, in this or any other country.

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Its editors have risked life and limb for its freedom.

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Its reporters have been at the very centre of the country's great disputes.

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Terrible, terrible arguments with each other.

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Real blowouts.

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Its writing has inspired and moved readers.

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We could have played anybody when it came to reporting.

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And the men and women behind the headlines have had some fun as

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they've recorded history of Scotland.

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Anybody who thinks that we exaggerate the drinking culture of

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The Scotsman in the '80s wasn't there at the time.

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Day by day, year by year, century by century,

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Scotland's stories have been written across its pages.

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But as it celebrates its 200th anniversary,

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the circulation is falling and the paper is struggling to survive.

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Whether in the current climate,

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certain kinds of newspaper can survive as newspapers,

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I have my doubts.

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Now, it's more pressing than ever to tell the biggest story in town,

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the story of The Paper Thistle.

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The story of The Scotsman.

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In terms of numbers, it will be just over...

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Hello.

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Of a day, we are between 56, 64 pages.

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So although there are questions that you'll have as to how you're going

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to fill the space, the first thing you'll do in the morning

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is line things up and have an idea.

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OK, right, then,

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we'll just take a quick run through those placings...

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When big stories break it is...

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It is very exciting and that is great and the adrenaline runs.

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When it's at its worst, you're sitting there scratching your head saying,

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"OK, I've got 56 pages to fill tomorrow and I'm not sure how this is going

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"to work." And that's when it starts getting...

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You want to start tearing your hair out.

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Graham, do you want to tell us the sport?

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Well, there's good stuff from Celtic today as well.

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Brendan Rodgers...

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In The Scotsman newsroom, the pressure is to produce tomorrow's news today.

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It's the speed now more than any other ability.

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-Uh-huh, to be first.

-That is the important thing.

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-Yeah.

-To be first.

-To get a story, to put it online,

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to put out on social media, that's really where the emphasis is.

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But five floors below today's fast moving newsroom sits two centuries'

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worth of stories in The Scotsman's astonishing archive.

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200 years' worth of The Scotsman in this room...

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..with a bit of light.

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So round here we have the bound

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copies of The Scotsman.

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The most recent in this aisle, 1984 up to here.

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But if we go right down to the bottom, we will get to 1817,

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-the very start.

-200 years, 53,000 editions,

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over one and a half million pages,

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headlines big and small, happy and sad.

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I can get lost for days in here.

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Some of my colleagues probably wish I would but you can really become

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immersed in so much that was going on at that time in history and some

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of the stories are interlinked.

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A glance through the bound editions reveals big stories that shook the

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world, wee stories that didn't.

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A picture archive full of lost moments.

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First coloured policeman in Edinburgh.

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Mr Laird Maclean, portrait of him, 1971.

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And reports that bear witness to Scotland's history and,

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if you read between the lines,

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you can sense the commitment of the men and women who've written for

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The Paper Thistle.

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That's an important thing for the readers,

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they say to us that you have an obligation,

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you have a responsibility here to get this right because you're

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-actually recording history.

-As editor, as custodian of that

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heritage, you are very conscious of it and sometimes it's quite a

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daunting responsibility.

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Since 1817, the reporters, the readers, the printers, the pages,

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the country may have changed beyond recognition,

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but there are still essential elements of The Scotsman that

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the readers expect in every edition.

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And like all good newspaper stories, it begins on the front page.

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The front page is how The Scotsman announces itself to the world.

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You're always looking at the front page,

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you're trying to make that front page as dramatic as you can possibly make it.

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You are on the stands along with 17 other newspapers,

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how do you make people - if they're reaching up for one -

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how do you make them reach for yours?

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The answer is that front page has got to have things on it that are

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going to try and sell it.

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Under that famous masthead,

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The Scotsman must splash the headlines in a distinctive way...

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..every single day.

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Front pages need big stories,

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fantastic photos and attention-grabbing headlines.

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I think you want something that projects the character of the paper

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as well as telling the main story you want to tell.

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I used to sit on the back bench

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every night and look at the headline,

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look at the design, look at the projection,

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the picture on the front, and from time to time say, "Scrap that,

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"let's start again." And everybody would moan and shoulders would slump

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and you start again.

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The Scotsman has had some stunning front pages over the years.

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But on the very first edition of The Scotsman on January 25, 1817,

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there was no splash.

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No headlines.

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Just a declaration of principles.

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It announces itself as an insurgent newspaper.

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Its claims of firmness, independence, impartiality,

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are in a way intended to highlight how the other newspapers at the time

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were not like that.

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If you go back and you read through the first ten or 15 years of

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The Scotsman, it is a very idealistic, crusading newspaper.

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The paper was established by William Ritchie,

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a Fife solicitor, and Charles Maclaren, a Customs man.

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And the front-page news was that Edinburgh now had a paper of principle.

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So much so that in 1829 when The Scotsman was slighted by a rival

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publication, the Caledonian Mercury,

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Charles Maclaren challenged its editor to a duel.

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He's defending the honour of his newspaper because he feels that the

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Caledonian Mercury have impugned that honour.

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-Both men...

-Fire!

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..missed.

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The Mercury eventually went out of print but The Scotsman flourished.

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And over the decades,

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the front pages have changed from radical to respectable,

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from a clarion call to a commercial free-for-all.

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Because from 1831,

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the front page of The Scotsman was dedicated to classified ads.

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Ads for operas, ads for caravans, ads for sets of false teeth.

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For over a century, the classifieds were given pride of place.

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Even the sinking of the Titanic couldn't push small ads from the

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front page.

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The Scotsman front page didn't change until the 1950s.

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By then, small ads were what the well-to-do readers of The Scotsman

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expected to see under the masthead.

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And those readers didn't like change.

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They liked their Scotsman to be predictable, constant, unsurprising.

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The paper was actually dying on its feet and it was no wonder because it

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was a boring newspaper.

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Even worse, The Scotsman had accrued massive debts.

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Unpaid death duties and a fall in circulation meant by the 1950s

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it found itself teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.

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Nobody in post-war Britain had the money to buy the publication and

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there were palpitations on Princes Street when the traditional

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patriotic Scotsman was sold to a foreigner!

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There was this brash Canadian and he was the last man on

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earth I would have thought that The Scotsman management and Edinburgh

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would have wanted to own the paper.

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His name was Roy Thomson and his

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main goal was to make a lot of money.

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What's your recipe for this success?

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By complete concentration and effort, one can go anywhere at all.

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When Thomson first flew into Edinburgh in 1953,

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Auld Reekie's great and good were unimpressed by the rich little Canuck.

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He had a lot of money and no breeding!

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He obviously hadn't gone to the right schools!

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He was persuaded with difficulty not to bring an American Cadillac to the

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streets of Edinburgh.

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He just didn't understand the city.

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But he understood business and he had big changes planned for

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-The Paper Thistle.

-It's my pleasure.

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He said, "The first thing I'd like to change is the front page,"

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because it was full of small ads and he said, "Really, I mean,

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"who wants to pick up their newspaper in the morning

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"and the first thing they see is something that tells them to drink

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"Andrews Liver Salts?"

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And everybody looked at each other and said, "Oh!"

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It took four full years for Thomson to persuade the journalists this was

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a good idea. But finally on the 17th of April 1957,

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Scotland's national newspaper put news across its front page.

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And The Scotsman's been splashing ever since.

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The news pages of The Scotsman were filled with the unglamorous business

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of accurately and impartially reporting Scottish news.

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If journalism is the first draft of history, then on some of Scotland's

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darkest days, The Scotsman was there in the front row.

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In 1828,

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readers were gripped by the accounts of the gruesome trial

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of Burke and Hare.

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In 1916, it witnessed zeppelins dropping bombs on the Grassmarket.

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In 1960, it described a tragic whisky bond fire in Glasgow.

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When it came to street reporting,

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we had people around who could do the job all right and there was a

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point made about how vivid The Scotsman's reporting was.

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And Scotsman reporters brought us one of the most earth-shattering

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exclusives of all time.

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Oh, I can't really think of anything of a scientific discovery that would

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really change the whole way that you look on the globe and its history,

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which was revealed in a newspaper.

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This epic exclusive was unveiled in 1840.

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A brilliant young geologist called Louis Agassiz had come to Scotland

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and the editor of The Scotsman sent a reporter to accompany him to

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the Highlands.

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He was then reported at gigantic length in The Scotsman.

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These explosive reports, published BEFORE Darwin's theory of evolution,

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implied that the earth had not been created in seven days, because the

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scarring on the landscape must have been caused by ancient ice.

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This really was very big shock to, you know,

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the pious readership of Edinburgh and the Lothians.

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There had been an Ice Age and this evidence in Scotland proves it.

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2.6 million years after the event,

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The Scotsman reporter was on the spot with breaking news...

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The Ice Age - and it was the first paper in the world to reveal that it

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-had happened at all.

-They're quite difficult to read now and it was

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boring but nonetheless, they represent

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what one would call a scoop of gigantic scale -

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The Scotsman's biggest scoop,

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the Ice Age.

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But for most of its history,

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The Scotsman's news pages have been less mind-blowing, because the paper

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prided itself on being Scotland's paper of record.

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Whenever there was a committee meeting, a public speech, a civic soiree,

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it would be entered into The Scotsman's desk diary.

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This great big red book,

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I remember, it was like a kind of Bible,

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you know, and the things that have to be covered.

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Any Scottish MP who spoke in the House of Commons

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would expect a paragraph

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or two in The Scotsman the next day or would want to know why not.

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Reporters were allocated stories from the desk diary and duly

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recorded what happened. No matter if it was newsworthy or not.

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The first job I was given in

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The Scotsman was to cover a cage-bird show.

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I seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time at Lothian Regional

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Council's Drainage Committee.

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I knew an awful lot about the drainage problems underlying the

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City of Edinburgh.

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This commitment to cataloguing every spit and cough of every civic

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committee meant the news pages could be uninspiring.

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I think some of the stories probably were quite boring but The Scotsman

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felt it had a duty to cover certain things.

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By the 1970s,

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reporters began to rebel against the diktats of the desk diary.

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One of the subs got very drunk late on and wrote right across the next

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day's diary page, "When are you..." - bad word -

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"..c...s going

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"to try and produce some real news for once?"

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In the end, events overtook the events diary.

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As the 1970s and '80s progressed,

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the news agenda elsewhere pushed the utterings of Edinburgh blazers and

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committee men to the margins.

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I was at the graveside when the funeral of the Gibraltar Three,

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the IRA terrorists, was attacked by a loyalist gunmen throwing grenades.

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Jesus.

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They sent me to Glasgow.

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In Glasgow there was news, there was hard news, there was real events,

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there was murders, there was gang wars,

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there was disasters on a scale -

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a hard news scale - that didn't happen in Edinburgh.

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It could get quite hairy.

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This was real seat-of-the-pants stuff.

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It was a notebook, a pen, no mobile phones and it was... It was great,

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I mean, it was exciting.

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And the pressure to cover every aspect of Scottish Civic life was

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put to rest in the late '80s,

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when Magnus Linklater was appointed editor.

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And one of the first questions he was asked by staff was if he

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saw The Scotsman as a paper of record.

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My immediate answer was no, and I remember the intake of breath

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from the assembled company.

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I thought the newspaper ought to be a newspaper campaigning,

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investigating, reporting in depth.

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That was far more important than this long-standing tradition of

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being a newspaper of record.

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It wasn't about quantity of news, it was about quality - the tone,

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the understanding, and what was expected,

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particularly in traumatic times for Scotland.

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Someone interrupted the conference and poked his head round the door

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and said, "There's been a shooting in a school in Dunblane."

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Now, we had no idea, I had no idea, the magnitude of that story.

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It could have just been somebody was wounded.

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But as we began to realise what was happening, and we had to say first

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of all to the staff, "Right, here are the rules.

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"Report the facts, keep everything as straight as possible,

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"be sympathetic to whoever is out there."

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And then we had to find out who knew what and cover every base you

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possibly could, as sensitively as you possibly could.

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No over-emotionalism.

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Readers expected The Scotsman to cover the big Scottish stories with

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both understanding and hard-headed, in-depth analysis.

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But The Scotsman also had to be national and international.

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In the '90s, the paper recruited a network of correspondents in war zones.

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And they'd call Andrew McLeod on the foreign desk and provide eyewitness

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accounts of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and, on one harrowing occasion,

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in Bosnia.

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I do remember a call.

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He'd just see these things and he would run through them pretty

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breathlessly, what he had just seen,

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and one time he phoned and he said "Andrew, I've just been in a house."

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And I said, "Yeah." "And it was dark,

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"I walked into the room and, erm..."

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He said, "...it's... I thought, 'Well,

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"'the water pipes must have burst,'" he said, 'in the battle,'

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"because it was all wet."

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And he said, "But it wasn't water," he said, "It was...

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"It was squelching with blood, the floorboards,"

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"the blood was coming up through the floorboards." He said, "There'd been

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"a massacre in there." And outside, he'd found the bodies of a father and son.

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At its best, the news pages of The Scotsman brought first-hand accounts

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from a dangerous and increasingly complex world to the safety of

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breakfast tables across Scotland.

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It's important to witness it.

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You're not a complete newspaper unless you're covering everything.

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That's my view. And if you're not covering foreign news,

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in my view, you're not a newspaper.

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But newspapers have never been just about the news.

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A friend of mine once said that a

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newspaper is a formatted set of surprises.

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And I think it's a magnificent description.

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In its very first edition,

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The Scotsman declared itself a political and literary journal.

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And to be the newspaper of Scotland's chattering classes,

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The Scotsman must deliver provocative pages of artistic

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and literary chatter.

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The arts pages were the throbbing heart of the paper and to have

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good critics, good reviewers, was imperative.

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We run, I think,

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probably the most comprehensive Edinburgh Festival coverage

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of any newspaper.

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I think there have probably been days when I've submitted 14 or 15 reviews.

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Whilst the arts pages celebrate what's in the spotlight,

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Scotsman features try to get behind the facade, to reveal

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hidden sides to familiar people and places.

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Your dream Scotsman Magazine story might be At Home With JK Rowling,

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where she shows you all her latest work and tells you exclusively

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what she's working on next and reveals how much she loves

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the paper, that sort of thing!

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But many features are longer stories that evoke a time and a place.

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For example, what was it like to get a job on The Scotsman in its heyday?

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Well, I was a student down in Cambridge and I heard that The Scotsman had

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a last-minute vacancy, and in those days the best way up was the

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night sleeper. I was in the cheap one,

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which meant that you shared a compartment.

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There were two bunks. I arrived on the bunk and there was a guy sitting

0:21:330:21:37

in his underpants, literally, and a string vest, and he had one of those

0:21:370:21:41

great big multipack cartons of Special Brew and a thick,

0:21:410:21:44

thick fug of cigarette smoke.

0:21:440:21:46

He looked up and he said, "Eh, sir,

0:21:460:21:47

"I hope you're not one of they, 'Oh, I don't like to smoke,

0:21:470:21:50

"'I don't like to drink,' or one of they kind of student poofs, are ye?"

0:21:500:21:54

I said, "No, no, of course not."

0:21:540:21:56

And so I sat there and smoked maybe 300 or 400 cigarettes and drank

0:22:000:22:04

maybe a dozen cans of Special Brew rather than sleeping.

0:22:040:22:07

So I arrived in Waverley Station the following morning smelling like a

0:22:070:22:11

kipper, red-faced, bleary, blotchy, hair all over the place,

0:22:110:22:16

eyes bright scarlet and I had an early-morning interview at The Scotsman.

0:22:160:22:20

And I went down to the newsroom and opened the door

0:22:200:22:23

and there staring at me, about 20 or 30 people who looked worse than

0:22:230:22:27

I was. And I thought, "I've come home."

0:22:270:22:29

Home for Scotsman journalists was the famous North Bridge offices.

0:22:320:22:37

Purpose-built in 1905, it was a legendary place to work.

0:22:370:22:40

The building was festooned with tubes.

0:22:420:22:45

It was noisy, it could be quite sweaty at times.

0:22:450:22:47

You have to think of a very,

0:22:470:22:50

very strong smell of bodies and cigarette and pipe smoke.

0:22:500:22:54

And there's lots of inky-fingered people wandering around in boiler suits.

0:22:540:22:58

Down at the bottom, opposite the back of the station,

0:22:580:23:01

you had the printing presses.

0:23:010:23:02

Above that you had the case room where the typesetting was done.

0:23:020:23:06

Above that you had the newsrooms.

0:23:060:23:08

Above street level it became, you know, accountants,

0:23:080:23:11

advertising and the people running the place,

0:23:110:23:14

managing director's office would be on the top floor.

0:23:140:23:17

If the building was eccentric, so were the occupants.

0:23:170:23:21

The building itself lent itself to people being able to disappear

0:23:210:23:28

and we had people, for example,

0:23:280:23:31

who had separated from their partners, who were actually living

0:23:310:23:35

in the building. We had people who had retired but refused to be

0:23:350:23:39

retired and used to come into work every day.

0:23:390:23:41

MUSIC: Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode

0:23:410:23:43

And no wonder.

0:23:430:23:45

As there was one journalistic stereotype that ran very true.

0:23:450:23:49

Anybody who thinks that we exaggerate the drinking culture of

0:23:500:23:54

The Scotsman in the '80s wasn't there at the time.

0:23:540:23:57

It was pretty extreme.

0:23:570:23:59

Drinking in those days was, you know, a completely tolerated thing.

0:23:590:24:03

Nowadays, you know,

0:24:030:24:04

the idea even that somebody might have a glass of wine would be seen

0:24:040:24:08

-as rather louche.

-There was certainly no opprobrium attached to the idea

0:24:080:24:12

you've gone for a couple of pints during your break.

0:24:120:24:15

I was taken to lunch by an editor and, you know,

0:24:170:24:20

there was a drink before lunch,

0:24:200:24:23

there was two bottles of wine at lunch, and as we came up Cockburn Street

0:24:230:24:27

towards The Scotsman office, he said

0:24:270:24:29

"Well, we'll just pop into the Malt Shovel

0:24:290:24:32

"and see what the malt of the day is."

0:24:320:24:36

As a young reporter, I would expect to be in the Jinglin' Geordie

0:24:360:24:40

virtually every day by midday, and I would expect to drink, sort of, five or six pints

0:24:400:24:44

and then a fair amount of wine and possibly tequila, and then come back

0:24:440:24:47

and do my afternoon's work.

0:24:470:24:49

We would often go to the Doric and

0:24:490:24:51

consume a ridiculous amount of alcohol

0:24:510:24:54

over lunchtime, discussing the

0:24:540:24:56

paper and maybe entertaining contacts.

0:24:560:24:59

And then go back and try to focus on

0:25:010:25:05

two fingers not getting stuck in the typewriter, as it was.

0:25:050:25:09

And the first thing that you learned was to be able to produce apparently

0:25:090:25:12

lucid copy in a state of almost catatonic drunkenness.

0:25:120:25:15

Was it a good thing? Probably no.

0:25:190:25:21

But is it a good thing to be sitting stuck in front of a computer screen

0:25:210:25:25

nonstop for ten hours, hardly ever speaking to another person,

0:25:250:25:28

without going out and meeting people and making contacts?

0:25:280:25:31

I think that's even worse.

0:25:310:25:32

The Scotsman first launched a women's page in 1925,

0:25:380:25:41

which was called Woman To Date.

0:25:410:25:43

Over the years, there have been various pages for the ladies,

0:25:450:25:48

but precious few women in the building to write them.

0:25:480:25:51

The women's page, well, there weren't very many women.

0:25:510:25:56

The Scotsman was very much male-dominated.

0:25:560:25:59

Throughout the 1950s and '60s,

0:26:020:26:04

male editors largely expected the woman's page to be a formulaic rote

0:26:040:26:08

of recipes, fashion and domestic delight.

0:26:080:26:12

And on the rare occasions when they took any interest,

0:26:120:26:15

it confirmed that Scotsmen were from Mars

0:26:150:26:17

and Scotswomen were from Venus.

0:26:170:26:20

Alastair Dunnett was asking what we had for the women's page that night and he said,

0:26:200:26:25

"I like that but what I don't want...

0:26:250:26:29

"I don't want simmets."

0:26:290:26:33

And I said, "Oh, I see."

0:26:340:26:36

So I went back to the girls on the women's page and said,

0:26:360:26:39

"He says he doesn't want simmets!"

0:26:390:26:41

And I think he meant he didn't want parochialism.

0:26:420:26:46

We thought that might be it but we weren't very sure!

0:26:460:26:50

SHE CHUCKLES

0:26:500:26:52

By the 1970s,

0:26:520:26:54

female hacks began to escape from the good housekeeping ghetto of the

0:26:540:26:56

women's page and brought a very different sensibility to

0:26:560:27:00

The Scotsman reporting role.

0:27:000:27:02

Margaret Thatcher swept into the room, sat down...

0:27:040:27:08

I seem to remember I was the only woman at that press conference,

0:27:080:27:12

literally, the only woman there and eventually I put up my hand and

0:27:120:27:17

asked her, "Well, what do you think about the current movement for women's rights

0:27:170:27:21

"and should there be more women in the House of Commons?" blah,

0:27:210:27:23

blah and she said,

0:27:230:27:25

"I hate the expression women's lib," which I'd never used anyway,

0:27:250:27:29

and she went on to denounce women's lib because it made women who stayed

0:27:290:27:34

at home bringing up their children feel inferior. And so the

0:27:340:27:38

conversation continued and then she kind of cut me short, saying, "But, you know,

0:27:380:27:42

"enough of that, we'll bore the men."

0:27:420:27:45

By the 1990s,

0:27:470:27:48

The Scotsman realised it was having trouble attracting Scotswomen.

0:27:480:27:53

Radical thinking was required.

0:27:530:27:56

The guys upstairs were noticing that women readers were peeling away from

0:27:560:28:00

The Scotsman and they concluded they needed to do something,

0:28:000:28:03

but they didn't know what it was.

0:28:030:28:05

Sitting in an editorial board of 13 people, of which I was the only woman,

0:28:050:28:09

it seemed kind of obvious to me.

0:28:090:28:11

So finally one day I kind of cleared my throat and said,

0:28:110:28:13

"What about this idea?"

0:28:130:28:15

The idea was The Scotsman would have a sex change for

0:28:180:28:23

International Women's Day, to rechristen the paper The Scotswoman.

0:28:230:28:26

To my astonishment,

0:28:260:28:28

at least half the guys on the board totally agreed with it straight off.

0:28:280:28:32

The idea of it was to say that who edits a paper dictates, very largely,

0:28:360:28:41

its agenda, its outlook, the stories it selects, all these things.

0:28:410:28:46

The Scotswoman was published on the 8th of March, 1995.

0:28:480:28:51

All the editorial decisions were taken by women.

0:28:540:28:58

The splash focused on equality.

0:28:580:29:00

It had a tokenistic men's page.

0:29:010:29:03

And The Scotswoman made headlines all over the world.

0:29:060:29:09

I got phone calls with each time zone that woke up,

0:29:100:29:13

so I stayed up all night.

0:29:130:29:15

There was a bit of a feeling of triumph.

0:29:150:29:18

It was the highest-selling edition of that decade.

0:29:180:29:21

We, for donkey's years, have been buying The Scotsman.

0:29:220:29:25

It should be more for women, why not? Why The Scotsman, eh?

0:29:250:29:29

And then I appeared in The Scotsman, the meeting,

0:29:290:29:32

the normal morning meeting,

0:29:320:29:33

and I remember the editor of the day turned to me and said,

0:29:330:29:37

"Well, yesterday was all right.

0:29:370:29:38

"Henry, do you want to go through the sport?"

0:29:380:29:41

For 200 years, Scotsman readers have been writing of their disgust, joy,

0:29:480:29:52

praise and delight to the editor of The Scotsman.

0:29:520:29:57

I turn to the letters page, which is very important,

0:29:570:30:00

where a great deal of steam emanates from that page.

0:30:000:30:03

We do publish letters that we don't agree with - we always have.

0:30:030:30:06

Again, that's a founding principle of the newspaper.

0:30:060:30:08

To read a newspaper is to participate in the conversation.

0:30:080:30:12

This is part of our national conversation, that's why it's so important.

0:30:120:30:17

History has been made on The Scotsman's letters pages.

0:30:170:30:20

In 1870,

0:30:200:30:22

correspondents arranged the world's first international rugby match.

0:30:220:30:26

And during the First World War,

0:30:260:30:29

The Scotsman published letters from the trenches that gave eyewitness

0:30:290:30:32

accounts of the Christmas truce of 1914.

0:30:320:30:35

Some letters are more critical.

0:30:370:30:40

And some never made it to the editor's desk.

0:30:400:30:44

The letters were put in this wire basket behind the back bench and I

0:30:440:30:48

certainly know of at least two occasions when a journalist went through

0:30:480:30:51

that day's letters and saw somebody complaining about him, you know,

0:30:510:30:55

one of the reporters, or one of the specialists, just took the letter out,

0:30:550:30:58

crumpled it up, and threw it away.

0:30:580:31:00

That was, in a way, how things worked, you know!

0:31:000:31:03

Sometimes complaining letters did get through but were banished

0:31:030:31:07

for other reasons.

0:31:070:31:09

One of the letter writers that I had to keep at bay was my mother,

0:31:090:31:13

who was the SNP agent in Orkney and used to write

0:31:130:31:17

ferocious letters criticising The Scotsman's stance and I had to put a

0:31:170:31:24

moratorium on that -

0:31:240:31:26

I thought it would not actually look very good if I had my mother writing

0:31:260:31:31

to the paper.

0:31:310:31:32

Some readers have spent their lives writing to The Scotsman, and in one

0:31:350:31:39

case beyond a lifetime.

0:31:390:31:41

In 2015, David Fiddimore,

0:31:420:31:45

a regular correspondent facing a terminal diagnosis,

0:31:450:31:48

wrote a final missive to The Scotsman, requesting that it be held

0:31:480:31:52

until after his death.

0:31:520:31:54

When he passed away, his last love letter to the paper was published.

0:31:550:31:59

But when you send a letter to the editor of The Scotsman,

0:32:230:32:25

just who are you writing to?

0:32:250:32:28

There have been 26 editors of The Scotsman in the past two centuries.

0:32:340:32:38

Ten in the past 20 years.

0:32:400:32:42

Whenever I do go out to anything and meet people,

0:32:450:32:48

everybody knows The Scotsman,

0:32:480:32:50

everybody has a view as to what I do right and what I do wrong.

0:32:500:32:53

Many of them are not slow in coming forward in telling me what I'm doing wrong.

0:32:530:32:57

In two centuries of The Scotsman,

0:32:570:32:59

there have been two editors who have changed the readers' relationship

0:32:590:33:03

with the paper.

0:33:030:33:05

The first was an old-school newspaperman who almost nobody outside the

0:33:050:33:09

North Bridge building has ever heard of,

0:33:090:33:11

but was a legend amongst journalists.

0:33:110:33:14

His name was Eric MacKay.

0:33:140:33:17

Eric Mackay was the journalists' favourite editor.

0:33:190:33:22

Eric Mackay came from the North East and I always thought of him as being

0:33:220:33:27

hewn from a granite quarry somewhere in the North East because he had a

0:33:270:33:32

solidity and a kind of immovability that was remarkable.

0:33:320:33:36

He was pretty monosyllabic.

0:33:380:33:40

Occasionally, if he heard an interesting piece of gossip,

0:33:400:33:43

he'd say, "Ah, get away!"

0:33:430:33:44

You know, "What happened?"

0:33:440:33:46

My goodness, he cared about that paper and he knew every word that

0:33:460:33:50

-appeared in it.

-Mackay became editor in 1972 and for 13 years he cajoled

0:33:500:33:56

and supported his journalists.

0:33:560:33:59

He said a lot of great things,

0:33:590:34:01

the sort of things you wanted an editor to say to you.

0:34:010:34:03

When the miners' strike really kicked off,

0:34:030:34:06

he called me in and said,

0:34:060:34:08

"Look, the coverage over the next few months is bound to be dominated,

0:34:080:34:11

"the news coverage, by the coal board setting the agenda and we'll

0:34:110:34:16

"be going to the NUM for reaction.

0:34:160:34:19

"What I want you to do is to go out to the mining communities and the pits

0:34:190:34:23

"and get the miners' stories and make the coal board react,

0:34:230:34:26

"so we get a bit of balance."

0:34:260:34:27

Throughout the 1970s and into the early '80s,

0:34:290:34:32

Eric Mackay was at the helm in what was seen as the golden age of

0:34:320:34:36

The Scotsman.

0:34:360:34:38

And the readers appreciated it.

0:34:420:34:45

Under Mackay's leadership during that political period,

0:34:450:34:49

the paper put on a vast amount of circulation.

0:34:490:34:52

It peaked at one point at just over 100,000,

0:34:520:34:55

because it was so tuned in to

0:34:550:34:58

what was happening with Scottish society.

0:34:580:35:00

And even when a journalist dared to disagree with the legendary editor,

0:35:040:35:08

Mackay handled it with delicacy.

0:35:080:35:10

I sort of felt that I was due a little more money, so I would go in

0:35:120:35:16

on a number of times and have a chat with Eric about money,

0:35:160:35:19

and he had this way

0:35:190:35:21

of looking at you - "I hear what you're saying,

0:35:210:35:24

"leave it with me." And at that your shoulders sagged and you realised

0:35:240:35:29

there's not a hope in hell of getting another brass farthing out

0:35:290:35:32

of the organisation, you know.

0:35:320:35:34

He did it beautifully and I didn't lose trust in him.

0:35:340:35:37

After nearly 13 years in the editor's chair,

0:35:370:35:40

Eric Mackay retired in 1985.

0:35:400:35:42

Chris Baur took over, but it was a difficult moment to be the editor,

0:35:430:35:47

because the management were determined to change pay and conditions,

0:35:470:35:50

even if that meant a conflict with their journalists.

0:35:500:35:53

MUSIC: Chance by Big Country

0:35:530:35:55

We turned up for work one day and the doors were barricaded,

0:35:550:35:58

we were locked out, it was an old-fashioned Victorian lock-out.

0:35:580:36:02

I had a choice to make because I was technically editorial management but

0:36:020:36:06

I couldn't bring myself to support the management management of that paper

0:36:060:36:10

and I guess I thought there was a better class of people in the picket line.

0:36:100:36:14

We could go across the close, Fleshmarket Close,

0:36:140:36:18

up to the offices of the agency, United News Service, and peer across

0:36:180:36:21

through the windows and see, in what had been my room, the features room,

0:36:210:36:26

a makeshift newsroom being operated by people we didn't recognise,

0:36:260:36:29

bringing the paper out day after day, while we were locked out.

0:36:290:36:32

I remember I was standing outside the staff entrance of The Scotsman

0:36:390:36:42

the first time that I had been designated to be one of that day's pickets and

0:36:420:36:47

up these steps from Waverley Station came a number of people who worked

0:36:470:36:51

for The Herald who

0:36:510:36:52

were coming home - they lived in Edinburgh,

0:36:520:36:55

worked for The Herald in Glasgow,

0:36:550:36:56

and they were coming home off the train and as they passed,

0:36:560:36:59

they pressed bottles of drink into our hands as a nice gesture

0:36:590:37:03

of solidarity.

0:37:030:37:05

To the dismay of striking journalists, The Scotsman,

0:37:050:37:08

albeit thin and of a poor standard,

0:37:080:37:11

was hitting the streets every day and eventually,

0:37:110:37:15

the hacks had to concede.

0:37:150:37:17

And we went back with our tail between our legs.

0:37:170:37:20

Our conditions were quite savagely attacked.

0:37:200:37:23

Longer hours, changes to the working week,

0:37:230:37:26

effectively pay cut, and quite a lot of recriminations.

0:37:260:37:30

It was a horrible time.

0:37:300:37:32

In 1987, dispute about budget,

0:37:330:37:36

pay and conditions went to the very core of the paper.

0:37:360:37:39

Thomson Regional News specialised in regional papers,

0:37:390:37:43

but The Scotsman saw itself as a national paper.

0:37:430:37:47

Thomson Regional Newspapers never got it at all,

0:37:470:37:50

they never got Scotland in the least.

0:37:500:37:52

They just kept saying,

0:37:520:37:54

"Well, why can't you just share Parliamentary services with the

0:37:540:37:57

"Middlesbrough Evening News, for example?"

0:37:570:38:01

Presenting The Scotsman as Scotland's national newspaper has

0:38:010:38:05

always had one flaw - the West has traditionally favoured the Herald.

0:38:050:38:09

Dundee has the Courier and there's the Press and Journal in the

0:38:090:38:13

North East. But when Magnus Linklater became editor in 1988,

0:38:130:38:17

he thought he could tackle that head-on.

0:38:170:38:20

I remember once trying to build our Glasgow circulation by sending out

0:38:200:38:25

invitations to all the leading businesses in Glasgow to take

0:38:250:38:29

six weeks' free subscription to

0:38:290:38:32

The Scotsman and there was nil take up.

0:38:320:38:37

I mean, the Glasgow businessmen,

0:38:370:38:39

some of them not only refused to take up the free offer,

0:38:390:38:42

some of them took the trouble to write back saying, "I wouldn't have

0:38:420:38:45

"The Scotsman in my office if you paid me."

0:38:450:38:48

So, there was a complete division, really, but we didn't recognise that,

0:38:480:38:53

we regarded ourselves as a Scottish national paper.

0:38:530:38:55

But even the management weren't convinced that The Scotsman was

0:38:560:39:00

indeed the country's national paper.

0:39:000:39:03

When I was fired -

0:39:030:39:05

and I think it's a bit of a badge of honour to be fired as an editor -

0:39:050:39:09

I fell out with the management,

0:39:090:39:11

I think, largely because I still regarded

0:39:110:39:15

The Scotsman as a national paper

0:39:150:39:17

and I think they felt that that was an expensive item and it should be a

0:39:170:39:22

regional paper, which would be much cheaper.

0:39:220:39:25

MUSIC: Movin' On Up by Primal Scream

0:39:250:39:28

In 1995,

0:39:280:39:30

Thomson Regional News sold The Scotsman to the Barclay brothers.

0:39:300:39:34

Frederick and David Barclay were twin-brother billionaires who lived

0:39:340:39:37

as tax exiles in the Channel Islands and had a burning desire to own a

0:39:370:39:41

national paper.

0:39:410:39:42

And they invested in The Scotsman,

0:39:420:39:45

buying a brand-new home and providing extra resources.

0:39:450:39:49

They were determined to give it the power to fight on that stage and to

0:39:520:39:56

win on that stage.

0:39:560:39:58

We had the money to do international affairs properly,

0:39:580:40:01

to expand The Scotsman's coverage of Scotland.

0:40:010:40:04

It was a tremendous time to be there.

0:40:040:40:06

But the Barclay brothers were also notoriously publicity-shy and so

0:40:070:40:12

needed someone experienced, who was comfortable in the spotlight,

0:40:120:40:15

to steer The Scotsman.

0:40:150:40:17

And they made possibly the most controversial appointment in the

0:40:190:40:22

history of the paper,

0:40:220:40:23

making Andrew Neil editor in chief.

0:40:230:40:26

I'm here to spend money, I'm here to invest in the journalism,

0:40:270:40:30

I'm here to invest in the marketing of our papers.

0:40:300:40:33

Andrew Neil was a former editor of the Sunday Times,

0:40:330:40:37

a devout Thatcherite,

0:40:370:40:39

whose autobiography described the Scottish media as

0:40:390:40:43

"largely old-fashioned, left wing".

0:40:430:40:45

He claimed that Tony Blair hoped his appointment would help bring

0:40:450:40:49

Scottish political opinion into the last decade of the 20th century.

0:40:490:40:54

I mean, it's going to be a wonderful, feisty time, you know,

0:40:540:40:57

here's a dynamic guy,

0:40:570:40:58

coming back to Scotland at a time where three papers

0:40:580:41:01

are doing remarkably well,

0:41:010:41:02

and we want to take them forward and upward,

0:41:020:41:04

and what better guy to do that?

0:41:040:41:06

By the 1990s,

0:41:060:41:08

tartan editions of the big English dailies were impacting on the

0:41:080:41:11

circulation of Scottish newspapers.

0:41:110:41:15

The new editor in chief had a fight on his hands.

0:41:150:41:18

Working for Andrew is a tough experience.

0:41:180:41:22

He had these huge ambitions for the newspaper and he didn't see why we

0:41:220:41:27

couldn't be better than Fleet Street.

0:41:270:41:30

If you had him in a newsroom, you know,

0:41:300:41:33

you could see why he had such a formidable reputation.

0:41:330:41:36

He basically asks his staff to jump to the moon and you kind of think,

0:41:360:41:41

"That's crazy, we can't jump to the moon."

0:41:410:41:43

But you end up jumping higher than you ever thought you could jump.

0:41:430:41:46

In an interview, he compared old Scotsman journalists to carthorses

0:41:460:41:49

and declared they would be replaced with, "frisky young stallions and mares."

0:41:490:41:54

He didn't mind offending people like that or challenging shibboleths.

0:41:550:42:01

He cut the cover price.

0:42:010:42:03

Star columnists were appointed.

0:42:030:42:06

By August 2000, circulation had

0:42:060:42:08

risen beyond the magical 100,000 mark.

0:42:080:42:11

Andrew Neil, who remained in London,

0:42:120:42:15

held a champagne reception at The Dorchester.

0:42:150:42:17

But not everyone was inclined to raise a glass to the editor in chief

0:42:190:42:22

and his bold, new vision.

0:42:220:42:24

I was spiked for three months.

0:42:240:42:27

That is, everything you write is not published.

0:42:270:42:30

I had a weekly column, it was spiked every week.

0:42:300:42:33

I came under a lot of pressure to

0:42:330:42:35

publish everything that George Bush said, no matter how irrelevant.

0:42:350:42:40

And it wasn't just staff.

0:42:440:42:46

Andrew Neil seemed to relish winding up civic Scotland.

0:42:460:42:50

If he thought the schools weren't good enough,

0:42:500:42:52

he would really criticise the teachers' unions and the sort of,

0:42:520:42:56

the consensus which still governed Scottish education,

0:42:560:42:59

even if that annoyed a lot of the teachers,

0:42:590:43:01

who were obviously a big part of The Scotsman's readership.

0:43:010:43:04

He started writing about why the Educational Institute of Scotland

0:43:040:43:07

was all wrong to be going on strike,

0:43:070:43:09

they were a bunch of big girls' blouses and

0:43:090:43:10

should get back to work and do what they were told.

0:43:100:43:13

And when you alienate a constituency like that, it lets you know.

0:43:130:43:15

He was right about a lot of things, you know -

0:43:150:43:18

he was right that the education system wasn't as good as we thought

0:43:180:43:21

it was, for example.

0:43:210:43:23

The problem was that if you wanted to persuade people,

0:43:230:43:27

bring them onto your side,

0:43:270:43:29

that wasn't going to happen overnight.

0:43:290:43:32

Andrew didn't have the patience for that evolving.

0:43:320:43:34

He wanted to say, "Listen to me, wake up,

0:43:340:43:38

"you know, get a grip, get involved in this."

0:43:380:43:41

Eventually, the regular readers in Edinburgh began to get the sense

0:43:430:43:47

that under Andrew Neil, their paper didn't love them any more.

0:43:470:43:51

I remember the phrase being used, you know,

0:43:510:43:54

"We must tackle the Scottish establishment."

0:43:540:43:58

But actually, The Scotsman WAS, in a sense, the Scottish establishment in,

0:43:580:44:03

I think, the best, best sense, you know,

0:44:030:44:05

it represented the majority view of its readers.

0:44:050:44:09

I remember hearing somebody saying,

0:44:090:44:12

"I'm stopping reading The Scotsman now, it's The Herald from now on."

0:44:120:44:17

By 2002, more and more readers were deserting The Scotsman.

0:44:190:44:23

And in The Scotsman newsroom,

0:44:230:44:25

it was a chaotic and confusing time as the paper went through eight

0:44:250:44:28

editors in nine years.

0:44:280:44:30

We've had very shouty editors, we've had less shouty editors,

0:44:320:44:35

we've had calmer ones, we've had mad ones.

0:44:350:44:38

It changed quite a lot and it didn't matter as much because Andrew Neil

0:44:380:44:41

was effectively editor in chief, but it's a sign of turbulence for any

0:44:410:44:45

publication if it loses so many editors.

0:44:450:44:49

The journalists were unhappy.

0:44:490:44:51

The circulation began to fall.

0:44:510:44:54

The Scotsman changed from broadsheet to tabloid - I mean, compact.

0:44:540:44:59

Then, in 2005, ten years after they'd arrived,

0:44:590:45:03

the Barclay brothers and Andrew Neil left town,

0:45:030:45:07

selling The Scotsman to its current owners, Johnston Press.

0:45:070:45:10

When the Barclays bought that company for 90-odd million,

0:45:100:45:14

including the building,

0:45:140:45:16

they sold it for 160 million without the building.

0:45:160:45:20

It was a phenomenal success.

0:45:200:45:23

The Andrew Neil years were over, but his legacy remains contested.

0:45:230:45:27

Critics feel that the once-loyal readers lost faith in their paper

0:45:280:45:32

and it was the beginning of the end of The Scotsman...

0:45:320:45:35

I think Andrew killed The Scotsman.

0:45:350:45:39

..whilst believers point out that all Scottish papers declined and

0:45:390:45:43

The Scotsman's market share went up.

0:45:430:45:45

Did this kind of abrasive tone served to undermine The Scotsman?

0:45:460:45:51

And I think the answer there is, just look at the figures - I mean,

0:45:510:45:55

this is a paper which while he was overseeing it broke the 100,000 mark,

0:45:550:45:59

and after he left, the sales really started to go down.

0:45:590:46:02

He was just a guy in a hurry and that wasn't going to work, actually,

0:46:020:46:06

in Edinburgh, which has a fantastically...

0:46:060:46:09

A fantastic ability to be resistant to anything somebody wants them to

0:46:090:46:14

do, if they don't want to do it.

0:46:140:46:16

He attempted to take The Scotsman and twist it politically right round

0:46:160:46:21

towards a fiercely Unionist and Conservative point of view and while

0:46:210:46:26

twisting it round, he just broke its neck.

0:46:260:46:28

For over a century, The Scotsman's news, arts, editorial, letters,

0:46:400:46:45

features have been coloured by the question of Home Rule.

0:46:450:46:49

It's not a new question.

0:46:500:46:52

Independence, here we come!

0:46:520:46:54

The national question is one that has dominated coverage over

0:46:540:46:58

100 years at least.

0:46:580:47:00

If you go back to the 1940s, the 1920s,

0:47:000:47:03

it's there as well and The Scotsman was there in the thick of that and

0:47:030:47:05

you have to be - you've got to be -

0:47:050:47:07

because it's about Scotland's future and if The Scotsman newspaper isn't

0:47:070:47:11

about Scotland's future then what's the point in the newspaper?

0:47:110:47:14

In the 1979 referendum for a devolved administration,

0:47:150:47:20

The Scotsman was the Scottish paper who took up the cause with gusto.

0:47:200:47:24

Its position in the '70s was very different.

0:47:250:47:28

It was seen as being bold.

0:47:280:47:30

It gave the paper a purpose,

0:47:300:47:33

which is in many ways very good, you know,

0:47:330:47:35

we had something we were fighting for and we believed in.

0:47:350:47:38

And from the Unionist side of the argument,

0:47:380:47:41

or those who didn't want an assembly in Edinburgh,

0:47:410:47:43

The Scotsman was seen as the enemy.

0:47:430:47:45

But when the results came in...

0:47:470:47:49

and Scotland was denied an assembly, the paper was heartbroken.

0:47:490:47:54

People were pretty dispirited.

0:47:550:47:57

We maybe got it wrong and maybe we were out of touch with the mood

0:47:570:48:01

elsewhere in Scotland.

0:48:010:48:03

The morale at the paper just collapsed.

0:48:030:48:06

I remember on the day of the referendum,

0:48:060:48:09

talking to Tory MP Teddy Taylor and he said, "I was thinking of

0:48:090:48:13

"coming to North Bridge and standing outside

0:48:130:48:16

"and waving a Union Jack outside the office,

0:48:160:48:18

"what do you think would happen?"

0:48:180:48:20

And I said,

0:48:200:48:22

"Teddy, I think Eric Mackay himself might come and throw you off the bridge."

0:48:220:48:26

For the next 18 years,

0:48:270:48:28

political power was concentrated in London, and civic Scotland

0:48:280:48:33

vented its political frustration on the pages of The Paper Thistle.

0:48:330:48:36

I think there was a sense, you might say, we had a conceit of ourselves,

0:48:380:48:41

that we had almost a constitutional role at that time.

0:48:410:48:44

There was no parliament and particularly after the 1979 referendum,

0:48:440:48:48

Scotland was kind of off the agenda.

0:48:480:48:50

Thatcherism was in full flow and I think we all kind of felt that we

0:48:500:48:55

were the guardians of Scottish debate.

0:48:550:48:57

It wasn't until 1997, when New Labour were elected, that Scotland

0:48:570:49:02

was granted another referendum to re-establish a parliament in Edinburgh.

0:49:020:49:07

And this time the people of Scotland and the national paper of Scotland

0:49:070:49:11

spoke with one voice.

0:49:110:49:13

The Scotsman said yes to both questions.

0:49:150:49:17

It was most eloquently for it.

0:49:170:49:19

After a long history of arguing for a parliament,

0:49:210:49:24

when it was reconvened in 1999,

0:49:240:49:27

the Andrew Neil-era Scotsman was relentlessly scathing.

0:49:270:49:31

It's certainly the case that there was no cosying up to the Labour guys

0:49:310:49:35

who were in power at the time.

0:49:350:49:37

And the biggest scandal of devolution,

0:49:380:49:41

the saga of the Scottish Parliament building,

0:49:410:49:43

was unfolding right in front of their noses.

0:49:430:49:46

You could argue that The Scotsman didn't go hard enough on that debacle.

0:49:460:49:50

They let it go far too long without getting stuck into it and it was

0:49:500:49:53

actually happening on their doorstep.

0:49:530:49:56

You just had to walk across the road and look at the building site and

0:49:560:49:59

there it was. And you could see things were going wrong.

0:49:590:50:02

In the new millennium, the parliament found its feet.

0:50:040:50:07

Moderate political power in Edinburgh had been secured,

0:50:070:50:10

something The Scotsman had been advocating for over a century.

0:50:100:50:14

But now it was the paper itself that was looking vulnerable.

0:50:140:50:18

By the time the 2014 independence referendum came around,

0:50:190:50:23

The Scotsman had lost about half its readership.

0:50:230:50:26

At a time when the paper couldn't afford to lose more readers,

0:50:260:50:30

it was required to choose a side in a passionate debate.

0:50:300:50:34

Would the self-proclaimed national paper of Scotland join the chorus of

0:50:340:50:38

voices calling for Scotland to become an independent nation?

0:50:380:50:42

I gave it a lot of thought and I decided that I had to be the one who

0:50:420:50:46

wrote the leader, and to get peace I got up at five in the morning and

0:50:460:50:51

came into the office at five in the morning and sat in the empty office,

0:50:510:50:54

with a blank screen, for three or four days and hammered it out.

0:50:540:50:58

And it took a long time to write, it took a long time to agonise over,

0:50:580:51:01

it took a long time

0:51:010:51:02

because there were many different things,

0:51:020:51:04

many different parts of it that you had to think about.

0:51:040:51:08

Because I was really conscious that it had to appear right,

0:51:080:51:12

that I had to maintain the authority, because it wasn't my position,

0:51:120:51:15

it was The Scotsman's position,

0:51:150:51:17

so you're trying to maintain the authority and the credibility and, yeah,

0:51:170:51:20

I've never felt that more than I did that night.

0:51:200:51:22

Scotland's national paper, based in Scotland's capital,

0:51:220:51:26

said...

0:51:260:51:28

no.

0:51:280:51:30

And with the debate so passionate and the country so split,

0:51:300:51:34

it was inevitable that many of those who were sympathetic to

0:51:340:51:37

The Paper Thistle felt betrayed.

0:51:370:51:40

The Scotsman seemed to be standing against the tide,

0:51:400:51:44

and I think it was a great shame, you know,

0:51:440:51:48

for The Scotsman of all papers to find itself on the "No" side of the

0:51:480:51:51

argument, albeit some columnists within it were not,

0:51:510:51:56

but it just seemed to me crazy.

0:51:560:51:58

I would see it as a great sign of weakness if The Scotsman were to say

0:51:580:52:02

"Public opinion has shifted,

0:52:020:52:04

"therefore we're going to shift our position on the national question."

0:52:040:52:08

I think the readers expect integrity and honesty.

0:52:110:52:14

I think it would be a complete betrayal of its history and its

0:52:140:52:18

principles and of its values.

0:52:180:52:19

Perhaps the most worrying aspect for the paper was that its opinion

0:52:210:52:26

didn't seem to matter.

0:52:260:52:28

My overwhelming sense, as much as a citizen as an analyst,

0:52:280:52:32

was that

0:52:320:52:35

during the referendum,

0:52:350:52:37

possibly the most exciting social experience any of us will have,

0:52:370:52:41

you know, in a lifetime, nothing happened.

0:52:410:52:44

You can say to me, "Oh, well, The Scotsman came out on the side of unionism."

0:52:450:52:52

Really?

0:52:530:52:55

But it didn't really...

0:52:550:52:57

..have any impact. You know, at one point, one of the websites -

0:52:580:53:03

Wings Over Scotland, I think...

0:53:030:53:05

They... Their online audience for a very short period was higher than

0:53:060:53:11

The Scotsman's.

0:53:110:53:13

For centuries, The Scotsman was one of the few voices arguing that

0:53:140:53:17

Scotland deserved more Home Rule.

0:53:170:53:21

But it is now, rightly or wrongly, seen as a bastion of unionism.

0:53:210:53:25

The final chapter of The Scotsman's 200-year tale is the toughest to tell.

0:53:360:53:41

At the end of the 1990s,

0:53:420:53:44

The Scotsman was selling over 80,000 copies a day.

0:53:440:53:48

In 2005, it sold on average 65,000 copies per day.

0:53:480:53:53

By 2010, its average circulation went down to 45,000 per day.

0:53:540:54:00

Last year, circulation was hovering at just over 20,000 copies per day.

0:54:010:54:08

You used to say that when a newspaper's circulation was falling,

0:54:080:54:12

it would bottom out and there would be a point at which, you know,

0:54:120:54:17

people will take this newspaper come what may and those would be the

0:54:170:54:20

readers who, you know, would buy it just for the obituaries,

0:54:200:54:24

the TV schedules and the crossword. And so you'd have a base readership.

0:54:240:54:28

But there doesn't seem to be any bottoming out at the moment.

0:54:280:54:31

Since 2005, The Scotsman has been owned by Johnston Press.

0:54:330:54:38

They moved out of their purpose-built office in 2013,

0:54:380:54:41

staff and resources have been cut...

0:54:410:54:43

..and the paper has suffered.

0:54:450:54:47

Whether in the current climate

0:54:500:54:52

certain kinds of newspaper can survive as newspapers,

0:54:520:54:56

I have my doubts.

0:54:560:54:58

It's difficult to see the paper in its current form, under its current

0:54:580:55:03

ownership, surviving for five years.

0:55:030:55:06

I suspect it might even be a lot less than that.

0:55:070:55:11

Faced with declining circulation,

0:55:120:55:14

the great hope of all newspapers is to make money by selling adverts to

0:55:140:55:19

those getting their news online.

0:55:190:55:21

What we do hasn't changed - we tell people stories, we report events,

0:55:210:55:26

we analyse things, we have comment - that hasn't altered.

0:55:260:55:29

The only thing that's altered is how people access that and how they pay

0:55:290:55:32

for the access to it. We do have bigger digital audiences,

0:55:320:55:35

we've got a great digital audience,

0:55:350:55:36

our audience now is bigger than it's been for a long time.

0:55:360:55:39

I think I'm right in saying that consumption of news on the internet,

0:55:390:55:44

it accounts for about 1% of the time spent on the internet,

0:55:440:55:49

across all news channels. It might be one and a half, but it's certainly not two.

0:55:490:55:54

So what we have to do is we have to find an economic model that

0:55:540:55:57

understands that we have to deliver things slightly differently.

0:55:570:56:00

I'm quite confident, quite optimistic.

0:56:000:56:02

For 200 years, The Scotsman has told Scotland's stories.

0:56:050:56:11

It's captured our greatest moments,

0:56:110:56:13

sympathised in times of national sadness.

0:56:130:56:17

It has provoked, charmed and reported stories big and small.

0:56:170:56:23

For every historic headline there are thousands of wee stories -

0:56:230:56:27

daily slices of Scotland that would otherwise be unrecorded.

0:56:270:56:31

On its pages, Scotland has had a passionate debate about who we are

0:56:310:56:36

and what kind of country we hope to be.

0:56:360:56:38

And the paper's survival has now become part of that national story.

0:56:380:56:43

If The Times of London was in dire straits or The Guardian was facing

0:56:440:56:49

closure or facing potentially mortal times,

0:56:490:56:54

it would be a matter of great interest to the UK political establishment.

0:56:540:57:00

I think that the viability and continued survival of The Scotsman

0:57:000:57:06

is of that magnitude.

0:57:060:57:07

There is a view of the world in Scotland

0:57:070:57:10

which is different from the view of the world in Manchester or London or

0:57:100:57:15

Paris. Scots look out for the world... We've got a Scottish culture,

0:57:150:57:18

which is different from other people's culture.

0:57:180:57:22

It's incredibly important that Scotland has voices in print

0:57:220:57:26

which represent the best of Scottish thinking,

0:57:260:57:29

the best of the Scottish worldview, and that, in my view,

0:57:290:57:31

ought to be The Scotsman.

0:57:310:57:33

The words... The Scotsman... It's got this wonderful kind of romantic majesty

0:57:330:57:37

to it and I think there will always be a future for this newspaper,

0:57:370:57:41

no matter. Financial fortunes may come and go, but it's not going to

0:57:410:57:45

be a newspaper that disappears, no way.

0:57:450:57:47

Can The Paper Thistle sail on for another century?

0:57:500:57:53

The future of The Scotsman remains to be written.

0:57:540:57:58

I'm really confident The Scotsman will make its 300th anniversary.

0:57:590:58:03

So the Thistle will go on and the Thistle will stay and the Thistle will

0:58:030:58:06

be there for at least another 100 years.

0:58:060:58:09

The Scotsman was a big part of my life.

0:58:090:58:11

And...I was sad to leave.

0:58:130:58:17

It was like a divorce.

0:58:190:58:21

And it's still like a divorce.

0:58:220:58:23

I would weep if it wasn't there.

0:58:250:58:27

MUSIC: Something To Believe In by King Creosote

0:58:270:58:31

# Promised me a feeling

0:58:310:58:35

# Something to believe in

0:58:370:58:43

# Promised me a feeling

0:58:430:58:50

# And I promise to be real. #

0:58:520:58:56

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