0:00:02 > 0:00:06For 200 years, it's brought the world to Scotland
0:00:06 > 0:00:09and has spoken for Scotland to the world.
0:00:11 > 0:00:14The Scotsman is one of the most prestigious names in the world of
0:00:14 > 0:00:17newspapers, in this or any other country.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21Its editors have risked life and limb for its freedom.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25Its reporters have been at the very centre of the country's great disputes.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29Terrible, terrible arguments with each other.
0:00:29 > 0:00:31Real blowouts.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34Its writing has inspired and moved readers.
0:00:34 > 0:00:38We could have played anybody when it came to reporting.
0:00:38 > 0:00:41And the men and women behind the headlines have had some fun as
0:00:41 > 0:00:44they've recorded history of Scotland.
0:00:44 > 0:00:48Anybody who thinks that we exaggerate the drinking culture of
0:00:48 > 0:00:51The Scotsman in the '80s wasn't there at the time.
0:00:51 > 0:00:56Day by day, year by year, century by century,
0:00:56 > 0:01:00Scotland's stories have been written across its pages.
0:01:00 > 0:01:04But as it celebrates its 200th anniversary,
0:01:04 > 0:01:08the circulation is falling and the paper is struggling to survive.
0:01:09 > 0:01:11Whether in the current climate,
0:01:11 > 0:01:15certain kinds of newspaper can survive as newspapers,
0:01:15 > 0:01:17I have my doubts.
0:01:17 > 0:01:22Now, it's more pressing than ever to tell the biggest story in town,
0:01:22 > 0:01:25the story of The Paper Thistle.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30The story of The Scotsman.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47In terms of numbers, it will be just over...
0:01:49 > 0:01:50Hello.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54Of a day, we are between 56, 64 pages.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57So although there are questions that you'll have as to how you're going
0:01:57 > 0:02:00to fill the space, the first thing you'll do in the morning
0:02:00 > 0:02:02is line things up and have an idea.
0:02:02 > 0:02:04OK, right, then,
0:02:04 > 0:02:07we'll just take a quick run through those placings...
0:02:07 > 0:02:09When big stories break it is...
0:02:09 > 0:02:13It is very exciting and that is great and the adrenaline runs.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16When it's at its worst, you're sitting there scratching your head saying,
0:02:16 > 0:02:19"OK, I've got 56 pages to fill tomorrow and I'm not sure how this is going
0:02:19 > 0:02:21"to work." And that's when it starts getting...
0:02:21 > 0:02:23You want to start tearing your hair out.
0:02:23 > 0:02:25Graham, do you want to tell us the sport?
0:02:25 > 0:02:28Well, there's good stuff from Celtic today as well.
0:02:28 > 0:02:29Brendan Rodgers...
0:02:29 > 0:02:34In The Scotsman newsroom, the pressure is to produce tomorrow's news today.
0:02:34 > 0:02:39It's the speed now more than any other ability.
0:02:39 > 0:02:41- Uh-huh, to be first.- That is the important thing.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44- Yeah.- To be first.- To get a story, to put it online,
0:02:44 > 0:02:49to put out on social media, that's really where the emphasis is.
0:02:49 > 0:02:54But five floors below today's fast moving newsroom sits two centuries'
0:02:54 > 0:02:59worth of stories in The Scotsman's astonishing archive.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02200 years' worth of The Scotsman in this room...
0:03:04 > 0:03:08..with a bit of light.
0:03:10 > 0:03:12So round here we have the bound
0:03:12 > 0:03:14copies of The Scotsman.
0:03:14 > 0:03:16The most recent in this aisle, 1984 up to here.
0:03:16 > 0:03:21But if we go right down to the bottom, we will get to 1817,
0:03:21 > 0:03:26- the very start.- 200 years, 53,000 editions,
0:03:26 > 0:03:28over one and a half million pages,
0:03:28 > 0:03:31headlines big and small, happy and sad.
0:03:31 > 0:03:33I can get lost for days in here.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37Some of my colleagues probably wish I would but you can really become
0:03:37 > 0:03:41immersed in so much that was going on at that time in history and some
0:03:41 > 0:03:44of the stories are interlinked.
0:03:44 > 0:03:48A glance through the bound editions reveals big stories that shook the
0:03:48 > 0:03:51world, wee stories that didn't.
0:03:52 > 0:03:55A picture archive full of lost moments.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59First coloured policeman in Edinburgh.
0:03:59 > 0:04:04Mr Laird Maclean, portrait of him, 1971.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07And reports that bear witness to Scotland's history and,
0:04:07 > 0:04:09if you read between the lines,
0:04:09 > 0:04:12you can sense the commitment of the men and women who've written for
0:04:12 > 0:04:14The Paper Thistle.
0:04:16 > 0:04:18That's an important thing for the readers,
0:04:18 > 0:04:20they say to us that you have an obligation,
0:04:20 > 0:04:24you have a responsibility here to get this right because you're
0:04:24 > 0:04:27- actually recording history. - As editor, as custodian of that
0:04:27 > 0:04:29heritage, you are very conscious of it and sometimes it's quite a
0:04:29 > 0:04:31daunting responsibility.
0:04:35 > 0:04:41Since 1817, the reporters, the readers, the printers, the pages,
0:04:41 > 0:04:45the country may have changed beyond recognition,
0:04:45 > 0:04:50but there are still essential elements of The Scotsman that
0:04:50 > 0:04:53the readers expect in every edition.
0:04:53 > 0:04:58And like all good newspaper stories, it begins on the front page.
0:05:01 > 0:05:06The front page is how The Scotsman announces itself to the world.
0:05:06 > 0:05:07You're always looking at the front page,
0:05:07 > 0:05:11you're trying to make that front page as dramatic as you can possibly make it.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13You are on the stands along with 17 other newspapers,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16how do you make people - if they're reaching up for one -
0:05:16 > 0:05:17how do you make them reach for yours?
0:05:17 > 0:05:20The answer is that front page has got to have things on it that are
0:05:20 > 0:05:22going to try and sell it.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25Under that famous masthead,
0:05:25 > 0:05:28The Scotsman must splash the headlines in a distinctive way...
0:05:30 > 0:05:33..every single day.
0:05:33 > 0:05:36Front pages need big stories,
0:05:36 > 0:05:40fantastic photos and attention-grabbing headlines.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44I think you want something that projects the character of the paper
0:05:44 > 0:05:47as well as telling the main story you want to tell.
0:05:47 > 0:05:49I used to sit on the back bench
0:05:49 > 0:05:51every night and look at the headline,
0:05:51 > 0:05:54look at the design, look at the projection,
0:05:54 > 0:05:59the picture on the front, and from time to time say, "Scrap that,
0:05:59 > 0:06:04"let's start again." And everybody would moan and shoulders would slump
0:06:04 > 0:06:05and you start again.
0:06:08 > 0:06:11The Scotsman has had some stunning front pages over the years.
0:06:18 > 0:06:23But on the very first edition of The Scotsman on January 25, 1817,
0:06:23 > 0:06:25there was no splash.
0:06:25 > 0:06:26No headlines.
0:06:26 > 0:06:29Just a declaration of principles.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36It announces itself as an insurgent newspaper.
0:06:36 > 0:06:41Its claims of firmness, independence, impartiality,
0:06:41 > 0:06:46are in a way intended to highlight how the other newspapers at the time
0:06:46 > 0:06:48were not like that.
0:06:48 > 0:06:52If you go back and you read through the first ten or 15 years of
0:06:52 > 0:06:58The Scotsman, it is a very idealistic, crusading newspaper.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01The paper was established by William Ritchie,
0:07:01 > 0:07:04a Fife solicitor, and Charles Maclaren, a Customs man.
0:07:05 > 0:07:11And the front-page news was that Edinburgh now had a paper of principle.
0:07:11 > 0:07:16So much so that in 1829 when The Scotsman was slighted by a rival
0:07:16 > 0:07:19publication, the Caledonian Mercury,
0:07:19 > 0:07:22Charles Maclaren challenged its editor to a duel.
0:07:22 > 0:07:27He's defending the honour of his newspaper because he feels that the
0:07:27 > 0:07:30Caledonian Mercury have impugned that honour.
0:07:32 > 0:07:33- Both men...- Fire!
0:07:34 > 0:07:36..missed.
0:07:38 > 0:07:43The Mercury eventually went out of print but The Scotsman flourished.
0:07:44 > 0:07:46And over the decades,
0:07:46 > 0:07:50the front pages have changed from radical to respectable,
0:07:50 > 0:07:53from a clarion call to a commercial free-for-all.
0:07:55 > 0:07:57Because from 1831,
0:07:57 > 0:08:03the front page of The Scotsman was dedicated to classified ads.
0:08:03 > 0:08:08Ads for operas, ads for caravans, ads for sets of false teeth.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13For over a century, the classifieds were given pride of place.
0:08:14 > 0:08:18Even the sinking of the Titanic couldn't push small ads from the
0:08:18 > 0:08:19front page.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23The Scotsman front page didn't change until the 1950s.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28By then, small ads were what the well-to-do readers of The Scotsman
0:08:28 > 0:08:30expected to see under the masthead.
0:08:32 > 0:08:34And those readers didn't like change.
0:08:36 > 0:08:41They liked their Scotsman to be predictable, constant, unsurprising.
0:08:42 > 0:08:47The paper was actually dying on its feet and it was no wonder because it
0:08:47 > 0:08:49was a boring newspaper.
0:08:49 > 0:08:54Even worse, The Scotsman had accrued massive debts.
0:08:54 > 0:08:58Unpaid death duties and a fall in circulation meant by the 1950s
0:08:58 > 0:09:03it found itself teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07Nobody in post-war Britain had the money to buy the publication and
0:09:07 > 0:09:11there were palpitations on Princes Street when the traditional
0:09:11 > 0:09:16patriotic Scotsman was sold to a foreigner!
0:09:18 > 0:09:23There was this brash Canadian and he was the last man on
0:09:23 > 0:09:29earth I would have thought that The Scotsman management and Edinburgh
0:09:29 > 0:09:31would have wanted to own the paper.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36His name was Roy Thomson and his
0:09:36 > 0:09:39main goal was to make a lot of money.
0:09:41 > 0:09:43What's your recipe for this success?
0:09:43 > 0:09:48By complete concentration and effort, one can go anywhere at all.
0:09:48 > 0:09:51When Thomson first flew into Edinburgh in 1953,
0:09:51 > 0:09:57Auld Reekie's great and good were unimpressed by the rich little Canuck.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01He had a lot of money and no breeding!
0:10:01 > 0:10:04He obviously hadn't gone to the right schools!
0:10:04 > 0:10:08He was persuaded with difficulty not to bring an American Cadillac to the
0:10:08 > 0:10:10streets of Edinburgh.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14He just didn't understand the city.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18But he understood business and he had big changes planned for
0:10:18 > 0:10:20- The Paper Thistle.- It's my pleasure.
0:10:20 > 0:10:26He said, "The first thing I'd like to change is the front page,"
0:10:26 > 0:10:32because it was full of small ads and he said, "Really, I mean,
0:10:32 > 0:10:35"who wants to pick up their newspaper in the morning
0:10:35 > 0:10:40"and the first thing they see is something that tells them to drink
0:10:40 > 0:10:42"Andrews Liver Salts?"
0:10:42 > 0:10:45And everybody looked at each other and said, "Oh!"
0:10:47 > 0:10:52It took four full years for Thomson to persuade the journalists this was
0:10:52 > 0:10:57a good idea. But finally on the 17th of April 1957,
0:10:57 > 0:11:01Scotland's national newspaper put news across its front page.
0:11:06 > 0:11:08And The Scotsman's been splashing ever since.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24The news pages of The Scotsman were filled with the unglamorous business
0:11:24 > 0:11:28of accurately and impartially reporting Scottish news.
0:11:30 > 0:11:34If journalism is the first draft of history, then on some of Scotland's
0:11:34 > 0:11:38darkest days, The Scotsman was there in the front row.
0:11:39 > 0:11:41In 1828,
0:11:41 > 0:11:44readers were gripped by the accounts of the gruesome trial
0:11:44 > 0:11:45of Burke and Hare.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51In 1916, it witnessed zeppelins dropping bombs on the Grassmarket.
0:11:54 > 0:11:58In 1960, it described a tragic whisky bond fire in Glasgow.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01When it came to street reporting,
0:12:01 > 0:12:05we had people around who could do the job all right and there was a
0:12:05 > 0:12:09point made about how vivid The Scotsman's reporting was.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14And Scotsman reporters brought us one of the most earth-shattering
0:12:14 > 0:12:16exclusives of all time.
0:12:19 > 0:12:24Oh, I can't really think of anything of a scientific discovery that would
0:12:24 > 0:12:29really change the whole way that you look on the globe and its history,
0:12:29 > 0:12:31which was revealed in a newspaper.
0:12:32 > 0:12:36This epic exclusive was unveiled in 1840.
0:12:38 > 0:12:42A brilliant young geologist called Louis Agassiz had come to Scotland
0:12:42 > 0:12:44and the editor of The Scotsman sent a reporter to accompany him to
0:12:44 > 0:12:46the Highlands.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54He was then reported at gigantic length in The Scotsman.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58These explosive reports, published BEFORE Darwin's theory of evolution,
0:12:58 > 0:13:03implied that the earth had not been created in seven days, because the
0:13:03 > 0:13:08scarring on the landscape must have been caused by ancient ice.
0:13:08 > 0:13:11This really was very big shock to, you know,
0:13:11 > 0:13:15the pious readership of Edinburgh and the Lothians.
0:13:15 > 0:13:20There had been an Ice Age and this evidence in Scotland proves it.
0:13:23 > 0:13:262.6 million years after the event,
0:13:26 > 0:13:30The Scotsman reporter was on the spot with breaking news...
0:13:31 > 0:13:36The Ice Age - and it was the first paper in the world to reveal that it
0:13:36 > 0:13:41- had happened at all.- They're quite difficult to read now and it was
0:13:41 > 0:13:44boring but nonetheless, they represent
0:13:44 > 0:13:48what one would call a scoop of gigantic scale -
0:13:48 > 0:13:50The Scotsman's biggest scoop,
0:13:50 > 0:13:52the Ice Age.
0:13:53 > 0:13:55But for most of its history,
0:13:55 > 0:14:00The Scotsman's news pages have been less mind-blowing, because the paper
0:14:00 > 0:14:04prided itself on being Scotland's paper of record.
0:14:04 > 0:14:08Whenever there was a committee meeting, a public speech, a civic soiree,
0:14:08 > 0:14:12it would be entered into The Scotsman's desk diary.
0:14:12 > 0:14:14This great big red book,
0:14:14 > 0:14:16I remember, it was like a kind of Bible,
0:14:16 > 0:14:19you know, and the things that have to be covered.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22Any Scottish MP who spoke in the House of Commons
0:14:22 > 0:14:24would expect a paragraph
0:14:24 > 0:14:27or two in The Scotsman the next day or would want to know why not.
0:14:27 > 0:14:31Reporters were allocated stories from the desk diary and duly
0:14:31 > 0:14:35recorded what happened. No matter if it was newsworthy or not.
0:14:35 > 0:14:37The first job I was given in
0:14:37 > 0:14:40The Scotsman was to cover a cage-bird show.
0:14:42 > 0:14:46I seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time at Lothian Regional
0:14:46 > 0:14:48Council's Drainage Committee.
0:14:48 > 0:14:50I knew an awful lot about the drainage problems underlying the
0:14:50 > 0:14:52City of Edinburgh.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56This commitment to cataloguing every spit and cough of every civic
0:14:56 > 0:15:01committee meant the news pages could be uninspiring.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04I think some of the stories probably were quite boring but The Scotsman
0:15:04 > 0:15:08felt it had a duty to cover certain things.
0:15:10 > 0:15:12By the 1970s,
0:15:12 > 0:15:15reporters began to rebel against the diktats of the desk diary.
0:15:17 > 0:15:22One of the subs got very drunk late on and wrote right across the next
0:15:22 > 0:15:26day's diary page, "When are you..." - bad word -
0:15:26 > 0:15:29"..c...s going
0:15:29 > 0:15:32"to try and produce some real news for once?"
0:15:34 > 0:15:39In the end, events overtook the events diary.
0:15:39 > 0:15:41As the 1970s and '80s progressed,
0:15:41 > 0:15:46the news agenda elsewhere pushed the utterings of Edinburgh blazers and
0:15:46 > 0:15:47committee men to the margins.
0:15:48 > 0:15:53I was at the graveside when the funeral of the Gibraltar Three,
0:15:53 > 0:15:58the IRA terrorists, was attacked by a loyalist gunmen throwing grenades.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00Jesus.
0:16:00 > 0:16:02They sent me to Glasgow.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06In Glasgow there was news, there was hard news, there was real events,
0:16:06 > 0:16:08there was murders, there was gang wars,
0:16:08 > 0:16:09there was disasters on a scale -
0:16:09 > 0:16:12a hard news scale - that didn't happen in Edinburgh.
0:16:12 > 0:16:13It could get quite hairy.
0:16:13 > 0:16:16This was real seat-of-the-pants stuff.
0:16:16 > 0:16:24It was a notebook, a pen, no mobile phones and it was... It was great,
0:16:24 > 0:16:25I mean, it was exciting.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30And the pressure to cover every aspect of Scottish Civic life was
0:16:30 > 0:16:32put to rest in the late '80s,
0:16:32 > 0:16:34when Magnus Linklater was appointed editor.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38And one of the first questions he was asked by staff was if he
0:16:38 > 0:16:40saw The Scotsman as a paper of record.
0:16:43 > 0:16:48My immediate answer was no, and I remember the intake of breath
0:16:48 > 0:16:50from the assembled company.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54I thought the newspaper ought to be a newspaper campaigning,
0:16:54 > 0:16:57investigating, reporting in depth.
0:16:57 > 0:17:01That was far more important than this long-standing tradition of
0:17:01 > 0:17:04being a newspaper of record.
0:17:04 > 0:17:09It wasn't about quantity of news, it was about quality - the tone,
0:17:09 > 0:17:12the understanding, and what was expected,
0:17:12 > 0:17:15particularly in traumatic times for Scotland.
0:17:15 > 0:17:19Someone interrupted the conference and poked his head round the door
0:17:19 > 0:17:23and said, "There's been a shooting in a school in Dunblane."
0:17:23 > 0:17:27Now, we had no idea, I had no idea, the magnitude of that story.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30It could have just been somebody was wounded.
0:17:30 > 0:17:34But as we began to realise what was happening, and we had to say first
0:17:34 > 0:17:37of all to the staff, "Right, here are the rules.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40"Report the facts, keep everything as straight as possible,
0:17:40 > 0:17:43"be sympathetic to whoever is out there."
0:17:43 > 0:17:47And then we had to find out who knew what and cover every base you
0:17:47 > 0:17:50possibly could, as sensitively as you possibly could.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52No over-emotionalism.
0:17:58 > 0:18:02Readers expected The Scotsman to cover the big Scottish stories with
0:18:02 > 0:18:06both understanding and hard-headed, in-depth analysis.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10But The Scotsman also had to be national and international.
0:18:12 > 0:18:16In the '90s, the paper recruited a network of correspondents in war zones.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21And they'd call Andrew McLeod on the foreign desk and provide eyewitness
0:18:21 > 0:18:27accounts of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and, on one harrowing occasion,
0:18:27 > 0:18:28in Bosnia.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33I do remember a call.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37He'd just see these things and he would run through them pretty
0:18:37 > 0:18:39breathlessly, what he had just seen,
0:18:39 > 0:18:43and one time he phoned and he said "Andrew, I've just been in a house."
0:18:43 > 0:18:46And I said, "Yeah." "And it was dark,
0:18:46 > 0:18:49"I walked into the room and, erm..."
0:18:51 > 0:18:53He said, "...it's... I thought, 'Well,
0:18:53 > 0:18:58"'the water pipes must have burst,'" he said, 'in the battle,'
0:18:58 > 0:19:00"because it was all wet."
0:19:01 > 0:19:05And he said, "But it wasn't water," he said, "It was...
0:19:05 > 0:19:08"It was squelching with blood, the floorboards,"
0:19:08 > 0:19:11"the blood was coming up through the floorboards." He said, "There'd been
0:19:11 > 0:19:17"a massacre in there." And outside, he'd found the bodies of a father and son.
0:19:20 > 0:19:24At its best, the news pages of The Scotsman brought first-hand accounts
0:19:24 > 0:19:28from a dangerous and increasingly complex world to the safety of
0:19:28 > 0:19:31breakfast tables across Scotland.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35It's important to witness it.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38You're not a complete newspaper unless you're covering everything.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41That's my view. And if you're not covering foreign news,
0:19:41 > 0:19:43in my view, you're not a newspaper.
0:19:50 > 0:19:54But newspapers have never been just about the news.
0:19:54 > 0:19:57A friend of mine once said that a
0:19:57 > 0:20:01newspaper is a formatted set of surprises.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03And I think it's a magnificent description.
0:20:05 > 0:20:07In its very first edition,
0:20:07 > 0:20:11The Scotsman declared itself a political and literary journal.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14And to be the newspaper of Scotland's chattering classes,
0:20:14 > 0:20:18The Scotsman must deliver provocative pages of artistic
0:20:18 > 0:20:20and literary chatter.
0:20:22 > 0:20:27The arts pages were the throbbing heart of the paper and to have
0:20:27 > 0:20:30good critics, good reviewers, was imperative.
0:20:30 > 0:20:32We run, I think,
0:20:32 > 0:20:35probably the most comprehensive Edinburgh Festival coverage
0:20:35 > 0:20:36of any newspaper.
0:20:37 > 0:20:42I think there have probably been days when I've submitted 14 or 15 reviews.
0:20:44 > 0:20:48Whilst the arts pages celebrate what's in the spotlight,
0:20:48 > 0:20:53Scotsman features try to get behind the facade, to reveal
0:20:53 > 0:20:56hidden sides to familiar people and places.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59Your dream Scotsman Magazine story might be At Home With JK Rowling,
0:20:59 > 0:21:03where she shows you all her latest work and tells you exclusively
0:21:03 > 0:21:06what she's working on next and reveals how much she loves
0:21:06 > 0:21:08the paper, that sort of thing!
0:21:09 > 0:21:13But many features are longer stories that evoke a time and a place.
0:21:15 > 0:21:20For example, what was it like to get a job on The Scotsman in its heyday?
0:21:21 > 0:21:25Well, I was a student down in Cambridge and I heard that The Scotsman had
0:21:25 > 0:21:29a last-minute vacancy, and in those days the best way up was the
0:21:29 > 0:21:31night sleeper. I was in the cheap one,
0:21:31 > 0:21:33which meant that you shared a compartment.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37There were two bunks. I arrived on the bunk and there was a guy sitting
0:21:37 > 0:21:41in his underpants, literally, and a string vest, and he had one of those
0:21:41 > 0:21:44great big multipack cartons of Special Brew and a thick,
0:21:44 > 0:21:46thick fug of cigarette smoke.
0:21:46 > 0:21:47He looked up and he said, "Eh, sir,
0:21:47 > 0:21:50"I hope you're not one of they, 'Oh, I don't like to smoke,
0:21:50 > 0:21:54"'I don't like to drink,' or one of they kind of student poofs, are ye?"
0:21:54 > 0:21:56I said, "No, no, of course not."
0:22:00 > 0:22:04And so I sat there and smoked maybe 300 or 400 cigarettes and drank
0:22:04 > 0:22:07maybe a dozen cans of Special Brew rather than sleeping.
0:22:07 > 0:22:11So I arrived in Waverley Station the following morning smelling like a
0:22:11 > 0:22:16kipper, red-faced, bleary, blotchy, hair all over the place,
0:22:16 > 0:22:20eyes bright scarlet and I had an early-morning interview at The Scotsman.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23And I went down to the newsroom and opened the door
0:22:23 > 0:22:27and there staring at me, about 20 or 30 people who looked worse than
0:22:27 > 0:22:29I was. And I thought, "I've come home."
0:22:32 > 0:22:37Home for Scotsman journalists was the famous North Bridge offices.
0:22:37 > 0:22:40Purpose-built in 1905, it was a legendary place to work.
0:22:42 > 0:22:45The building was festooned with tubes.
0:22:45 > 0:22:47It was noisy, it could be quite sweaty at times.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50You have to think of a very,
0:22:50 > 0:22:54very strong smell of bodies and cigarette and pipe smoke.
0:22:54 > 0:22:58And there's lots of inky-fingered people wandering around in boiler suits.
0:22:58 > 0:23:01Down at the bottom, opposite the back of the station,
0:23:01 > 0:23:02you had the printing presses.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06Above that you had the case room where the typesetting was done.
0:23:06 > 0:23:08Above that you had the newsrooms.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11Above street level it became, you know, accountants,
0:23:11 > 0:23:14advertising and the people running the place,
0:23:14 > 0:23:17managing director's office would be on the top floor.
0:23:17 > 0:23:21If the building was eccentric, so were the occupants.
0:23:21 > 0:23:28The building itself lent itself to people being able to disappear
0:23:28 > 0:23:31and we had people, for example,
0:23:31 > 0:23:35who had separated from their partners, who were actually living
0:23:35 > 0:23:39in the building. We had people who had retired but refused to be
0:23:39 > 0:23:41retired and used to come into work every day.
0:23:41 > 0:23:43MUSIC: Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode
0:23:43 > 0:23:45And no wonder.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49As there was one journalistic stereotype that ran very true.
0:23:50 > 0:23:54Anybody who thinks that we exaggerate the drinking culture of
0:23:54 > 0:23:57The Scotsman in the '80s wasn't there at the time.
0:23:57 > 0:23:59It was pretty extreme.
0:23:59 > 0:24:03Drinking in those days was, you know, a completely tolerated thing.
0:24:03 > 0:24:04Nowadays, you know,
0:24:04 > 0:24:08the idea even that somebody might have a glass of wine would be seen
0:24:08 > 0:24:12- as rather louche.- There was certainly no opprobrium attached to the idea
0:24:12 > 0:24:15you've gone for a couple of pints during your break.
0:24:17 > 0:24:20I was taken to lunch by an editor and, you know,
0:24:20 > 0:24:23there was a drink before lunch,
0:24:23 > 0:24:27there was two bottles of wine at lunch, and as we came up Cockburn Street
0:24:27 > 0:24:29towards The Scotsman office, he said
0:24:29 > 0:24:32"Well, we'll just pop into the Malt Shovel
0:24:32 > 0:24:36"and see what the malt of the day is."
0:24:36 > 0:24:40As a young reporter, I would expect to be in the Jinglin' Geordie
0:24:40 > 0:24:44virtually every day by midday, and I would expect to drink, sort of, five or six pints
0:24:44 > 0:24:47and then a fair amount of wine and possibly tequila, and then come back
0:24:47 > 0:24:49and do my afternoon's work.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51We would often go to the Doric and
0:24:51 > 0:24:54consume a ridiculous amount of alcohol
0:24:54 > 0:24:56over lunchtime, discussing the
0:24:56 > 0:24:59paper and maybe entertaining contacts.
0:25:01 > 0:25:05And then go back and try to focus on
0:25:05 > 0:25:09two fingers not getting stuck in the typewriter, as it was.
0:25:09 > 0:25:12And the first thing that you learned was to be able to produce apparently
0:25:12 > 0:25:15lucid copy in a state of almost catatonic drunkenness.
0:25:19 > 0:25:21Was it a good thing? Probably no.
0:25:21 > 0:25:25But is it a good thing to be sitting stuck in front of a computer screen
0:25:25 > 0:25:28nonstop for ten hours, hardly ever speaking to another person,
0:25:28 > 0:25:31without going out and meeting people and making contacts?
0:25:31 > 0:25:32I think that's even worse.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41The Scotsman first launched a women's page in 1925,
0:25:41 > 0:25:43which was called Woman To Date.
0:25:45 > 0:25:48Over the years, there have been various pages for the ladies,
0:25:48 > 0:25:51but precious few women in the building to write them.
0:25:51 > 0:25:56The women's page, well, there weren't very many women.
0:25:56 > 0:25:59The Scotsman was very much male-dominated.
0:26:02 > 0:26:04Throughout the 1950s and '60s,
0:26:04 > 0:26:08male editors largely expected the woman's page to be a formulaic rote
0:26:08 > 0:26:12of recipes, fashion and domestic delight.
0:26:12 > 0:26:15And on the rare occasions when they took any interest,
0:26:15 > 0:26:17it confirmed that Scotsmen were from Mars
0:26:17 > 0:26:20and Scotswomen were from Venus.
0:26:20 > 0:26:25Alastair Dunnett was asking what we had for the women's page that night and he said,
0:26:25 > 0:26:29"I like that but what I don't want...
0:26:29 > 0:26:33"I don't want simmets."
0:26:34 > 0:26:36And I said, "Oh, I see."
0:26:36 > 0:26:39So I went back to the girls on the women's page and said,
0:26:39 > 0:26:41"He says he doesn't want simmets!"
0:26:42 > 0:26:46And I think he meant he didn't want parochialism.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50We thought that might be it but we weren't very sure!
0:26:50 > 0:26:52SHE CHUCKLES
0:26:52 > 0:26:54By the 1970s,
0:26:54 > 0:26:56female hacks began to escape from the good housekeeping ghetto of the
0:26:56 > 0:27:00women's page and brought a very different sensibility to
0:27:00 > 0:27:02The Scotsman reporting role.
0:27:04 > 0:27:08Margaret Thatcher swept into the room, sat down...
0:27:08 > 0:27:12I seem to remember I was the only woman at that press conference,
0:27:12 > 0:27:17literally, the only woman there and eventually I put up my hand and
0:27:17 > 0:27:21asked her, "Well, what do you think about the current movement for women's rights
0:27:21 > 0:27:23"and should there be more women in the House of Commons?" blah,
0:27:23 > 0:27:25blah and she said,
0:27:25 > 0:27:29"I hate the expression women's lib," which I'd never used anyway,
0:27:29 > 0:27:34and she went on to denounce women's lib because it made women who stayed
0:27:34 > 0:27:38at home bringing up their children feel inferior. And so the
0:27:38 > 0:27:42conversation continued and then she kind of cut me short, saying, "But, you know,
0:27:42 > 0:27:45"enough of that, we'll bore the men."
0:27:47 > 0:27:48By the 1990s,
0:27:48 > 0:27:53The Scotsman realised it was having trouble attracting Scotswomen.
0:27:53 > 0:27:56Radical thinking was required.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00The guys upstairs were noticing that women readers were peeling away from
0:28:00 > 0:28:03The Scotsman and they concluded they needed to do something,
0:28:03 > 0:28:05but they didn't know what it was.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09Sitting in an editorial board of 13 people, of which I was the only woman,
0:28:09 > 0:28:11it seemed kind of obvious to me.
0:28:11 > 0:28:13So finally one day I kind of cleared my throat and said,
0:28:13 > 0:28:15"What about this idea?"
0:28:18 > 0:28:23The idea was The Scotsman would have a sex change for
0:28:23 > 0:28:26International Women's Day, to rechristen the paper The Scotswoman.
0:28:26 > 0:28:28To my astonishment,
0:28:28 > 0:28:32at least half the guys on the board totally agreed with it straight off.
0:28:36 > 0:28:41The idea of it was to say that who edits a paper dictates, very largely,
0:28:41 > 0:28:46its agenda, its outlook, the stories it selects, all these things.
0:28:48 > 0:28:51The Scotswoman was published on the 8th of March, 1995.
0:28:54 > 0:28:58All the editorial decisions were taken by women.
0:28:58 > 0:29:00The splash focused on equality.
0:29:01 > 0:29:03It had a tokenistic men's page.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09And The Scotswoman made headlines all over the world.
0:29:10 > 0:29:13I got phone calls with each time zone that woke up,
0:29:13 > 0:29:15so I stayed up all night.
0:29:15 > 0:29:18There was a bit of a feeling of triumph.
0:29:18 > 0:29:21It was the highest-selling edition of that decade.
0:29:22 > 0:29:25We, for donkey's years, have been buying The Scotsman.
0:29:25 > 0:29:29It should be more for women, why not? Why The Scotsman, eh?
0:29:29 > 0:29:32And then I appeared in The Scotsman, the meeting,
0:29:32 > 0:29:33the normal morning meeting,
0:29:33 > 0:29:37and I remember the editor of the day turned to me and said,
0:29:37 > 0:29:38"Well, yesterday was all right.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41"Henry, do you want to go through the sport?"
0:29:48 > 0:29:52For 200 years, Scotsman readers have been writing of their disgust, joy,
0:29:52 > 0:29:57praise and delight to the editor of The Scotsman.
0:29:57 > 0:30:00I turn to the letters page, which is very important,
0:30:00 > 0:30:03where a great deal of steam emanates from that page.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06We do publish letters that we don't agree with - we always have.
0:30:06 > 0:30:08Again, that's a founding principle of the newspaper.
0:30:08 > 0:30:12To read a newspaper is to participate in the conversation.
0:30:12 > 0:30:17This is part of our national conversation, that's why it's so important.
0:30:17 > 0:30:20History has been made on The Scotsman's letters pages.
0:30:20 > 0:30:22In 1870,
0:30:22 > 0:30:26correspondents arranged the world's first international rugby match.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29And during the First World War,
0:30:29 > 0:30:32The Scotsman published letters from the trenches that gave eyewitness
0:30:32 > 0:30:35accounts of the Christmas truce of 1914.
0:30:37 > 0:30:40Some letters are more critical.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44And some never made it to the editor's desk.
0:30:44 > 0:30:48The letters were put in this wire basket behind the back bench and I
0:30:48 > 0:30:51certainly know of at least two occasions when a journalist went through
0:30:51 > 0:30:55that day's letters and saw somebody complaining about him, you know,
0:30:55 > 0:30:58one of the reporters, or one of the specialists, just took the letter out,
0:30:58 > 0:31:00crumpled it up, and threw it away.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03That was, in a way, how things worked, you know!
0:31:03 > 0:31:07Sometimes complaining letters did get through but were banished
0:31:07 > 0:31:09for other reasons.
0:31:09 > 0:31:13One of the letter writers that I had to keep at bay was my mother,
0:31:13 > 0:31:17who was the SNP agent in Orkney and used to write
0:31:17 > 0:31:24ferocious letters criticising The Scotsman's stance and I had to put a
0:31:24 > 0:31:26moratorium on that -
0:31:26 > 0:31:31I thought it would not actually look very good if I had my mother writing
0:31:31 > 0:31:32to the paper.
0:31:35 > 0:31:39Some readers have spent their lives writing to The Scotsman, and in one
0:31:39 > 0:31:41case beyond a lifetime.
0:31:42 > 0:31:45In 2015, David Fiddimore,
0:31:45 > 0:31:48a regular correspondent facing a terminal diagnosis,
0:31:48 > 0:31:52wrote a final missive to The Scotsman, requesting that it be held
0:31:52 > 0:31:54until after his death.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59When he passed away, his last love letter to the paper was published.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25But when you send a letter to the editor of The Scotsman,
0:32:25 > 0:32:28just who are you writing to?
0:32:34 > 0:32:38There have been 26 editors of The Scotsman in the past two centuries.
0:32:40 > 0:32:42Ten in the past 20 years.
0:32:45 > 0:32:48Whenever I do go out to anything and meet people,
0:32:48 > 0:32:50everybody knows The Scotsman,
0:32:50 > 0:32:53everybody has a view as to what I do right and what I do wrong.
0:32:53 > 0:32:57Many of them are not slow in coming forward in telling me what I'm doing wrong.
0:32:57 > 0:32:59In two centuries of The Scotsman,
0:32:59 > 0:33:03there have been two editors who have changed the readers' relationship
0:33:03 > 0:33:05with the paper.
0:33:05 > 0:33:09The first was an old-school newspaperman who almost nobody outside the
0:33:09 > 0:33:11North Bridge building has ever heard of,
0:33:11 > 0:33:14but was a legend amongst journalists.
0:33:14 > 0:33:17His name was Eric MacKay.
0:33:19 > 0:33:22Eric Mackay was the journalists' favourite editor.
0:33:22 > 0:33:27Eric Mackay came from the North East and I always thought of him as being
0:33:27 > 0:33:32hewn from a granite quarry somewhere in the North East because he had a
0:33:32 > 0:33:36solidity and a kind of immovability that was remarkable.
0:33:38 > 0:33:40He was pretty monosyllabic.
0:33:40 > 0:33:43Occasionally, if he heard an interesting piece of gossip,
0:33:43 > 0:33:44he'd say, "Ah, get away!"
0:33:44 > 0:33:46You know, "What happened?"
0:33:46 > 0:33:50My goodness, he cared about that paper and he knew every word that
0:33:50 > 0:33:56- appeared in it.- Mackay became editor in 1972 and for 13 years he cajoled
0:33:56 > 0:33:59and supported his journalists.
0:33:59 > 0:34:01He said a lot of great things,
0:34:01 > 0:34:03the sort of things you wanted an editor to say to you.
0:34:03 > 0:34:06When the miners' strike really kicked off,
0:34:06 > 0:34:08he called me in and said,
0:34:08 > 0:34:11"Look, the coverage over the next few months is bound to be dominated,
0:34:11 > 0:34:16"the news coverage, by the coal board setting the agenda and we'll
0:34:16 > 0:34:19"be going to the NUM for reaction.
0:34:19 > 0:34:23"What I want you to do is to go out to the mining communities and the pits
0:34:23 > 0:34:26"and get the miners' stories and make the coal board react,
0:34:26 > 0:34:27"so we get a bit of balance."
0:34:29 > 0:34:32Throughout the 1970s and into the early '80s,
0:34:32 > 0:34:36Eric Mackay was at the helm in what was seen as the golden age of
0:34:36 > 0:34:38The Scotsman.
0:34:42 > 0:34:45And the readers appreciated it.
0:34:45 > 0:34:49Under Mackay's leadership during that political period,
0:34:49 > 0:34:52the paper put on a vast amount of circulation.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55It peaked at one point at just over 100,000,
0:34:55 > 0:34:58because it was so tuned in to
0:34:58 > 0:35:00what was happening with Scottish society.
0:35:04 > 0:35:08And even when a journalist dared to disagree with the legendary editor,
0:35:08 > 0:35:10Mackay handled it with delicacy.
0:35:12 > 0:35:16I sort of felt that I was due a little more money, so I would go in
0:35:16 > 0:35:19on a number of times and have a chat with Eric about money,
0:35:19 > 0:35:21and he had this way
0:35:21 > 0:35:24of looking at you - "I hear what you're saying,
0:35:24 > 0:35:29"leave it with me." And at that your shoulders sagged and you realised
0:35:29 > 0:35:32there's not a hope in hell of getting another brass farthing out
0:35:32 > 0:35:34of the organisation, you know.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37He did it beautifully and I didn't lose trust in him.
0:35:37 > 0:35:40After nearly 13 years in the editor's chair,
0:35:40 > 0:35:42Eric Mackay retired in 1985.
0:35:43 > 0:35:47Chris Baur took over, but it was a difficult moment to be the editor,
0:35:47 > 0:35:50because the management were determined to change pay and conditions,
0:35:50 > 0:35:53even if that meant a conflict with their journalists.
0:35:53 > 0:35:55MUSIC: Chance by Big Country
0:35:55 > 0:35:58We turned up for work one day and the doors were barricaded,
0:35:58 > 0:36:02we were locked out, it was an old-fashioned Victorian lock-out.
0:36:02 > 0:36:06I had a choice to make because I was technically editorial management but
0:36:06 > 0:36:10I couldn't bring myself to support the management management of that paper
0:36:10 > 0:36:14and I guess I thought there was a better class of people in the picket line.
0:36:14 > 0:36:18We could go across the close, Fleshmarket Close,
0:36:18 > 0:36:21up to the offices of the agency, United News Service, and peer across
0:36:21 > 0:36:26through the windows and see, in what had been my room, the features room,
0:36:26 > 0:36:29a makeshift newsroom being operated by people we didn't recognise,
0:36:29 > 0:36:32bringing the paper out day after day, while we were locked out.
0:36:39 > 0:36:42I remember I was standing outside the staff entrance of The Scotsman
0:36:42 > 0:36:47the first time that I had been designated to be one of that day's pickets and
0:36:47 > 0:36:51up these steps from Waverley Station came a number of people who worked
0:36:51 > 0:36:52for The Herald who
0:36:52 > 0:36:55were coming home - they lived in Edinburgh,
0:36:55 > 0:36:56worked for The Herald in Glasgow,
0:36:56 > 0:36:59and they were coming home off the train and as they passed,
0:36:59 > 0:37:03they pressed bottles of drink into our hands as a nice gesture
0:37:03 > 0:37:05of solidarity.
0:37:05 > 0:37:08To the dismay of striking journalists, The Scotsman,
0:37:08 > 0:37:11albeit thin and of a poor standard,
0:37:11 > 0:37:15was hitting the streets every day and eventually,
0:37:15 > 0:37:17the hacks had to concede.
0:37:17 > 0:37:20And we went back with our tail between our legs.
0:37:20 > 0:37:23Our conditions were quite savagely attacked.
0:37:23 > 0:37:26Longer hours, changes to the working week,
0:37:26 > 0:37:30effectively pay cut, and quite a lot of recriminations.
0:37:30 > 0:37:32It was a horrible time.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36In 1987, dispute about budget,
0:37:36 > 0:37:39pay and conditions went to the very core of the paper.
0:37:39 > 0:37:43Thomson Regional News specialised in regional papers,
0:37:43 > 0:37:47but The Scotsman saw itself as a national paper.
0:37:47 > 0:37:50Thomson Regional Newspapers never got it at all,
0:37:50 > 0:37:52they never got Scotland in the least.
0:37:52 > 0:37:54They just kept saying,
0:37:54 > 0:37:57"Well, why can't you just share Parliamentary services with the
0:37:57 > 0:38:01"Middlesbrough Evening News, for example?"
0:38:01 > 0:38:05Presenting The Scotsman as Scotland's national newspaper has
0:38:05 > 0:38:09always had one flaw - the West has traditionally favoured the Herald.
0:38:09 > 0:38:13Dundee has the Courier and there's the Press and Journal in the
0:38:13 > 0:38:17North East. But when Magnus Linklater became editor in 1988,
0:38:17 > 0:38:20he thought he could tackle that head-on.
0:38:20 > 0:38:25I remember once trying to build our Glasgow circulation by sending out
0:38:25 > 0:38:29invitations to all the leading businesses in Glasgow to take
0:38:29 > 0:38:32six weeks' free subscription to
0:38:32 > 0:38:37The Scotsman and there was nil take up.
0:38:37 > 0:38:39I mean, the Glasgow businessmen,
0:38:39 > 0:38:42some of them not only refused to take up the free offer,
0:38:42 > 0:38:45some of them took the trouble to write back saying, "I wouldn't have
0:38:45 > 0:38:48"The Scotsman in my office if you paid me."
0:38:48 > 0:38:53So, there was a complete division, really, but we didn't recognise that,
0:38:53 > 0:38:55we regarded ourselves as a Scottish national paper.
0:38:56 > 0:39:00But even the management weren't convinced that The Scotsman was
0:39:00 > 0:39:03indeed the country's national paper.
0:39:03 > 0:39:05When I was fired -
0:39:05 > 0:39:09and I think it's a bit of a badge of honour to be fired as an editor -
0:39:09 > 0:39:11I fell out with the management,
0:39:11 > 0:39:15I think, largely because I still regarded
0:39:15 > 0:39:17The Scotsman as a national paper
0:39:17 > 0:39:22and I think they felt that that was an expensive item and it should be a
0:39:22 > 0:39:25regional paper, which would be much cheaper.
0:39:25 > 0:39:28MUSIC: Movin' On Up by Primal Scream
0:39:28 > 0:39:30In 1995,
0:39:30 > 0:39:34Thomson Regional News sold The Scotsman to the Barclay brothers.
0:39:34 > 0:39:37Frederick and David Barclay were twin-brother billionaires who lived
0:39:37 > 0:39:41as tax exiles in the Channel Islands and had a burning desire to own a
0:39:41 > 0:39:42national paper.
0:39:42 > 0:39:45And they invested in The Scotsman,
0:39:45 > 0:39:49buying a brand-new home and providing extra resources.
0:39:52 > 0:39:56They were determined to give it the power to fight on that stage and to
0:39:56 > 0:39:58win on that stage.
0:39:58 > 0:40:01We had the money to do international affairs properly,
0:40:01 > 0:40:04to expand The Scotsman's coverage of Scotland.
0:40:04 > 0:40:06It was a tremendous time to be there.
0:40:07 > 0:40:12But the Barclay brothers were also notoriously publicity-shy and so
0:40:12 > 0:40:15needed someone experienced, who was comfortable in the spotlight,
0:40:15 > 0:40:17to steer The Scotsman.
0:40:19 > 0:40:22And they made possibly the most controversial appointment in the
0:40:22 > 0:40:23history of the paper,
0:40:23 > 0:40:26making Andrew Neil editor in chief.
0:40:27 > 0:40:30I'm here to spend money, I'm here to invest in the journalism,
0:40:30 > 0:40:33I'm here to invest in the marketing of our papers.
0:40:33 > 0:40:37Andrew Neil was a former editor of the Sunday Times,
0:40:37 > 0:40:39a devout Thatcherite,
0:40:39 > 0:40:43whose autobiography described the Scottish media as
0:40:43 > 0:40:45"largely old-fashioned, left wing".
0:40:45 > 0:40:49He claimed that Tony Blair hoped his appointment would help bring
0:40:49 > 0:40:54Scottish political opinion into the last decade of the 20th century.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57I mean, it's going to be a wonderful, feisty time, you know,
0:40:57 > 0:40:58here's a dynamic guy,
0:40:58 > 0:41:01coming back to Scotland at a time where three papers
0:41:01 > 0:41:02are doing remarkably well,
0:41:02 > 0:41:04and we want to take them forward and upward,
0:41:04 > 0:41:06and what better guy to do that?
0:41:06 > 0:41:08By the 1990s,
0:41:08 > 0:41:11tartan editions of the big English dailies were impacting on the
0:41:11 > 0:41:15circulation of Scottish newspapers.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18The new editor in chief had a fight on his hands.
0:41:18 > 0:41:22Working for Andrew is a tough experience.
0:41:22 > 0:41:27He had these huge ambitions for the newspaper and he didn't see why we
0:41:27 > 0:41:30couldn't be better than Fleet Street.
0:41:30 > 0:41:33If you had him in a newsroom, you know,
0:41:33 > 0:41:36you could see why he had such a formidable reputation.
0:41:36 > 0:41:41He basically asks his staff to jump to the moon and you kind of think,
0:41:41 > 0:41:43"That's crazy, we can't jump to the moon."
0:41:43 > 0:41:46But you end up jumping higher than you ever thought you could jump.
0:41:46 > 0:41:49In an interview, he compared old Scotsman journalists to carthorses
0:41:49 > 0:41:54and declared they would be replaced with, "frisky young stallions and mares."
0:41:55 > 0:42:01He didn't mind offending people like that or challenging shibboleths.
0:42:01 > 0:42:03He cut the cover price.
0:42:03 > 0:42:06Star columnists were appointed.
0:42:06 > 0:42:08By August 2000, circulation had
0:42:08 > 0:42:11risen beyond the magical 100,000 mark.
0:42:12 > 0:42:15Andrew Neil, who remained in London,
0:42:15 > 0:42:17held a champagne reception at The Dorchester.
0:42:19 > 0:42:22But not everyone was inclined to raise a glass to the editor in chief
0:42:22 > 0:42:24and his bold, new vision.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27I was spiked for three months.
0:42:27 > 0:42:30That is, everything you write is not published.
0:42:30 > 0:42:33I had a weekly column, it was spiked every week.
0:42:33 > 0:42:35I came under a lot of pressure to
0:42:35 > 0:42:40publish everything that George Bush said, no matter how irrelevant.
0:42:44 > 0:42:46And it wasn't just staff.
0:42:46 > 0:42:50Andrew Neil seemed to relish winding up civic Scotland.
0:42:50 > 0:42:52If he thought the schools weren't good enough,
0:42:52 > 0:42:56he would really criticise the teachers' unions and the sort of,
0:42:56 > 0:42:59the consensus which still governed Scottish education,
0:42:59 > 0:43:01even if that annoyed a lot of the teachers,
0:43:01 > 0:43:04who were obviously a big part of The Scotsman's readership.
0:43:04 > 0:43:07He started writing about why the Educational Institute of Scotland
0:43:07 > 0:43:09was all wrong to be going on strike,
0:43:09 > 0:43:10they were a bunch of big girls' blouses and
0:43:10 > 0:43:13should get back to work and do what they were told.
0:43:13 > 0:43:15And when you alienate a constituency like that, it lets you know.
0:43:15 > 0:43:18He was right about a lot of things, you know -
0:43:18 > 0:43:21he was right that the education system wasn't as good as we thought
0:43:21 > 0:43:23it was, for example.
0:43:23 > 0:43:27The problem was that if you wanted to persuade people,
0:43:27 > 0:43:29bring them onto your side,
0:43:29 > 0:43:32that wasn't going to happen overnight.
0:43:32 > 0:43:34Andrew didn't have the patience for that evolving.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38He wanted to say, "Listen to me, wake up,
0:43:38 > 0:43:41"you know, get a grip, get involved in this."
0:43:43 > 0:43:47Eventually, the regular readers in Edinburgh began to get the sense
0:43:47 > 0:43:51that under Andrew Neil, their paper didn't love them any more.
0:43:51 > 0:43:54I remember the phrase being used, you know,
0:43:54 > 0:43:58"We must tackle the Scottish establishment."
0:43:58 > 0:44:03But actually, The Scotsman WAS, in a sense, the Scottish establishment in,
0:44:03 > 0:44:05I think, the best, best sense, you know,
0:44:05 > 0:44:09it represented the majority view of its readers.
0:44:09 > 0:44:12I remember hearing somebody saying,
0:44:12 > 0:44:17"I'm stopping reading The Scotsman now, it's The Herald from now on."
0:44:19 > 0:44:23By 2002, more and more readers were deserting The Scotsman.
0:44:23 > 0:44:25And in The Scotsman newsroom,
0:44:25 > 0:44:28it was a chaotic and confusing time as the paper went through eight
0:44:28 > 0:44:30editors in nine years.
0:44:32 > 0:44:35We've had very shouty editors, we've had less shouty editors,
0:44:35 > 0:44:38we've had calmer ones, we've had mad ones.
0:44:38 > 0:44:41It changed quite a lot and it didn't matter as much because Andrew Neil
0:44:41 > 0:44:45was effectively editor in chief, but it's a sign of turbulence for any
0:44:45 > 0:44:49publication if it loses so many editors.
0:44:49 > 0:44:51The journalists were unhappy.
0:44:51 > 0:44:54The circulation began to fall.
0:44:54 > 0:44:59The Scotsman changed from broadsheet to tabloid - I mean, compact.
0:44:59 > 0:45:03Then, in 2005, ten years after they'd arrived,
0:45:03 > 0:45:07the Barclay brothers and Andrew Neil left town,
0:45:07 > 0:45:10selling The Scotsman to its current owners, Johnston Press.
0:45:10 > 0:45:14When the Barclays bought that company for 90-odd million,
0:45:14 > 0:45:16including the building,
0:45:16 > 0:45:20they sold it for 160 million without the building.
0:45:20 > 0:45:23It was a phenomenal success.
0:45:23 > 0:45:27The Andrew Neil years were over, but his legacy remains contested.
0:45:28 > 0:45:32Critics feel that the once-loyal readers lost faith in their paper
0:45:32 > 0:45:35and it was the beginning of the end of The Scotsman...
0:45:35 > 0:45:39I think Andrew killed The Scotsman.
0:45:39 > 0:45:43..whilst believers point out that all Scottish papers declined and
0:45:43 > 0:45:45The Scotsman's market share went up.
0:45:46 > 0:45:51Did this kind of abrasive tone served to undermine The Scotsman?
0:45:51 > 0:45:55And I think the answer there is, just look at the figures - I mean,
0:45:55 > 0:45:59this is a paper which while he was overseeing it broke the 100,000 mark,
0:45:59 > 0:46:02and after he left, the sales really started to go down.
0:46:02 > 0:46:06He was just a guy in a hurry and that wasn't going to work, actually,
0:46:06 > 0:46:09in Edinburgh, which has a fantastically...
0:46:09 > 0:46:14A fantastic ability to be resistant to anything somebody wants them to
0:46:14 > 0:46:16do, if they don't want to do it.
0:46:16 > 0:46:21He attempted to take The Scotsman and twist it politically right round
0:46:21 > 0:46:26towards a fiercely Unionist and Conservative point of view and while
0:46:26 > 0:46:28twisting it round, he just broke its neck.
0:46:40 > 0:46:45For over a century, The Scotsman's news, arts, editorial, letters,
0:46:45 > 0:46:49features have been coloured by the question of Home Rule.
0:46:50 > 0:46:52It's not a new question.
0:46:52 > 0:46:54Independence, here we come!
0:46:54 > 0:46:58The national question is one that has dominated coverage over
0:46:58 > 0:47:00100 years at least.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03If you go back to the 1940s, the 1920s,
0:47:03 > 0:47:05it's there as well and The Scotsman was there in the thick of that and
0:47:05 > 0:47:07you have to be - you've got to be -
0:47:07 > 0:47:11because it's about Scotland's future and if The Scotsman newspaper isn't
0:47:11 > 0:47:14about Scotland's future then what's the point in the newspaper?
0:47:15 > 0:47:20In the 1979 referendum for a devolved administration,
0:47:20 > 0:47:24The Scotsman was the Scottish paper who took up the cause with gusto.
0:47:25 > 0:47:28Its position in the '70s was very different.
0:47:28 > 0:47:30It was seen as being bold.
0:47:30 > 0:47:33It gave the paper a purpose,
0:47:33 > 0:47:35which is in many ways very good, you know,
0:47:35 > 0:47:38we had something we were fighting for and we believed in.
0:47:38 > 0:47:41And from the Unionist side of the argument,
0:47:41 > 0:47:43or those who didn't want an assembly in Edinburgh,
0:47:43 > 0:47:45The Scotsman was seen as the enemy.
0:47:47 > 0:47:49But when the results came in...
0:47:49 > 0:47:54and Scotland was denied an assembly, the paper was heartbroken.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57People were pretty dispirited.
0:47:57 > 0:48:01We maybe got it wrong and maybe we were out of touch with the mood
0:48:01 > 0:48:03elsewhere in Scotland.
0:48:03 > 0:48:06The morale at the paper just collapsed.
0:48:06 > 0:48:09I remember on the day of the referendum,
0:48:09 > 0:48:13talking to Tory MP Teddy Taylor and he said, "I was thinking of
0:48:13 > 0:48:16"coming to North Bridge and standing outside
0:48:16 > 0:48:18"and waving a Union Jack outside the office,
0:48:18 > 0:48:20"what do you think would happen?"
0:48:20 > 0:48:22And I said,
0:48:22 > 0:48:26"Teddy, I think Eric Mackay himself might come and throw you off the bridge."
0:48:27 > 0:48:28For the next 18 years,
0:48:28 > 0:48:33political power was concentrated in London, and civic Scotland
0:48:33 > 0:48:36vented its political frustration on the pages of The Paper Thistle.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41I think there was a sense, you might say, we had a conceit of ourselves,
0:48:41 > 0:48:44that we had almost a constitutional role at that time.
0:48:44 > 0:48:48There was no parliament and particularly after the 1979 referendum,
0:48:48 > 0:48:50Scotland was kind of off the agenda.
0:48:50 > 0:48:55Thatcherism was in full flow and I think we all kind of felt that we
0:48:55 > 0:48:57were the guardians of Scottish debate.
0:48:57 > 0:49:02It wasn't until 1997, when New Labour were elected, that Scotland
0:49:02 > 0:49:07was granted another referendum to re-establish a parliament in Edinburgh.
0:49:07 > 0:49:11And this time the people of Scotland and the national paper of Scotland
0:49:11 > 0:49:13spoke with one voice.
0:49:15 > 0:49:17The Scotsman said yes to both questions.
0:49:17 > 0:49:19It was most eloquently for it.
0:49:21 > 0:49:24After a long history of arguing for a parliament,
0:49:24 > 0:49:27when it was reconvened in 1999,
0:49:27 > 0:49:31the Andrew Neil-era Scotsman was relentlessly scathing.
0:49:31 > 0:49:35It's certainly the case that there was no cosying up to the Labour guys
0:49:35 > 0:49:37who were in power at the time.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41And the biggest scandal of devolution,
0:49:41 > 0:49:43the saga of the Scottish Parliament building,
0:49:43 > 0:49:46was unfolding right in front of their noses.
0:49:46 > 0:49:50You could argue that The Scotsman didn't go hard enough on that debacle.
0:49:50 > 0:49:53They let it go far too long without getting stuck into it and it was
0:49:53 > 0:49:56actually happening on their doorstep.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59You just had to walk across the road and look at the building site and
0:49:59 > 0:50:02there it was. And you could see things were going wrong.
0:50:04 > 0:50:07In the new millennium, the parliament found its feet.
0:50:07 > 0:50:10Moderate political power in Edinburgh had been secured,
0:50:10 > 0:50:14something The Scotsman had been advocating for over a century.
0:50:14 > 0:50:18But now it was the paper itself that was looking vulnerable.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23By the time the 2014 independence referendum came around,
0:50:23 > 0:50:26The Scotsman had lost about half its readership.
0:50:26 > 0:50:30At a time when the paper couldn't afford to lose more readers,
0:50:30 > 0:50:34it was required to choose a side in a passionate debate.
0:50:34 > 0:50:38Would the self-proclaimed national paper of Scotland join the chorus of
0:50:38 > 0:50:42voices calling for Scotland to become an independent nation?
0:50:42 > 0:50:46I gave it a lot of thought and I decided that I had to be the one who
0:50:46 > 0:50:51wrote the leader, and to get peace I got up at five in the morning and
0:50:51 > 0:50:54came into the office at five in the morning and sat in the empty office,
0:50:54 > 0:50:58with a blank screen, for three or four days and hammered it out.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01And it took a long time to write, it took a long time to agonise over,
0:51:01 > 0:51:02it took a long time
0:51:02 > 0:51:04because there were many different things,
0:51:04 > 0:51:08many different parts of it that you had to think about.
0:51:08 > 0:51:12Because I was really conscious that it had to appear right,
0:51:12 > 0:51:15that I had to maintain the authority, because it wasn't my position,
0:51:15 > 0:51:17it was The Scotsman's position,
0:51:17 > 0:51:20so you're trying to maintain the authority and the credibility and, yeah,
0:51:20 > 0:51:22I've never felt that more than I did that night.
0:51:22 > 0:51:26Scotland's national paper, based in Scotland's capital,
0:51:26 > 0:51:28said...
0:51:28 > 0:51:30no.
0:51:30 > 0:51:34And with the debate so passionate and the country so split,
0:51:34 > 0:51:37it was inevitable that many of those who were sympathetic to
0:51:37 > 0:51:40The Paper Thistle felt betrayed.
0:51:40 > 0:51:44The Scotsman seemed to be standing against the tide,
0:51:44 > 0:51:48and I think it was a great shame, you know,
0:51:48 > 0:51:51for The Scotsman of all papers to find itself on the "No" side of the
0:51:51 > 0:51:56argument, albeit some columnists within it were not,
0:51:56 > 0:51:58but it just seemed to me crazy.
0:51:58 > 0:52:02I would see it as a great sign of weakness if The Scotsman were to say
0:52:02 > 0:52:04"Public opinion has shifted,
0:52:04 > 0:52:08"therefore we're going to shift our position on the national question."
0:52:11 > 0:52:14I think the readers expect integrity and honesty.
0:52:14 > 0:52:18I think it would be a complete betrayal of its history and its
0:52:18 > 0:52:19principles and of its values.
0:52:21 > 0:52:26Perhaps the most worrying aspect for the paper was that its opinion
0:52:26 > 0:52:28didn't seem to matter.
0:52:28 > 0:52:32My overwhelming sense, as much as a citizen as an analyst,
0:52:32 > 0:52:35was that
0:52:35 > 0:52:37during the referendum,
0:52:37 > 0:52:41possibly the most exciting social experience any of us will have,
0:52:41 > 0:52:44you know, in a lifetime, nothing happened.
0:52:45 > 0:52:52You can say to me, "Oh, well, The Scotsman came out on the side of unionism."
0:52:53 > 0:52:55Really?
0:52:55 > 0:52:57But it didn't really...
0:52:58 > 0:53:03..have any impact. You know, at one point, one of the websites -
0:53:03 > 0:53:05Wings Over Scotland, I think...
0:53:06 > 0:53:11They... Their online audience for a very short period was higher than
0:53:11 > 0:53:13The Scotsman's.
0:53:14 > 0:53:17For centuries, The Scotsman was one of the few voices arguing that
0:53:17 > 0:53:21Scotland deserved more Home Rule.
0:53:21 > 0:53:25But it is now, rightly or wrongly, seen as a bastion of unionism.
0:53:36 > 0:53:41The final chapter of The Scotsman's 200-year tale is the toughest to tell.
0:53:42 > 0:53:44At the end of the 1990s,
0:53:44 > 0:53:48The Scotsman was selling over 80,000 copies a day.
0:53:48 > 0:53:53In 2005, it sold on average 65,000 copies per day.
0:53:54 > 0:54:00By 2010, its average circulation went down to 45,000 per day.
0:54:01 > 0:54:08Last year, circulation was hovering at just over 20,000 copies per day.
0:54:08 > 0:54:12You used to say that when a newspaper's circulation was falling,
0:54:12 > 0:54:17it would bottom out and there would be a point at which, you know,
0:54:17 > 0:54:20people will take this newspaper come what may and those would be the
0:54:20 > 0:54:24readers who, you know, would buy it just for the obituaries,
0:54:24 > 0:54:28the TV schedules and the crossword. And so you'd have a base readership.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31But there doesn't seem to be any bottoming out at the moment.
0:54:33 > 0:54:38Since 2005, The Scotsman has been owned by Johnston Press.
0:54:38 > 0:54:41They moved out of their purpose-built office in 2013,
0:54:41 > 0:54:43staff and resources have been cut...
0:54:45 > 0:54:47..and the paper has suffered.
0:54:50 > 0:54:52Whether in the current climate
0:54:52 > 0:54:56certain kinds of newspaper can survive as newspapers,
0:54:56 > 0:54:58I have my doubts.
0:54:58 > 0:55:03It's difficult to see the paper in its current form, under its current
0:55:03 > 0:55:06ownership, surviving for five years.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11I suspect it might even be a lot less than that.
0:55:12 > 0:55:14Faced with declining circulation,
0:55:14 > 0:55:19the great hope of all newspapers is to make money by selling adverts to
0:55:19 > 0:55:21those getting their news online.
0:55:21 > 0:55:26What we do hasn't changed - we tell people stories, we report events,
0:55:26 > 0:55:29we analyse things, we have comment - that hasn't altered.
0:55:29 > 0:55:32The only thing that's altered is how people access that and how they pay
0:55:32 > 0:55:35for the access to it. We do have bigger digital audiences,
0:55:35 > 0:55:36we've got a great digital audience,
0:55:36 > 0:55:39our audience now is bigger than it's been for a long time.
0:55:39 > 0:55:44I think I'm right in saying that consumption of news on the internet,
0:55:44 > 0:55:49it accounts for about 1% of the time spent on the internet,
0:55:49 > 0:55:54across all news channels. It might be one and a half, but it's certainly not two.
0:55:54 > 0:55:57So what we have to do is we have to find an economic model that
0:55:57 > 0:56:00understands that we have to deliver things slightly differently.
0:56:00 > 0:56:02I'm quite confident, quite optimistic.
0:56:05 > 0:56:11For 200 years, The Scotsman has told Scotland's stories.
0:56:11 > 0:56:13It's captured our greatest moments,
0:56:13 > 0:56:17sympathised in times of national sadness.
0:56:17 > 0:56:23It has provoked, charmed and reported stories big and small.
0:56:23 > 0:56:27For every historic headline there are thousands of wee stories -
0:56:27 > 0:56:31daily slices of Scotland that would otherwise be unrecorded.
0:56:31 > 0:56:36On its pages, Scotland has had a passionate debate about who we are
0:56:36 > 0:56:38and what kind of country we hope to be.
0:56:38 > 0:56:43And the paper's survival has now become part of that national story.
0:56:44 > 0:56:49If The Times of London was in dire straits or The Guardian was facing
0:56:49 > 0:56:54closure or facing potentially mortal times,
0:56:54 > 0:57:00it would be a matter of great interest to the UK political establishment.
0:57:00 > 0:57:06I think that the viability and continued survival of The Scotsman
0:57:06 > 0:57:07is of that magnitude.
0:57:07 > 0:57:10There is a view of the world in Scotland
0:57:10 > 0:57:15which is different from the view of the world in Manchester or London or
0:57:15 > 0:57:18Paris. Scots look out for the world... We've got a Scottish culture,
0:57:18 > 0:57:22which is different from other people's culture.
0:57:22 > 0:57:26It's incredibly important that Scotland has voices in print
0:57:26 > 0:57:29which represent the best of Scottish thinking,
0:57:29 > 0:57:31the best of the Scottish worldview, and that, in my view,
0:57:31 > 0:57:33ought to be The Scotsman.
0:57:33 > 0:57:37The words... The Scotsman... It's got this wonderful kind of romantic majesty
0:57:37 > 0:57:41to it and I think there will always be a future for this newspaper,
0:57:41 > 0:57:45no matter. Financial fortunes may come and go, but it's not going to
0:57:45 > 0:57:47be a newspaper that disappears, no way.
0:57:50 > 0:57:53Can The Paper Thistle sail on for another century?
0:57:54 > 0:57:58The future of The Scotsman remains to be written.
0:57:59 > 0:58:03I'm really confident The Scotsman will make its 300th anniversary.
0:58:03 > 0:58:06So the Thistle will go on and the Thistle will stay and the Thistle will
0:58:06 > 0:58:09be there for at least another 100 years.
0:58:09 > 0:58:11The Scotsman was a big part of my life.
0:58:13 > 0:58:17And...I was sad to leave.
0:58:19 > 0:58:21It was like a divorce.
0:58:22 > 0:58:23And it's still like a divorce.
0:58:25 > 0:58:27I would weep if it wasn't there.
0:58:27 > 0:58:31MUSIC: Something To Believe In by King Creosote
0:58:31 > 0:58:35# Promised me a feeling
0:58:37 > 0:58:43# Something to believe in
0:58:43 > 0:58:50# Promised me a feeling
0:58:52 > 0:58:56# And I promise to be real. #