A former editor of The Scotsman now running a journalism college has claimed that Scotland’s two daily papers are “in their death throes.”

Tim Luckhurst, who edited the Edinburgh-based morning daily briefly in 2000 and is now professor of journalism at the University of Kent, spoke out after The Scotsman’s latest editor, Mike Gilson, resigned last week.

Writing in MediaGuardian, he said that despite the establishment of a Scottish Parliament, the country was now “perilously close to having no truly independent journalism.”

He said Scotland could not be covered effectively by the London-based national dailies and argued that the lack of a robust Scottish press would create “a breeding ground” for political corruption.

“The Scotsman and the Herald are in their death throes. But beyond the tragedy of once authoritative national newspapers betrayed by soulless conglomerates lies a deeper constitutional problem,” Mr Luckhurst wrote.

“Every representative democracy needs a free and independent press to hold power to account, expose wrongdoing and inform public opinion. Democracies in which the political class is small and tends towards consensus need good journalism more than most.

“Before devolution Scots talked of a democratic deficit. Scotland had autonomous education, a separate legal system and indigenous national newspapers but no parliament of its own. Now it has Holyrood but it is perilously close to having no truly independent journalism.

“National government without a robust national press would be bad for this fledgling democracy. It would create a breeding ground for sins to which Scotland’s power elite is already instinctively prone.”

Mr Gilson resigned last Thursday after what is believed to have been a disagreement about plans to centralise some editorial functions across The Scotsman, Edinburgh Evening News and Scotland on Sunday.

Evening News editor John McLellan took over as the new Scotsman editor yesterday.

Comments

sheila (24/02/2009 07:06:34)
Alas, we’re witnessing the death throes of the entire UK press surely?

James Blackman (24/02/2009 13:24:50)
As a journalism student who has always DREAMED of being a journalist, all of this doom and gloom is devastating to read.
But I am slowly coming to accept the fact: people are not buying newspapers much at all anymore (and probably sales will just decline and decline until the papers fizzle out for good ) – especially the essential local ones.
Makes me feel literally physically sick. LONG LIVE JOURNALISM.

Lister (24/02/2009 15:10:48)
James, people ARE buying newspapers. Newspapers make lots of money. But they are being bled dry by companies that are hell bent on showering cash on their shareholders while investment and promotion takes a back seat. Newspapers are not dying. They are being killed off by visionless morons.

James Blackman (24/02/2009 15:16:28)
As a journalism student who has always DREAMED of being a journalist, all of this doom and gloom is devastating to read.
But I am slowly coming to accept the fact: people are not buying newspapers much at all anymore (and probably sales will just decline and decline until the papers fizzle out for good ) – especially the essential local ones.
Makes me feel literally physically sick. LONG LIVE JOURNALISM.

Brian Hill (25/02/2009 17:50:50)
I began reading the Scotsman 50 years ago. Today’s paper is so biased toward the union and so anti SNP it lost the right to the term ‘quality newspaper’ years ago.
We get a far more honest appraisal of news in Scotland from the Times and even the Telegraph.
The Herald has a number of journalists who report the news without bias, though the paper as a whole is no great advert for Scottish quality journalism.
Needless to say I never buy the Scotsman these days though Macwhirter, Hutcheon, Bell and a few others do make the Herald worth buying from time to time.

Peter (25/02/2009 19:31:53)
Very few editors have the guts to stand up for their staff or titles. They seem happy to let journos and titles be ground to dust.