Daisley binned

[invergowrie arab]

I think you are completely correct. It is a coincidence.

Obviously, I don't doubt it was raised which I think you could fairly categorise as petty. I think any suggestion STV were leaned on or bullied is a bit of a stretch.

Michael Gray seems to be suggesting Daisley was the subject of internal staff complaints too.

[Ad Lib]

7 minutes ago, invergowrie arab said:

I think you are completely correct. It is a coincidence.

Obviously, I don't doubt it was raised which I think you could fairly categorise as petty. I think any suggestion STV were leaned on or bullied is a bit of a stretch.

Michael Gray seems to be suggesting Daisley was the subject of internal staff complaints too.

Taking Michael "Russia Today" Gray as a reliable source on anything... best avoided.

[pandarilla]

Taking Michael "Russia Today" Gray as a reliable source on anything... best avoided.

Best to stick to the mainstream media we all know and love eh?

[Ad Lib]

Just now, pandarilla said:

Best to stick to the mainstream media we all know and love eh?

 

 

Yes, I trust the mainstream media more than I trust Russia Today.

[pandarilla]

Yes, I trust the mainstream media more than I trust Russia Today.

Of course you do.

One of the worst traits of internet arguments is to completely dismiss sources which have in any way been controversial in the past.

I've never heard of the guy in question and don't doubt that rt has some skeletons but I do know that I've seen some very interesting pieces on the channel - and a lot of it that simply wouldn't get aired on something like the BBC.

The same happens with individual politicians or commentators. Whole careers are written off based on very little (usually something said in an obscure interview years ago).

[Ad Lib]

1 minute ago, pandarilla said:

Of course you do.

One of the worst traits of internet arguments is to completely dismiss sources which have in any way been controversial in the past.

I've never heard of the guy in question and don't doubt that rt has some skeletons but I do know that I've seen some very interesting pieces on the channel - and a lot of it that simply wouldn't get aired on something like the BBC.

The same happens with individual politicians or commentators. Whole careers are written off based on very little (usually something said in an obscure interview years ago).

 

 

I know Michael Gray extremely well. We were friends at University. I debated with him in a team at an international tournament.

He is wired to the moon.

Russia Today is a state propaganda arm. I wouldn't trust anyone who willfully appears on Russia Today in any capacity to prepare me a glass of water.

[pandarilla]

Russia Today is a state propaganda arm. I wouldn't trust anyone who willfully appears on Russia Today in any capacity to prepare me a glass of water.

Well for me that's a pretty closed minded approach.

[Glen Sannox]

I see Stephen Daisley has been binned/ reined in by STV.

He actually started out as a pretty decent writer, but seemed to develop a weird hatred of the SNP over time and, towards the end was just a typical entitled Scottish journalist, lashing out at anyone connected with the SNP, sooking up to Spanner and Rowling and got very p***kly when journalists were criticised.

Predictably, the usual suspects in Scottish journalism are horrified and of course, SNPbad.

Minterama.

[Colkitto]

23 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

I know Michael Gray extremely well. We were friends at University. I debated with him in a team at an international tournament.

He is wired to the moon.

Russia Today is a state propaganda arm. I wouldn't trust anyone who willfully appears on Russia Today in any capacity to prepare me a glass of water.

So is the BBC, indirectly the Westminster propaganda arm

[Ad Lib]

So is the BBC, indirectly the Westminster propaganda arm

I hear the trajectory of Panelbase means we got our independence 5 months ago.

[Fide]

It comes to something when Glen Sannox isn't the minter-iest thing on the thread.

Sit doon, Ad Lib, you're utterly havering.

[Colkitto]

16 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

 

I hear the trajectory of Panelbase means we got our independence 5 months ago.

 

Good point, well made Barbara

[invergowrie arab]

Michael Gray is alright, just a bit...intense?

[Alan Stubbs]

As far as I can tell, there are two possible scenarios here. Either Daisley's been punted because he's a talentless creepy gimp who's clickbait wasn't being sufficiently clicked. Or STV have shat it off John Nicolson.

Toughie.

 

[Fide]

And, as someone pointed out,if the SNP are able to silence journalists, why then do they still churn out utter shite about the SNP day in day out?

I'd like to see what a North Korean journalist would make of our own journo's mewling whines.

[williemillersmoustache]

While Daisley and his ilk hold the SNP responsible for anything, anyone who voted YES has ever posted on the interwebs, whether they support, follow or endorse these peoples views or not, I don't think it is unreasonable to be allowed to criticise him and his employers for the views and people he does follow, support and endorse. 

Nor does the irony of Tom Gordon of the Herald screaming censorship escape me when not a few short months ago his paper pulled an article written by Graham Speirs, forced him to apologise and then fired Angela Haggerty for having the temerity to support him, all because the sponsor of a certain rotten football club threatened to pull it's advertising as it didn't like the accurate story of one of it's directors saying the billy boys was a great song.

Also, and this seems like a minor point now amid the tsunami of yoon hypocrisy and torrence/celtic-like victim hood adoption, the complaints which led to the "evolution" of Daisleys role (let's not forget he hasn't been fired or send to a siberian labour camp, yet) came from internal sources. The challenges or objections which came from Wishart and Nicholson were either on twitter or via a public blog.  Hardly the closed-door secret trial that we are led to believe took place.

 

[williemillersmoustache]

John Nicolson: A political editor who airs their personal views is behaving unprofessionally

 AUGUST 20TH, 2016 - 12:04 AM  JOHN NICOLSON

IN an excitable piece yesterday, The Herald accused me of bullying STV.

Over a breathless half page, Tom Gordon and Daniel Sanderson reported that I had set out – with the help of Pete Wishart MP – to “intimidate” the company.

Our mission? To make sure that STV’s Stephen Daisley was silenced. We had, according to The Herald succeeded in our dastardly aim.

Who is Stephen Daisley you might be asking? I should state at the outset that I’ve never met him and have nothing against him.

I hear he’s a lovely fellow. But soon after I was elected last year, he started popping up on my Twitter feed with the by-line “STV digital politics and comment editor”.

Now I’m a journalist by profession. It’s long been accepted that there’s a big difference between opinionated columnists in the press, and “editors” who work for TV companies.

You know what a mouthy Mail, Record or National columnist thinks about every issue under the sun. They’re paid to tell you. But you don’t know what BBC and STV editors like Sarah Smith, Brian Taylor, or Bernard Ponsonby’s private political views are on anything. If you do, they’re not being professional.

Stephen Daisley tweeted his views on everything. They tended to be right of centre, and very anti-SNP. But was he a columnist or an editor? And if he was an editor, did he speak on behalf of STV? We were never told.

I love great writing. And I enjoy political debate. I’ve good friends who are columnists – Torcuil Crichton, Jane Moore, and David Aaronovitch to name but three. I disagree with each of them, amicably, about many things.

However, one of the problems about the print press in Scotland at the moment, it seems to me, is the blurring of the line between news and commentary. I want opinion from named columnists. I want unvarnished reportage on the news pages. And I certainly don’t think TV stations should join the print medium in confusing these roles.

I don’t want to know whether Laura Kuenssberg likes or dislikes Kezia Dugdale. Down that route lies Fox News.

So what were STV trying to do with Stephen Daisley? I suspect they were chasing a younger, Buzzfeed-influenced demographic. They wanted Stephen to be a provocative gadfly whose waspish wit would sting politicians from all parties. Unfortunately, prolonged exposure to his pieces left many readers feeling that they were stuck in a bar trying to escape as the resident polemicist droned on about his very predictable views of the world.

Political journalist ‘wasn’t gagged’, says NUJ chief

Let’s get back to that Herald piece and its shrill claims. No Herald journalist phoned me to ask me for comment – even though I’m pretty easy to find. Had they done so, I’d have been happy to debunk said claims. I don’t think Stephen’s writing is especially good, but I have no leverage over the company, and fully recognise that who they employ is a matter for them.

I suspect STV pulled the plug on Stephen Daisley because of his endorsement of the Twitter troll Brian Spanner. For those of you lucky enough not to have come across the “Spanner” name, it’s the nom de plume for a writer (or more probably a small group of writers) who spew out a poisonous stream of misogynistic tweets of a grotesquely sexual nature, often targeting Scottish female politicians across the political spectrum. Astonishingly, and on more than one occasion, Daisley has tweeted approvingly about “Spanner”. Indeed last month, he went as far as to write that if his readers weren’t following Brian Spanner “you’re doing it wrong.” STV bosses, I suspect, decided enough was enough.

No-one likes seeing someone get the sack, and readers will be relieved to know that Stephen Daisley is still working for STV, and is still its digital editor. If that role is too restrictive, assuming any of Scotland’s newspapers like his style enough, he’ll be offered a columnist job I’m sure.

But I’m left wondering about The Herald. Its story was wafer thin. It attributed a ludicrous amount of influence to me. Its claims have been debunked by all the players cited, including STV itself. And a key ingredient of the story was omitted – the Spanner tweets – as they were too offensive to publish. However, it allowed Gordon to write about Daisley, and Alex Massie then to knock off a Spectator piece about Gordon’s Herald piece. And as I write this, I notice that Gordon has tweeted his compliments about Massie’s piece about his own piece about Daisley.

So here, it seems, is a key motive in contemporary Scottish journalism. In a world of plummeting print sales, a new newspaper tactic is emerging; shout something furious, if unsubstantiated, draw in your fellow commentators, and then sit back and allow the angry political tribes to engage online. Click click click bait. Advertising revenue anyone?

[invergowrie arab]

Nicolson really is an excellent speaker and writer and before people accuse me of tribalism other actors in this story aren't.

[ScotSquid]

This does all sound highly unlikely given no one in their right mind would listen to either Nicolson or Wishart.

But it is worth noting that Nicolson has got form here.

This is the utter scumbag who contacted a woman's employer because she was owning him on Twitter. 

Not too big a stretch to imagine that someone stooping so low as to do that previously would do so again. That even losers like STV would act on that I find less convincing. What an absolute dick Nicolson is though. Wishart it goes without saying. 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-hopeful-sends-bizarre-email-5647089

[Ad Lib]

2 hours ago, williemillersmoustache said:

Now I’m a journalist by profession. It’s long been accepted that there’s a big difference between opinionated columnists in the press, and “editors” who work for TV companies.

You know what a mouthy Mail, Record or National columnist thinks about every issue under the sun. They’re paid to tell you. But you don’t know what BBC and STV editors like Sarah Smith, Brian Taylor, or Bernard Ponsonby’s private political views are on anything. If you do, they’re not being professional.

Stephen Daisley tweeted his views on everything. They tended to be right of centre, and very anti-SNP. But was he a columnist or an editor? And if he was an editor, did he speak on behalf of STV? We were never told.

 

Nicholson is a clown.

1. STV is not a "TV company". It is a media organisation one of whose platforms is regulated broadcast media.

2. Stephen Daisley does not appear on TV. Comparisons with Ponsonby and Kuennsberg don't wash.

3. He's literally complaining about a personal Twitter account.

Chump cubed.