In a piece bemoaning the decline of the Scottish press, Kenneth Roy asks: Whatever happened to the newspaper as a nation talking to itself? He writes:
"As the newspapers have become bulkier and bulkier, as the sources of information have proliferated online as well as in print, there seems to be less space than ever for accuracy.
We should not confuse all this excess baggage with the sort of weight that confers reliability. The newspapers are simply fatter – and lazier."
After charting the sales falls of the two major serious papers in the south of Scotland - the Glasgow-based Herald and the Edinburgh-based Scotsman - he points to the few encouraging signs of "a small community of online papers" – the Caledonian Mercury, Newsnet Scotland, Bella Caledonia and his own Scottish Review.
"If the outmoded rivalries of the trade are put aside, and these papers act in a co-operative spirit, the online press can become an alternative force for good," he writes.
"But it will be a long time, if ever, before online titles take the place of the old-fashioned newspaper in the popular affection."
Source: Scottish Review
