In the latest round of silly season frothing for the Holyrood bubble, the No campaign and others have gotten their knickers in a twist about this – an article written by Elliot Bulmer for the Herald. Their beef with it, apparently, is that the Yes campaign paid him for his time and didn’t say so. Except they did say so when asked. So here are some of the problems with this confected argument.
1. Mr Bulmer (pictured left, as I imagine him) has been writing about these same issues for years and making a consistent argument for a written Scottish constitution. The opinions he set out in that Herald article are the same as he set out in the Guardian earlier this year, in the Scotsman in 2011, and in a whole damn book he wrote in 2012. He’s not spouting a campaign line because he’s been paid to, nor does this piece appear to diverge at all from his earlier views. He’s being paid for his time because Yes thought it would be good for his views to get another outing in the media. And, apart from the slightly weaker interim constitution stuff in the article, I agree with them and him. No-one is being deceived – those are his views. He’s not Groucho Marx.
2. All sorts of articles in the media are written for money. I’ve done PR for years, and like everyone in PR, I’ve written articles which have been published in the papers, sometimes under my own name, sometimes drafted for a client. And even where I’ve just written a press release (for which I was paid), sometimes articles that get published bear a close resemblance to it without an attached notice explaining that “this cracking story was derived from a press release that James Mackenzie wrote for money and sent to us”. I really don’t believe any journalist who claims not to know that people regularly get paid by third parties to write articles that are then submitted for publication. And that applies to academics, staff at representative bodies, and (although we can call it hospitality or media passes or whatever) journalists too. Actually, that last one does bother me a bit.
3. Relatedly, articles in newspapers never show an audited trail of who got paid how much and by whom to get them to the page. Perhaps they should, but given they don’t normally, why is this one any different? Ah yes, because it’s about the partisan issue which both sides get overwrought about, desperate to pin anything at all on each other in case anything sticks.
4. Writers should be paid for their work like everyone else. Journalists normally argue for this. If the Herald didn’t pay Mr Bulmer to set out his views this time, and Yes were prepared to do so, then that’s how some of his rent got paid that month. I’m glad to hear it. I despise the Huffington Post model which assumes writers don’t need to eat. It’s work like anything else, much as everyone likes seeing their views appearing in the media, and smart people should be paid for their time.
5. You can’t buy a respected academic’s opinions for £100, but you can buy an hour or two of his time. I got asked by a media friend if I would be equally relaxed about the nuclear industry paying an academic to write a pro-nuclear piece for the media. Yes – although I’d still disagree with them, but it’s only OK if it’s that academic’s actual opinion as previously expressed. And I bet you a five tier wedding cake to a stale digestive biscuit exactly that happens all the time, with the only difference being that whoever pays them doesn’t say “sure, of course we paid him/her” when asked about it.
6. Without wishing to sound paranoid, the only reason this story is going anywhere is because the emails that led to the Yes campaign being asked about it appear to have been accessed illegally by a third party. If those allegations are true, that’s a lot more serious, so you can see why the No campaign might want to go into a frenzy of bogus outrage about another issue to muddy the waters on that story. Cynically, it’s very professional diversionary media work, chaps. Well done.
7. This is the weakest attempt to find a scandal where there simply isn’t one in many years, and will have as much traction outside the bubble as a chihuahua in high heels trying to run on a perfectly polished sheet of glass.
8. My pieces on this blog express my views on all sorts of subjects, and I’ve not been paid for any of them, which is unfortunate for me. If anyone, literally anyone, wants to pay me an agreed sum to write a piece that’s 100% consistent with my views as previously set out here so I can see if any of the media will print it, drop me a line and I’ll tell you where to send the cheque.
#1 by David on August 22, 2013 - 9:07 am
Have a feeling that this could blow up in the face of the No campaign as more question the source of the story. Would a coffee do as payment?
#2 by James on August 22, 2013 - 9:08 am
A coffee gets you a tweet on something I already agree with.
#3 by Longshanker on August 22, 2013 - 9:18 am
If the Herald didn’t pay Mr Bulmer then what you have is unannounced advertorial – using the paper as medium to achieve extra credibility where none is due. That isn’t very honest or transparent. It’s the crux of the issue.
Judging by the Herald’s silence on the matter, this seems the most likely scenario.
I don’t think there was an actual outside hack. Someone from inside Yes headquarters is likely to have leaked the advertorial news – for whatever reason.
Mr Jenkins could be on a very shoogly peg. Judging by who he’s been willing to endorse in the past, I’d say he’s been suffering from poor judgement. This story confirms that.
Regards
#4 by Richard Thomson on August 22, 2013 - 4:36 pm
Wrong. An advertorial is where the client buys space in the paper and gets to submit their copy. An opinion piece submitted speculatively for consideration remains just that, no matter who – if anyone – pays the writer for it.
#5 by Doug Daniel on August 22, 2013 - 9:30 am
I find the responses from certain journalists extremely interesting. I would fully expect Blair McDougall, Rob Shorthouse and the rest of the BetterTogether “frat boy” gang to be tweeting about this until their thumbs bleed, but what are supposedly serious – supposedly neutral – journalists doing getting so worked up over such a triviality? Angus MacLeod calling it a “bung”, Kenny Farq gleefully tweeting that the shit has hit the fan, and Euan McColm calling for Blair Jenkins to go – seriously, if I didn’t know that these guys were journalists for national newspapers (well, regional in the Scotsman’s case…), I would be thinking they were activists for the No campaign.
It’s times like this you can almost understand why some people think Scotland would be incapable of running its own affairs… Until you remember that it’s exactly why they do it.
Meanwhile, someone has been hacking emails, even after all the Leveson business…
#6 by Alasdair Stirling on August 22, 2013 - 10:40 am
Doug, Their reaction is natural and only to be expected. History tells us that (whatever the warm words from the SNP) the cheerleaders of the previous/colonial regime have no place in a new independent country. Messers MacLoud, Farquharson & McColm etc know very well that their careers end on the 19th of Sept 2014. Ridiculous to expect them to be anything other than biased and partisan against an organisation promoting the changes that will send them to the dole queue.
#7 by Doug Daniel on August 22, 2013 - 10:56 am
Oh I’m not surprised in the slightest, because as far as I’m concerned they’re all cheerleaders for the No campaign – McColm in particular simply cannot hide his glee whenever there’s anything remotely negative about the Yes campaign. I just find it bizarre that any of them try to pretend they’re not blatantly partisan. There’s not even anything wrong with that to be honest – we all know exactly how folk like Ian Bell, Lesley Riddoch and Rab MacNeil are going to vote, for instance – but it’s amusing that, while pro-indy journalists are happy to freely admit they’ve made up their mind about the referendum, pro-union journalists insist on playing out this ridiculous “I’m not biased, honest” pantomime.
#8 by Braco on August 22, 2013 - 9:34 am
‘Ah yes, because it’s about the partisan issue which both sides get overwrought about, desperate to pin anything at all on each other in case anything sticks.’
Ah yes James, I see. Just couldn’t resist introducing the old, ‘they’re all as bad as each other’ gambit, eh?
Unfortunately time and the build up of facts are making that tired old line harder and harder to nonchalantly drop into what would otherwise be a fair expose of BetterNO and it’s media allies latest ridiculous campaign antic.
I still pop round here every now and again just in case betternation have managed to regain any of it’s past political relevance to the Indy ‘debate’.
Sorry, ‘Close but no cigar’.
#9 by cynicalHighlander on August 22, 2013 - 9:45 am
This is a concerted media effort to deflect/hide the criminality of the hacker/s. We all have to be careful in who to rely on.
#10 by Andrew on August 22, 2013 - 10:08 am
A quick points
1. There is no evidence that emails were hacked. From the few details that have been in the press I would probably expect a leak (I could be wrong) but there are plenty of ways that the story could have got out.
2. This is not a major story and not be picked up by general public, but the media loves nothing more than commenting on the media so it will probably run for a while. If there has been hacking then that probably would be a big story.
3. The criticism that they had an impartial expert write on their behalf (a point Blair MacDougall has made) is clearly nonsense as they couldn’t have found a more partisan expert if they had tried. His views have never been hidden.
4. Ultimately it’s not great practice and the piece should have said he was writing on behalf of Yes Scotland or that they had paid for it, if for no other reason than the fact we wouldn’t be debating it now.
#11 by Andy on August 22, 2013 - 10:37 am
Tend to agree with Andrew, and not just because we have the same name. What we basically have here is the Yes lobby paying for some campaign fluff. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but it should be clearly labelled as such and not dressed up as a neutral article. It’s far from a major story, but it’s poor practice nevertheless.
#12 by Chris on August 22, 2013 - 2:47 pm
The actual point is the lack of transparency. If he was paid to write it by Yes Scotland or anyone else that should have been made clear in the article and should have been made clear to The Herald before publishing it.
#13 by Chris on August 22, 2013 - 2:50 pm
The worst part of this debate is that people are mostly leaping to sides on this argument on journalistic integrity based on their beliefs on indepedence.
We need to move the debate on to a better place where we accept mistakes by people on our side and criticise them.
I’ll start. Henry McLeish made some valid points and Michael Kelly is being a dick.
#14 by James on August 22, 2013 - 3:06 pm
Okay. I’m game. That Wings guy, wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole. And Neil Findlay makes good arguments about how hard but important it would be to win further powers for Holyrood in the event of a No vote.
#15 by Stuart Winton on August 22, 2013 - 3:24 pm
Aye, Michael Kelly’s attack on Henry McLeish was a bit OTT irrespective of the latter’s shortcomings – clearly no love lost between them, at least from Kelly’s perspective. And it would be interesting to read Henry’s take on Michael Kelly’s shortcomings, but I suspect the former will maintain a statesmanlike silence.
Mind you, Henry McLeish’s piece was one of the most negative and scaremongering attacks on negativity and scaremongering that I’ve ever read!
#16 by Stuart Winton on August 22, 2013 - 3:10 pm
Valiant attempt James, but surely the crux of the matter is that the relationship between the piper and the paymaster wasn’t disclosed, and the disclosure changes the perception of the whole thing in terms of objectivity, and casts doubt on the judgement of Yes Scotland, Elliot Bulmer and the Constitutional Commission.
The latter point in particular is presumably why the CC has tried to distance itself from the article (after I think changing its mind and deleting a couple of tweets last night) and claiming that it was written by Elliot Bulmer in a personal capacity. But that wasn’t made clear in the article either, which merely stated his position as research director at the CC.
By the same token, the nuclear industry analogy would be fine if any article disclosed the relationship between the author and those who commissioned and paid for it, irrespective of whether the article simple rehashed the author’s views on the subject. But in this case the relationship wasn’t disclosed until Yes Scotland’s hand was forced.
I don’t think the hacking issue should be used to deflect attention from the matter either, but where I do agree with you perhaps is that the media/political reaction is perhaps overdone, but of course that’s just the way it is. And clearly it works both ways, as the slightly overwrought reaction to the unproven hacking issue by the other side demonstrates.
By the way, my allusion to he who pays the piper calling the tune isn’t claiming that Mr Bulmer was told what to write, simply that Yes Scotland would have known that he’d be singing from the same hymn sheet rather than promoting a rendition of Rule Britannia. (Apols for mixed metaphor!)
#17 by BaffieBox on August 22, 2013 - 4:49 pm
Two of my biggest concerns dont really align with all the shouting that’s going on:
1. Our MSM dont consider commissioning these kind of pieces directly rather than relying on any political lobby group to do the hard work (and pay the hard money) for them. The content in the MSM has by and large been utter guff and maybe its time they upped the ante by creating a market that rewards raising the general tone of the debate so that this entire referendum becomes more rewarding and enjoyable for all of us. Unfortunately, it is no surprise at all that journalists themselves are enjoying this scandal as much as anyone. I am not at all surprised that it has required Yes Scotland to take risks in order to commission pieces for that might get traction in MSM.
2. From some quarters, it would seem the integrity and reputation of Bulmer himself may be questioned. In this case, it seem’s being paid by a particular political group raises serious questions of the individual concerned, even if opinions aligned before, during and after the article was written. It’s not the first time an academic has found himself in the crossfire of our pathetic excuse for political debate.
Im all for transparency. I agree theres something a little underhand went on here. Fair play. But I find it really, really difficult to consider this the crime it’s made to be. I’ll take this more seriously when the Scotsman discloses exactly how/who is receiving payments for all their opinion pieces or platforms such as ThinkScotland are funded/paying columnists to write articles. If we want full transparency here, we want it for every article. Most/all media titles have some sort of political leaning. Some more than others and some with very specific political goals and funding that aren’t obvious to 90% of their readers.
Ill get serious about this issue when there is a desire for all media platforms to be fully transparent about how they are funded, who they are paying, and how much.
#18 by EyeEdinburgh on August 23, 2013 - 11:33 am
This. http://edinburgheye.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/words-are-worthless/
#19 by Allan on August 22, 2013 - 9:35 pm
While your points are correct James, Stuart’s points above are also correct. As Blair put it at the height of Major’s problems with sleeze, it’s not enought to be white than white, you also have to be perceived as being whiter than white.
Mind you, the only thing preposterous about this is Better Together jumping up and down saying this critically undermines Yes Scotland. As someone who thinks that Yes Scotland/The SNP still haven’t recovered from farce of EU entry…
#20 by Colin Dunn on August 22, 2013 - 10:07 pm
“If he was paid to write it by Yes Scotland or anyone else that should have been made clear in the article and should have been made clear to The Herald before publishing it.”
According to the Wings Over Scotland site, the Herald knew all along that the piece had been commisioned by Yes Scotland, but didn’t mention this on publication.
http://tinyurl.com/kvj88zw
#21 by Albalha on August 23, 2013 - 7:58 am
The Herald knew the YES campaign had commissioned it since they offered the article to the paper.
Payment isn’t the issue. Why didn’t the Herald put ….”This article was commissioned by YES Scotland”? That was their editorial decision. They also of course refused the payment request so it’s not much of a leap for them to work out that YES probably stumped up the cash.
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#22 by Sean Fleming (@flemingsean) on August 23, 2013 - 11:57 am
I’m late to this one. But it’s very interesting. My take on this – would the outcome have differed if the £100 hadn’t been paid and Eliot Bulmer changed his mind and wrote it anyway? Would the outcome have differed if someone else had paid him?
Probably not.
One issue here is that some people feel misled. Whether rightly or wrongly is of no concern to me in the writing of this comment. That’s their perception and, as we are all aware, for some people perception = reality.
Another issue is that by studiously avoiding transparency, an arguably false issue (IE “I’ve been misled”) has been allowed to come into being. Someone within the Yes/Bulmer camp (for want of a better way of categorising it) should have had the sense to realise that this was a gamble not worth taking.
First rule of crisis management – get the story out first, own it and stay in control.
They (people who decided paying but not overtly disclosing that payment) didn’t do that. They allowed someone else to claim that something dodgy had taken place.
The accusations soon outweigh the deed.
A policy of being overtly transparent (y’know… just in case) is rarely a bad thing.
#23 by Kevin on August 23, 2013 - 1:29 pm
“First rule of crisis management – get the story out first, own it and stay in control.”
I totally agree, but take a step back and look at the big picture.
1) Yes Scotland called in the police and had their systems shut down to run an investigation. Going into crisis management mode without your IT systems is less than easy.
2) Telling the world that they paid a writer a £100 for writing something he’d written before, probably didn’t occur to them ‘prior’ to the manufactured nonsense from the No camp because there’s nothing wrong with paying a writer to write down his opinions and then getting them published.
3) Blair Jenkins appeared on 2 political tv shows last night to explain the situation. In one he was allowed too, in the other he couldn’t get out more then a couple of words and was backed into a corner by a pretty unprofessional approach by his interviewer.
In hindsight things could always have been done better, but if we’re honest, the Yes Scotland camp have done nothing wrong and have been hounded by their opponents and many in the media for doing so. I despise political ineptitude at the best of times, but Yes are just getting attacked because they had a crime committed against them.
There was nothing Nothing Yes Scotland could have done about this at all.