The BBC is being condemned for major cutbacks in editorial staff at the most critical time in Scotland's modern political history.
The broadcaster confirmed 35 staff posts are to go by the end of March – 17 in news and current affairs, eight in Radio Scotland, six in marketing and communications, two in new media, learning and outreach, and two in Gaelic.
Inverness will be particularly badly hit, with two of the four senior broadcast journalists working in English in the Highland capital earmarked to go.
One senior broadcast job will be lost between Aberdeen and Dundee, and the local government and education correspondents' jobs are to be merged into one post. Newsnight Scotland and Politics will lose two posts.
Also included in the cuts will be two news-gathering senior broadcast journalists and two broadcast journalists in Glasgow, as well as two presenters.
Former LibDem leader Charles Kennedy, the MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, said: "These proposals – involving a 50% reduction in senior, experienced personnel – would be a severe, self-defeating false economy, one bound to undermine the BBC's capacity to give fair coverage of the varied and geographically vast Highlands news agenda. They're set in the context of a strategy known as 'Delivering Quality First'. If implemented, that would read 'Dumping Highlands Last'.
Mr Kennedy said he will table an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons next week to highlight the "diminution which such severe and unjustified cuts would mean for our place on the UK national news agenda".
Paul Holleran, Scottish organiser for the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), said: "People are shocked at the scale of the cuts in editorial and also the short time-frame. We don't know how they are going to cover the north of Scotland.
"We will fight tooth and nail against any compulsory redundancies. Politically, this is the very time Scotland needs the most comprehensive news coverage with the referendum coming up. We need more journalists asking questions, not fewer."
Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop echoed concerns "about cuts of this scale, at such an historic time for our nation".
Ken MacQuarrie, director of BBC Scotland, said: "We don't underestimate how hard it is to achieve these savings plans and how difficult it is for those facing the prospect of losing their jobs."
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