WE are living through an extraordinary period in history. From Brexit to independence, we face political choices that will define life in Scotland for decades. We are in the teeth of a global pandemic that has killed thousands of our fellow citizens and racked up public debt to a level unimaginable a year ago. Every global catastrophe in history has changed the world. This one will be no different.
We have a bullish China, an America that is weaker than at any time in our lives, a looming climate change disaster and, on top of all that, an internet that is changing everything: how we shop, how we work, how we consume news.
The public sphere has been transformed in the last two decades. Survey after survey show public trust in institutions, including politics and the media, is lower than it has ever been. Conspiracy theories run wild online. At a time of rapid change in our economy and political direction this widespread distrust matters. If society cannot come together to discuss how we move forward, if it can not even agree on any common truths we are in deep trouble.
More and more people get their news from social media sites that feed them a constant diet of stories that reinforce their existing political prejudices.
Digital spaces are mobbed with bullies and extremists, who have poisoned public debate with hysteria. Facebook has replaced journalists with algorithms – and become fabulously rich and powerful while taking little responsibility for its content.
The Herald is different. We are committed to providing fair and impartial coverage of Scotland’s affairs and we support no political party. We know our readers are intelligent people. We know they are able to read and digest pieces that they fundamentally disagree with because our role, as Scotland's quality broadsheet, is to provide a platform for balanced debate.
Now, balance means something different in our news and opinion pages. In a news story, our reporters will always seek balance and comment from, as it were, both sides.
Our opinion pages operate on different rules. They are a place for staff writers and contributors to put forward ideas about how we reshape our country and its institutions. How we improve our education and health services. How we cope with the challenges of rapid technological change, of climate change.
These pieces, by their nature, are not balanced. A pro-independence column or a pro-union column will come to very different conclusions, however, we will always aim to balance our coverage over the course of the week.
We will also never allow a writer or contributor to claim as a fact something that is false. If we fall below that standard, we investigate and, if appropriate, apologise or run a retraction. That might not seem that radical but in a world where 'commentators' fill the internet with outlandish claims and downright lies we believe it's pretty important.
Scotland faces multiple challenges, from many directions, and cannot rely on politicians to find solutions on their own. We all have a part to play and we stand ready to play our part.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
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