As Others See Us: How International Press Covered the Indyplan

Part of the world's media has always had trouble getting its head around what one foreign contact of mine calls "Scotland's boring separatists". There are no million-man marches here, no shouting in the streets, no flags draped demonstratively from bedroom windows. And, thank God, no guns and bombs either. Scotland's independence referendum may be a global news story but it is a slow-burning one; and just a bit monochrome.

I guess we Scots like it that way. But there are foreign correspondents who clearly wish our news was a bit more exciting.

"It wasn't exactly 'fire from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse'," declared Nick Miller, Europe correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, today of Alex Salmond's performance in the Science Centre. "But time will tell whether it was enough to reassure his compatriots that Scotland would flourish alone."

Miller, of course, was citing his countryman Mel Gibson in face paint. "Tuesday," he reported, "was the 'Braveheart' moment for the Scottish National Party and Alex Salmond."

Rather than a broadsword and 90s mullet Salmond was "brandishing" the giant white paper. But Miller, one of the last correspondents still trying to revive the feint ghost of William Wallace, didn't expect a "victory over the English".

"Polls," he wrote, "show a 'No' vote is the most likely outcome at next September's referendum, with the Scots worried about the consequences for their hip pocket and social services should they leave the United Kingdom."

Set aside the lame clichés about Braveheart - now gradually disappearing from international reporting of our indyref. Miller's last point is the most important: the Scottish question isn't playing big in the world media because nobody expects Alex Salmond to win.

The SNP was today clearly pleased with all the international headlines it got from the Science Centre. There was plenty of solid reports about their white paper - or "white book" as the document was called in almost every language bar English and Gaelic.

But the stories weren't always getting big billing.

In much of the English-speaking world, for example, news of Nigella Lawson's alleged drug-taking was a bigger story. In Europe, Russia's pressure on Ukraine outranked Salmond's indyplan.

The big beasts of the international media did mark the day, however. Take the LA Times. Scotland ranked second in its world news rankings online at one point yesterday. Our "semi-autonmous government", it said, had outlined a plan for Scotland to be "richer, fairer and nuclear-free but keep the British pound, the queen and membership in the European Union."

However, there was a sour note too. Salmond's white paper came ahead of a vote on "whether to seek a divorce from England and Wales". His pledges were "under attack by critics as little more than a wish list whose most important elements are by no means guaranteed".

The New York Times wasn't taking what it called Salmond's "voluminous prospectus" at face value either.

"Behind in the opinion polls," it began its report, "Scottish Nationalists who are seeking independence from Britain in a referendum next year set out their wish list for a new nation.

"Several assertions about their future relations with Britain and international partners are sharply disputed."

Salmond's claim that Scotland could keep the pound after indy was a key theme in international reporting this week.

Most media in most international markets simply repeated routine wire reports of what Salmond and Sturgeon said yesterday - and how their opponents responded.

But there are newspapers and other outlets abroad which - for all sorts of reasons - remain very hostile to Scottish independence.

They latched on the British Government warnings that the pound was not for sharing. "The British Government has thrown cold water over Salmond's plan for a currency union and other countries will decide if Scotland can join the Nato and the EU," said Paul Waldie in Toronto's Globe and Mail. "Much of Salmond's plan is up for negotiation, something that is not made clear in the blueprint."

Canada's media, of course, can be brutally partisan about Scottish independence - the split usually running right down the divide on the future of Quebec, its French-speaking province.

But Spain's papers can also be robust in their criticism of the SNP.

"London will leave Salmond without a currency for his independent Scotland," headlined Madrid daily, ABC, a staunch mouthpiece of Spanish unionism and conservatism. "The British Government has refused to share the Sterling Union and has warned that secession will cost every Scot 1200 euros in taxes."

ABC and other conservative Spanish outlets have an eye, of course, on Catalunya and other potential breakaway regions.

This has meant that big outlets in Madrid or Barcelona have focused more on Scotland than their equivalents almost anywhere else.

This Iberian aspect of Scottish independence routinely features in stories about our indyref, with helpful graphs on Europe's separatists, from the real in Catalunya to (let's be honest) the frankly absurd in Venice. Will this affect EU membership?

Swedish Radio, a sedate and trustworthy broadcaster, yesterday highlighted Spanish hostility to Scotland.

"According to Alex Salmond, Scotland will be an independent nation within the EU," it reported. "There is though the potential for a volatile European reception. Spain will most likely be extremely sceptical towards a breakaway nation joining the union.

"Spain, of course, itself has regions with ambitions to be independent."

Tass, the old news agency of the Soviet Union, picked up on this. Scotland, it said, would be blocked from the pound by the UK and blocked from the European Union by Spain. Russian media are also routinely hostile - sneering - even about Scottish independence.

Would Spain really take a strop on EU membership? Nah. And they have said as much. They don't like the indyref. But the thing they most dislike about it is that there is nothing they can do about it. An independent Scotland would have bigger enemies. France, for one. And its media reported yesterday's events matter-of-factly.

So why do foreign newspapers and broadcasters reference Catalunya so much in their reports of Scotland? Is it - and I suggest this gently - that the Catalans are just that bit more exciting than "Scotland's boring separatists"?