Alex Salmond hates Donald Trump.
At least he does nowadays. Back in 2007, the Scottish Government, then led by the former first minister, revived The Don’s controversial transformation of the Menie estate into a golf course after Aberdeenshire Council rejected the plans.
The move followed a meeting between the pair at a hotel in Aberdeen.
Perhaps, despite leading protests against the now President of the United States, there is remains a lingering admiration for how the billionaire does business.
That could explain why he has adapted some of the same tactics when it comes to denigrating the media.
In this video blog, Mr Salmond attacks the “yoon media” for what he sees as unrelenting bias against the SNP.
“Yoon” is used as a dismissive reference for Unionist, or No supporters, on social media.
Here’s the rub — there are papers in Scotland which are overall pretty negative towards the SNP. The likes of the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Daily Express would freely admit to that.
Meanwhile, The National is slavishly supportive and The Sun broadly backs the party of government.
Others, including but not limited to The Courier and The Press and Journal, who Mr Salmond filmed his latest video for, work very hard at being strictly neutral as we hold power to account.
This fact was acknowledged at a public event just before the independence referendum when the then FM picked out the two DC Thomson papers and praised us for playing it straight.
Now we are not afforded that courtesy. By not naming names when it comes to who he perceives to be misleading readers, Mr Salmond is tarring all media with the same brush.
He said: “It’s the Scottish Press, or some elements of the Scottish Press. I won’t call it the fake facts media, or the fake media, or the alternative facts media because that would be to quote the President of the United States and you don’t have to be a racist or a misogynist to know when stories are being distorted.
“So I am going to call it in Scotland the ‘yoon’ media. And that’s that element of the Scottish Press who takes any story, any issue, and makes it an attempt to either attack or discredit the SNP.”
This is the kind of attitude that encourages online conspiracy theories about whether or not a newspaper altered a photograph to associate RBS with the SNP (it didn’t, obviously), and sees sensible independence supporters forced to discourage elected members from spreading random lies on Twitter.
A final thought: Mr Salmond illustrated his point by comparing the Scottish and UK editions of the Telegraph, both of which led on stories attacking business rates rises.
Actually this shows a newspaper being consistent on an issue and holding two administrations – SNP at Holyrood and Conservative at Westminster – to account.
It is not bias, it is making sure it is relevant to its audience, given business rates are a devolved matter.
“Anyone looking for reality…will have to look beyond the column centimetres of the ‘yoon’ media,” concludes Mr Salmond.
You should be discerning with what you read and believe. Double that dial when listening to politicians.
