A group campaigning against a golf and hotel resort being planned in the north-east of Scotland by US property tycoon, Donald Trump, is today distributing its own newspaper, as a riposte to what it believes to be a media boycott of its activities.
40,000 copies of Menie Voices – Menie being the part of Aberdeenshire identified for the resort – are being distributed today for free by Tripping Up Trump, set up to oppose the compulsory purchase orders of homes that would impede the resort going ahead.
In December, the local, Press and Journal newspaper declared it was no longer to give the group 'a voice', believing it to be a front for non north-east of Scotland activists.
Today, Trump is due to receive an honorary degree from Robert Gordon University. And Menie Voices distributors promise to be there.
Menie Voices is, in the main, being sent by post to addresses in and around the Menie estate. The four-page tabloid is also to be handed out at a march being organised by TUT. Its front page heading reads: 'Save Our Homes'.
Says a statement issued by TUT: [The P&J stance] has created a media block in the North-east on a group made up of thousands of people living in Aberdeenshire, including the families threatened with CPOs. The P&J is effectively dictating what news and which side of the story people in Aberdeenshire read.
“As a result of this shocking behaviour TUT, which is run by volunteers, has had to raise funds to print and distribute a paper which tells the other side of the story.”
Meanwhile, next week, a book on the dispute over the Trump resort is being published, written by the chief reporter of the Aberdeen evening newspaper, the Evening Express.
David Ewen told allmediascotland.com: “It was a gift of a story, really – Donald Trump building a course on your doorstep, the council telling him where to go.
“It also seemed to crystallize the wider debate about how you grow the economy and care for the environment.”
Chasing Paradise (£14.99) is published by Black & White, on Thursday.
