The BBC has been accused of acting like a “tin-pot dictatorship” by First Minister, Alex Salmond, after the BBC did an U-turn on him taking part in a live, rugby chat broadcast at yesterday’s Murrayfield clash between Scotland and England.
Writes several newspapers today, with the tale splashed on the Sunday Herald’s front cover, the planned appearance by Salmond was then overruled by a political advisor at the Corporation as “inappropriate” on the grounds of upcoming elections to local councils and the referendum debate.
And in its leader column, the Sunday Herald says: “The BBC has a duty to be impartial and fair in its handling of the country’s political parties, a responsibility it normally lives up to with some expertise. But the debate over Scotland’s constitutional future throws up new and different challenges, which require a different and more nuanced response.”
The Sunday Herald’s front cover has a head shot of Salmond with a black strip across his mouth – the word, ‘CENSORED’, in bold white letters – a treatment not dissimilar to its famous decision last year to challenge a super-injunction: this time a head shot with a black strip across the person’s eyes, also with the word, ‘CENSORED’.
