Iain macwhirter biography channel

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In Twitterstorms, trolls try to edit the reputations of their targets (Macwhirter’s Wikipedia entry has already been updated) so three words that he wrote in an instant are seen as more notable than the millions of other words he has written over his career. Priti Patel has spoken about how much she hates the label ‘BME’ which lumps together all ethnic minorities as if they have more in common with each other than whites (she banned her officials from using it).

He went on to study politics at the University of Edinburgh and was researching a PhD in regionalism and nationalism when he got a job at the BBC as a political researcher.

iain macwhirter biography channel

The sub-editors let it pass – no one reading it properly would think it was racist – but a Twitterstorm followed where trolls said otherwise (including the then-mayor of Liverpool). Twitter is like a loaded gun in a journalists’ pocket pointing at their groin and can go off at any time. Such questions would have saved Myers and MacKenzie.

Editors need to adjust for this era, protecting writers from risk of malicious misinterpretation (‘Did you mean it that way?

In September 1989 he was appointed Television Parliamentary Correspondent and moved to London.

In the summer of 1987 he was appointed Radio Scotland's first Scottish political correspondent, where one of his first tasks was covering the general election of that year.

The Sun removed the column online: it was the last one its former editor wrote.

  • Donald McNeil, a New York Times reporter, was forced out after a Twitterstorm sparked by claims that he had used a racial slur in a conversation about racial slurs to high school students in Peru years ago.

    I have repeatedly applauded the Conservatives for having the most diverse cabinet in British history. The debacle is described by Vanity Fair here.

  • I should say that I disagree with Macwhirter – his politics differ greatly from mine on Scottish independence and much else – but I can also recognise what’s happening right now.

    Donald McNeil was an old-school troublemaker in the New York Times who once organised a walkout in a pay dispute.

    In 1999, with the creation of the Scottish parliament he had long advocated, Macwhirter returned to Scotland to help set up the Sunday Herald and to present the BBC’s Holyrood Live programmes which he fronted for seven years.

    ‘Good for them,’ he wrote, adding fatally, ‘Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price.’ As Lionel Shriver said: ‘The aside was meant as a compliment. He is the author of four books including Disunited Kingdom.

    In 1998 he was one of eleven reporters and presenters who wrote a joint letter to the national newspapers calling for a 'Scottish Six'.

    So far, so good: the Herald has duly released a statement (on Twitter) saying:

    We are aware of an offensive tweet by one of our freelance contributors, Iain Macwhirter. The mob is looking, begging for their target’s employer to accept their concocted premise and bend the knee before them.