Why can't other newspapers be more like the Evening News? – Helen Martin

Back in the early 1970s, I was a teenager and a trainee journalist, known then as a “cub reporter”.

The Evening News runs columns by people on both sides of the independence debate (Picture: Lisa Ferguson)

The editor in the local paper where I began was in his 60s and despite the Second World War had 40 years of journalism.

While working there, I was sent to what was then the Edinburgh College of Commerce in Sighthill. One of the basic lessons we all faced was not to produce a news story which could be for or against something, based on an opinion, or just one side of a topic, without quoting the other side.

To have done that was behaving like a public relations employee, and not giving the public the information they deserved. And if a newspaper really was supporting one side, at least a response from the other was necessary.

Today journalism has changed. There are many newspapers who many years ago ditched being remotely objective and became subjective, especially when it came to politics, with not even one paragraph from an opposition figure included.

That’s why, in 2014, the National opened up. It too was biased of course, but it had to be because while other dailies would boost the Tories, Labour or unionism, none were pro-SNP or independence. Indy supporters would buy it.

Personal columns can be subjective. A clear example nowadays is that the Evening News has columnists representing all parties. I’ve never seen a pro-independence columnist, and few if any Labour, in the Scottish Daily Mail (for an example, but not the only one).

It upsets me today that objectivity, equality and fairness are now strangers to many daily newspapers and most TV channels.