Media: Why Scotland's Press Isn't Free

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TIM LUCKHURST, briefly my predecessor as editor of The Scotsman, wrote last week that Scotland's newpapers had been slow to wake up to the Henry McLeish story, and accused us of being unable or unwilling to differentiate reporting from propaganda.

Plainly he has failed to read The Scotsman during the last 18 months, when it has risen to the journalistic challenge of policing Scotland's fledgling institutions, while reflecting due national pride in having achieved them.

The Mail on Sunday opened the floodgates on the McLeish story, but The Scotsman's challenges to the First Minister were instrumental in sweeping him from office. It was when confronted by the …