The woeful state of Edinburgh Evening News journalism was apparent in today's page 8 article 'City wheels out plans for bins across New Town'.
By astonishing coincidence, Victoria Raimes's piece matched – in some cases almost verbatim – the earlier 'Exclusive' article by Brian Donnelly on page 5 of today's Herald newspaper.
Readers may enjoy comparing the articles for themselves at www.heraldscotland.com and www.scotsman.com.
In fact, both pieces draw extensively on recent Spurtle coverage of the New Town wheelie-bin saga. However, Donnelly asked for and was cheerfully granted local insight by Spurtle, whilst Evening News staff made no such approaches and appear to have been content botching late-night, last-minute variations on the Herald's copy in a feeble bid to appear locally informed.
Certainly, the quote given to the Herald by local Alan McIntosh was never given to the Evening News.
Spurtle focuses on Broughton, and like most of its readers, notices and resents the sloppy cynicism of our city's principal chip-wrapper as it routinely misrepresents issues we understand. We derive no pleasure or personal advantage from witnessing how instances such as today's highlight just how low standards have slipped in some quarters at Scotsman Publications.
There comes a point when commercially driven journalism is so poor, so lazy, unreliable, under-researched and self-serving that it ceases to be of any use and instead becomes noxious. We suggest that the Evening News is fast approaching if not already surpassing that tipping-point.