22/09/2008

A blogger on allmediascotland.com has been fired as a columnist by The Scotsman newspaper, following a comment he made on this site.

On Friday, Nick Clayton was given the news by Alison Gray, editor of the paper's Saturday magazine, that his services would no longer be required. Clayton wrote a weekly, gadget column for the magazine.

He was told the decision to sack him followed comments made that day in his blog on allmediascotland.com, which focused on the growing threat from the internet to, specifically, newspaper sub-editors, and generally to the newspaper industry.

He mentioned in the blog that all but one estate agent had recently told him not to bother paying to advertise properties for sale in The Scotsman.

A few hours later, Gray telephoned him.

allmediascotland.com's immediate response was to seek Clayton's reinstatement - not least because The Scotsman was never within Clayton's sights when writing the article. It also disabled the blog.

But these efforts have been met with silence from The Scotsman editor, Mike Gilson.

Hence, the blog has been re-activated (here).

Says Clayton, who is planning to write another blog, about his experience:  "I really don't understand why I've been fired after more than a dozen years as a loyal contributor to The Scotsman. I was merely reporting what estate agents had said to me about advertising in newspapers.

"In fact, at the end of last month The Scotsman carried an article about its parent company, under the headline: 'Johnston Press Hit by House Market Woes as Property Advertising Slides' (here). The piece even quoted out-going chief executive, Tim Bowdler, saying that a number of estate agents had stopped advertising in August. Bowdler did add that the company expected that situation to change in September.

"Effectively, what I've been fired for is mentioning the very same point that has been made in the newspaper."

Read Nick's new blog, about being fired. Here.


* Send your Scottish media news and gossip, in the strictest confidence, to  info@allmediascotland.com