THE Leveson report on Press standards – published last week – is being debated this afternoon in the Scottish Parliament.
It follows intense media coverage and comment these last few days, plus criticism of First Minister, Alex Salmond, for his support of a bid by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation to take a controlling interest in satellite broadcaster, BSkyB – a move which was eventually dropped at the time of Murdoch’s News of the World newspaper being shut, in July last year, amid allegations of phone hacking.
At the weekend, for instance, the Sunday Herald devoted pages 10-16 on the subject – including with an article from Salmond himself.
In the Leveson report, Salmond mostly escaped criticism, but not entirely, which has been seized upon by opponents.
In Scotland on Sunday, meanwhile, Eddie Barnes and Euan McColm both wrote extensively about Leveson’s recommendations.
Indeed, the paper slashed with the front page headline, ‘Salmond isolated on “McLeveson”‘, with Barnes and Tom Peterkin beginning: “Alex Salmond was last night looking increasingly isolated in the aftermath of the Leveson Inquiry, as opposition leaders and legal experts rejected his plans for a separate Scottish system of Press regulation.”
Yesterday, opposition leaders were reported expressing their ‘astonoshment’ at Salmond stating on the BBC, on Sunday, that he was “very content” with Leveson’s conclusions about him.
