WHAT I wouldn’t give to view the minutes of the meeting to decide who was to chair the working group on public interest journalism. It seems this group has been established to examine ways in which the Scottish Government and the press and media can work together to support it.

Here’s a broad approximation of what will have been said at the crucial meeting: “Hyslop, you’ve been kicking your heels a bit lately. So take your pick from these two: a steering group on procurement for janitorial supplies in the Highlands and Islands or a working group on public interest journalism?”

And so, to the redoubtable and hard-working Ms Hyslop has fallen the task of hosting Zoom chats with industry executives and the National Union of Journalists in pursuit of this noble concept of “public interest” journalism. Though quite how they decide what “public interest” journalism is and who does the deciding might in themselves require some kind of action committee to be convened.

Let’s not kid ourselves: the SNP really doesn’t like the press and media, but then neither does any other government in the known world … and that’s exactly the way it should be. If a government says it loves the press and wants to seek closer ties to it then it is lying.

And if a government really does have a warm and mutually beneficial relationship with the press then the rest of you should be worried. For that means that newspapers and journalists aren’t doing their jobs properly on your behalf.

I’ve no serious objection to a group of newspaper executives getting together with a Cabinet minister to examine ways of working together. But when the locutions “examine ways”, “working group” and “public interest” are arranged together in the same sentence it usually means a destination surrounded by long grass has already been decided upon.

Indeed the SNP probably have more justification than any other political party to treat national newspaper journalists with something approaching disdain and suspicion. Almost the entirety of the UK press and its satellites in Scotland came out for the Union in 2014 and were happy to disseminate dozens of fictions about what would befall Scotland if it voted for independence.

Even so, the decision by Scotland’s Finance Secretary, Kate Forbes, not to extend emergency business rates for news publishers may return to haunt her and her government colleagues. In withdrawing this support –which amounts to around £1 million – Forbes has singled out the newspaper publishing sector from the other 16 it agreed to support last May.

I get a bit queasy when I see some of my esteemed newspaper colleagues getting all dewy-eyed about the role of the press in a democratic society and how any attack on it is an attack on us all.

We operate in the private sector and live or die by the rules of the market, which in this case, is actual Scottish people. If more of them prefer to consume their news and comment from online sources then rather than being dismissive and haughty about them, newspaper journalists should seek to be better and better-informed.

That little observation aside, the decision to cease this funding – and for such a trifling amount – seems to have been inspired by little more than adolescent spite. It also bears the imprint of crass stupidity. Presumably, the Scottish Government cares little if this hurts the major national titles whom it purports to disdain.

Yet, these will survive such a petty reprisal. It’s the smaller titles further down the publishing food chain which will struggle. These are the ones which, in the midst of this lethal pandemic, provide information about support networks to far-flung communities and to elderly and vulnerable people who are not connected to the internet, nor have the means to access it.

THE Scottish and UK governments have armies of communications advisers, most of them drawn from the ranks of the newspaper game. Some of them are good at what they do, but too many find themselves in such a dismal job because either they weren’t very good at journalism or they have such low levels of self-esteem that they find fulfilment in taking orders from semi-literate, third-rate politicians with a Messiah complex.

Those few among them who are in a position to offer authentic advice to their political paymasters should be looking ahead to what will happen following independence. Many Yes supporters would have you believe that the sheer euphoria of actual self-determination will see us through the immediate aftermath of it. And that Scottish Government negotiators will be sent cheerily on their way south with flowers and kisses as they seek to get the best possible outcomes for the new independent state from a subdued UK Government.

The reality will be somewhat different. We’ve already witnessed how the entire UK establishment gathered together to oppose independence in the first referendum. If they lose the next one their cold fury will be implacable and they’ll focus all their energies in decrying and defaming the newly seceded state with every lever at their disposal.

The UK security apparatus and its placemen in the BBC and England’s favourite right-wing newspapers will carry stories predicting economic and cultural Armageddon for independent Scotland. They will do everything possible to undermine business confidence and to deter investment.

The war of words will occur in the pages of our national prints and will require the Scottish Government to be nimble and adroit about managing their communications strategy.

The main Scottish newspapers have lately become a target for some in the Yes community, and occasionally with good reason. Yet, most of them retain a healthy core of commentators who’ll be alive to the wiles of Westminster in the months and years following independence.

In defence of my trade I’d simply say that in the absence of any effective opposition it’s the job of newspapers to examine and criticise the government of the day, and more so when that government has been in power for longer than most other European governments outside Russia. This is the main reason why the SNP receives more scrutiny than the other parties, all of whom have become an irrelevance.

The Scottish media, though, knows that the biggest stories about graft, dishonesty and economic deception will be found in the fury of the UK Government’s response to losing a quarter of its kingdom. But if some of those newspapers disappear in the post-pandemic, economic maelstrom the newly independent state will suffer as a consequence. Kate Forbes should get to grips with this reality and restore emergency business rates.