Scottish Mainstream Media is in a terminal tail spin. The Daily Record, the tabloid that gave us Craig Whyte and his off the radar wealth, via its Sports Editor James Traynor, now sells an average of only 181,100 copies per day. Back in the day when Traynor would write to Whyte asking him to approve his copy and whether he would give him a job, their sales figures were 306,872. The Sunday Mail, its Trinity Mirror stable-mate has now dropped under the 200,000 threshold to 197,477. Its rival The Sunday Herald only sells just over 32,000 copies. Its new title The National, is almost as irrelevant as The Evening Times. The Herald’s online subscribers are a small group of 10,000 individuals. Is it any wonder that when Traynor of Level 5 calls offering five figure sums to place an advert for sales of Rangers ST tickets, in the guise of journalism, The Herald are willing to bend over backwards to accommodate him? Every other newspaper is in decline, with the exception of The Times and FT.
James Traynor’s ‘succulent lamb’ journalism came unstuck with Whyte. He instructed Keith Jackson to run with the ‘wealth off the radar’ headline. This headline continues to ‘haunt’ Jackson to this day, but he is still relevant. Mr Jackson and Stephen Kerr of Level 5 continue to have a good relationship. The Daily Record’s unstinting support of King was not paid for by Level 5. Their influence on the success of the lying underfunded hostile takeover of Rangers should not be underestimated. Level 5 continue to offer the blue pound to the Herald Group. A point in case was Craig Houston of the Sons of Struth being the flag-bearer for a new youth programme at Auchenhowie. It won’t cost any more as the current coaches have spare capacity, but that’s not what we are supposed to believe.
Of the internet bloggers, not one Rangers blog reached the shortlist of The UK Football Blogging Awards. On the other side of our divided online community, The Clumpany, who has written over 200 blogs and has surpassed 1,000,000 hits on his WordPress account in the past year,is on the shortlist as best newcomer. Phil Mac Giolla Bhain is on the established blog shortlist. He is on record as receiving north of 81,000 hits per day.
With the exception of the Daily Record, who released one of the recordings in regard to Imran Ahmad and Malcolm Murray, everyone has avoided the forthcoming trial. Of course there was no impropriety in this recording and most of us had heard it before. It had no relevance to the current live proceedings at Edinburgh’s High Court on Friday 16 October. I have little doubt that Craig Houston will turn up, unless King is grooming him for a board position; to thank him for his sterling work at the abandoned Rangers v Hearts tie last season. On that evening the Police Commander could not contain Houston’s mob. He had to summon a mounted unit to allow the executives of Rangers and Hearts to leave the stadium. I’m in no doubt that our criminal chairman was delighted with Houston’s efforts.
My fledgling blog is significantly less influential than those who represent CFC and Scottish Nationalism. When The Sunday Herald backed Salmond, they raised their sales by 3,000. However John Swinney’s leaked confidential report gave the SNP’s crooked game away. The capital flight, jobs lost and the declining tax revenue from North Sea Oil & Gas would have led to an economy on its knees, just like the Republic of Ireland prior to its bailout. Of course Mr Mac Giolla Bhain was actively encouraging Nationalism with one eye on undermining the influence of Northern Ireland.
The Charlotte Fake blogs were very informative about Craig Whyte, Jack Irvine, James Traynor and Charles Green. They are no longer readily available, but they continue to exist if you know where to look. They provide an invaluable insight on Whyte & Green. I’m confident that reporting restrictions will be lifted when a jury has been sworn in.
Charles Green did very well from his association with Rangers. He hired Traynor, with share options and a bloated salary,to deflect the media from his artifice, However with Green routinely going off message and bringing out mugs of tea to journalists, Traynor was reduced to shuffling papers for ten months.
Mr Green did well to pocket a minimum of £5m from his two months of funds raising and his much celebrated ‘meeting with himself’ on the 29th May 2012, until his departure on 19 April 2013. He could have done even better if all the leading players who had a contract with Rangers FC plc had agreed to sign a contract with Sevco Scotland Ltd. Or were they offered a contract with Sevco 5088, as would have been the case if they had signed prior to June 12, 2012? He would have sold them to leverage a higher share price from profits that he had manipulated with a £40m uplift in the asset values.
Mr Green played as a schoolboy for Sheffield United, prior to his release and a short stint at Doncaster Rovers followed by non league obscurity. However his impact in 1995 and formal appointment as CEO in 1996, led to their manager Nigel Spackman resigning in 1998 as Mr Green had sold all his best players. This IPO netted him £6m.
Of course no-one should discount the influence of international broadcasters such as the BBC,Sky and BT. I note that STV tweets are usually accurate. But when you look at Jim White’s interview with King, it was so fawning and so lacking in any depth that I found it analagous to an MTV production with a working title of Criminal Cribs.
Last, and most certainly least, is Radio Clyde, which might as well be an outside broadcast from Level 5’s offices.
