Readers' Ombudsman: On skiing, like any other subject, we always strive for balance

Published on Sunday 15 February 2009 20:56

'MESSENGER down, messenger down; suspected gunshot wounds." I received a number of complaints (I have avoided the word avalanche) about a story last week headlined "Skiing is doomed, so enjoy it while it lasts".

"I am writing to complain about today's article written by Jenny Haworth," says Doug Bryce. "Yes, I admit that Scottish skiing will be affected by global warming. As will ski resorts worldwide.

"It seems to me that The Scotsman has an agenda against Scottish snowsports. Is it any coincidence that this article was timed to coincide with the best week of the season? Yet it makes no mention whatsoever of the currently excellent conditions.

"I would love to think that The Scotsman might one day choose to write something positive about Scottish snowsports.

"Over 14,000 people were out on the slopes this weekend enjoying perfect conditions – why not focus on the positive? Or at least give two sides of the story.

"The Scotsman has previous form for printing negative articles about Scottish skiing.

"I await a reply and explanation from the editor and journalist."

And Matthew Cornfield wrote: "Just commenting on the ridiculous article saying how skiing is doomed in Scotland??? Why is this being printed when the Scottish ski resorts are having their best season for years with massive amounts of snow across the board? Surely some positive publicity is needed to help out these ski resorts so that they can continue to survive in the future?"

The report was based on an interview our environment correspondent, Jenny Haworth, had with Alex Hill, who is the chief government adviser with the Met Office. The timing was purely coincidental, but in fact we felt that the excellent skiing conditions at the time actually lent relevance to the article, rather than be a negative.

We published the report because the views of such an expert obviously have value. We know the environment is of great concern to our readers, we know many of our readers like to ski and we know that the skiing industry is important to Scotland.

There is also no doubt that there is a debate to be had about the industry's future, and that debate should be informed by as many diverse views as possible. Mr Hill is a credible and authoritative expert and his views should be heard – in fact, it is important that they are.

I feel there is an element of the messenger being shot here. Mr Hill's views are not this newspaper's views, but quality newspapers have to be a broad church when it comes to opinion.

As to balance and positive views, at the foot of the news story there was a cross reference to pages 42 and 43.

On those pages there was a feature-length report by Roger Cox, our deputy arts editor and a keen snowboarder, who had joined the hundreds of others at Cairngorm that week.

It included glowing praise of the conditions, and mentioned the other snow resort areas around Scotland. It carried many positive quotes.

We have no anti-snowsport agenda. I think our coverage as a whole did give two sides of the story. I hope people continue to enjoy snow in Scotland for many years to come.

MORE grammar. Anne Ross writes: "Robert Ritchie is wrong to say, 'There are a number of readers' is correct. The problem here is the mixing of singular and plural in the same phrase.

"Your sentence begins with 'There are' which is plural. It is followed by 'a number' which is singular.

"Thomson and Martinet's A Practical English Grammar states that in phrases beginning with there is/are, 'though there appears to be the subject, the real subject is the noun that follows the verb, and if this noun is plural, the verb must be plural' and by default, if singular, it must have a singular verb.

"To say 'there are a…' puts a plural verb with the indefinite article, which is always singular. You cannot say, 'There are a…'"