Alex Salmond compared to Trump for attack on '˜yoon' media

Scotland's ex-First Minister been compared unfavourably to Donald Trump after he called out the media for presenting an 'alternative reality' to Scots.

Alex Salmond. Picture: John Devlin.

Alex Salmond warned the public should not trust ‘unionist’ media sources, in a move likened to Trump’s calls of ‘fake news’.

Salmond blasted a so-called ‘yoon media’ (short for unionist) in a video blog for a Scottish newspaper.

He said: “Now, I won’t call it the fake facts media, or the fake media, or the alternative facts media, because that would be to quote the President of the United States, and you don’t have to be a racist or a misogynist to know when stories are being distorted.

“So I like to call it in Scotland the yoon media. That’s the element of the Scottish press who interpret any story, any issue, and makes it an attempt to either attack or discredit the SNP.

“One of the yoon media says Alex Salmond gave some credit to the SNP Government for the Small Business Bonus Scheme. Some credit? I introduced the Small Business Bonus Scheme.

“So it does provide a fantastic example of, not what we’re going to call fake facts in Scotland, but the alternative reality which is presented by elements of the yoon media.”

MSP Mike Rumbles, of the Liberal Democrats, said: “Alex Salmond seems to have adopted a strategy of Donald Trump in trying to discredit the media. His argument that the media are presenting an alternative universe is a slippery slope to what we are seeing in America.”

A Labour source added: “It looks like Alex Salmond taught Donald Trump all he knows about showing division.”

The Scottish Government said First Minister Nicola Sturgeon did not believe there was a ‘yoon media’.