Type | Daily newspaper |
---|---|
Format | Compact |
Owner(s) | National World |
Editor | Alan Young [1] |
Founded | 1817 |
Political alignment | None [2] |
Headquarters | Edinburgh, Scotland, UK |
Circulation | 7,710(as of 2023) [3] |
Sister newspapers | Edinburgh Evening News Scotland on Sunday |
ISSN | 0307-5850 |
OCLC number | 614655655 |
Website | www |
The Scotsman is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its parent company, National World, also publishes the Edinburgh Evening News . It had an audited print circulation of 8,762 for July to December 2022. [4] Its website, Scotsman.com, had an average of 138,000 unique visitors a day as of 2017. [5] The title celebrated its bicentenary on 25 January 2017.
The Scotsman was conceived in 1816 [6] and first launched [7] on 25 January 1817 as a liberal weekly newspaper by lawyer William Ritchie and customs official Charles Maclaren in response to the "unblushing subservience" of competing newspapers to the Edinburgh establishment. These two plus John Ramsay McCulloch were co-founders of the venture. [8]
The paper was pledged to "impartiality, firmness and independence". The price was originally 6d plus 4d tax. [9] After the abolition of newspaper stamp tax in Scotland in 1855, The Scotsman was relaunched as a daily newspaper priced at 1d and a circulation of 6,000 copies.
The fledgling paper was originally based at 257 High Street on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. [10] Until 1860 the Scotsman shared a building with the Caledonian Mercury newspaper. [11]
In 1860, The Scotsman obtained its own purpose built office on Cockburn Street in Edinburgh designed in the Scots baronial style by the architects Peddie & Kinnear. [12] This backed onto their original offices on the Royal Mile. The building bears the initials "JR" for John Ritchie, the founder of the company. On 19 December 1904, [13] they moved to much larger new offices at the top of Cockburn Street, facing onto North Bridge, designed by Dunn & Findlay (Findlay being the son of the then owner). This huge building had taken three years to build and also had connected printworks on Market Street (in 2024 the City Art Centre). The printworks connected below road level direct to Waverley station in an efficient production line.
In 1953 the newspaper was bought by Canadian millionaire Roy Thomson who was in the process of building a large media group. The paper was bought in 1995 by David and Frederick Barclay for £85 million. They moved the newspaper from its Edinburgh office on North Bridge, which is now an upmarket hotel, to modern offices in Holyrood Road designed by Edinburgh architects CDA, near the subsequent location of the Scottish Parliament Building.
The daily was awarded by the Society for News Design (SND) the World's Best Designed Newspaper for 1994. [14]
In December 2005, The Scotsman along with its sister titles owned by The Scotsman Publications Ltd was acquired, in a £160 million deal, by Johnston Press, a company founded in Scotland and at the time one of the top three largest local newspaper publishers in the UK. Ian Stewart has been the editor since June 2012, after a reshuffle of senior management in April 2012 during which John McLellan who was the paper's editor-in-chief was dismissed. Ian Stewart was previously editor of Edinburgh Evening News and remains as the editor of Scotland on Sunday .
In 2012, The Scotsman was named Newspaper of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards. [15]
In 2006 the Barclay Brothers sold Barclay House to Irish property magnate Lochlann Quinn, and in 2013 Scottish video games maker Rockstar North, of Grand Theft Auto fame, signed the lease, causing Johnston Press group to move out in June 2014. [16] [17] Johnston Press have downsized to refurbished premises at Orchard Brae House in Queensferry Road, Edinburgh, a move which was quoted as saving the group £1million per annum in rent. [18]
The newspaper backed a 'No' vote in the referendum on Scottish independence. [19]
In November 2018, Johnston Press filed for administration. Shortly after filing for administration, the company was bought out by JPIMedia, a company which was bought by former Daily Mirror exec David Montgomery's new National World group in 2020. [20] [21]
In July 2023 an extra 52 years were added to the archive alongside the previous archives (1951–2002).
The Times is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times, are published by Times Media, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. The Times and The Sunday Times, which do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have had common ownership only since 1966. In general, the political position of The Times is considered to be centre-right.
The history of British newspapers begins in the 17th century with the emergence of regular publications covering news and gossip. The relaxation of government censorship in the late 17th century led to a rise in publications, which in turn led to an increase in regulation throughout the 18th century. The Times began publication in 1785 and became the leading newspaper of the early 19th century, before the lifting of taxes on newspapers and technological innovations led to a boom in newspaper publishing in the late 19th century. Mass education and increasing affluence led to new papers such as the Daily Mail emerging at the end of the 19th century, aimed at lower middle-class readers.
The Independent is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the Indy, it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition.
The Daily Record is a Scottish national tabloid newspaper based in Glasgow. The newspaper is published Monday–Saturday and its website is updated on an hourly basis, seven days a week. The Record's sister title is the Sunday Mail. Both titles are owned by Reach plc and have a close kinship with the UK-wide Daily Mirror as a result.
The Herald is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. The Herald is the longest running national newspaper in the world and is the eighth oldest daily paper in the world. The title was simplified from The Glasgow Herald in 1992. Following the closure of the Sunday Herald, the Herald on Sunday was launched as a Sunday edition on 9 September 2018.
The Sunday Herald was a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published between 7 February 1999 and 2 September 2018. Originally a broadsheet, it was published in compact format from 20 November 2005. The paper was known for having combined a centre-left stance with support for Scottish devolution, and later Scottish independence. The last edition of the newspaper was published on 2 September 2018 and it was replaced with Sunday editions of The Herald and The National.
The Press and Journal is a daily regional newspaper serving northern and Highland Scotland including the cities of Aberdeen and Inverness. Established in 1747, it is Scotland's oldest daily newspaper, and one of the longest-running newspapers in the world.
Scotland on Sunday is a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published in Edinburgh by National World and consequently assuming the role of Sunday sister to its daily stablemate The Scotsman. It was originally printed in broadsheet format but in 2013 was relaunched as a tabloid. Since this latest relaunch it comprises three parts, the newspaper itself which includes the original "Insight" section, a sports section and Spectrum magazine which incorporates At Home, originally a separate magazine.
The Edinburgh Evening News is a daily newspaper and website based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded by John Wilson (1844–1909) and first published in 1873. It is printed daily, except on Sundays. It is owned by National World, which also owns The Scotsman.
The Sunday Mail is a Scottish tabloid newspaper published every Sunday. It is the sister paper of the Daily Record and is owned by Reach plc.
The Stornoway Gazette is a local newspaper reporting on local issues in the Western Isles of Scotland, specifically Stornoway and the Outer Hebrides.
Johnston Press plc was a multimedia company founded in Falkirk, Scotland, in 1767. Its flagship titles included UK-national newspaper the i, The Scotsman, the Yorkshire Post, the Falkirk Herald, and Belfast's The News Letter. The company was operating around 200 newspapers and associated websites around the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man when it went into administration and was then purchased by JPIMedia in 2018.
The Falkirk Herald is a weekly newspaper and daily news website published by National World. It provides reportage, opinion and analysis of news, current affairs and sport in the towns of Falkirk, Camelon, Grangemouth, Larbert, Stenhousemuir and Denny as well as the neighbouring villages of Polmont, Redding, Brightons, Banknock and Bonnybridge. Its circulation area has a total population of 151,600, the fifth largest urban area in Scotland. It was named Weekly Newspaper of the Year at the 2013 Scottish Press Awards.
The Caledonian Mercury was a newspaper in Edinburgh, Scotland, published three times a week between 1720 and 1867. In 2010 an online publication launched using the name.
The i is a British national newspaper published in London by Daily Mail and General Trust and distributed across the United Kingdom. It is aimed at "readers and lapsed readers" of all ages and commuters with limited time, and was originally launched in 2010 as a sister paper to The Independent. It was later acquired by Johnston Press in 2016 after The Independent shifted to a digital-only model. The i came under the control of JPIMedia a day after Johnston Press filed for administration on 16 November 2018. The paper and its website were bought by the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) on 29 November 2019, for £49.6 million. On 6 December 2019 the Competition and Markets Authority served an initial enforcement order on DMGT and DMG Media Limited, requiring the paper to be run separately pending investigation.
John McLellan is a Scottish newspaper journalist, former editor of The Scotsman (2009–2012), Scottish Conservative Party media chief (2012–2013) and was a Conservative City of Edinburgh councillor (2017-2022).
Events from the year 1817 in Scotland.
The National is a Scottish daily newspaper owned by Newsquest. It began publication on 24 November 2014, and was the first daily newspaper in Scotland to support Scottish independence. Launched as a response to calls from Newsquest's readership for a pro-independence paper in the wake of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, it is a sister paper of The Herald, and is edited by Laura Webster. Initially published on weekdays, a Saturday edition was added in May 2015. The National is printed in tabloid format, and is also available via online subscription.
The Southern Reporter is a weekly tabloid format sold in the Scottish Borders. It publishes Thursdays and is owned by National World.
National World plc is a British multimedia company based in Leeds, England. The company was founded and listed on the London Stock Exchange in September 2019 as a media takeover vehicle. In January 2021, it acquired JPIMedia for £10.2 million.