The BBC front page headline for this is actually just the alarming-sounding “Scottish prescription costs rise by 25%”, without even the qualifier about the timespan.
It’s worse than that, though.
Because 17 paragraphs down the piece, this bit of information is buried:
Oh. So SOMEONE probably ought to take that into account, right?
Because inflation in the UK over the same ten years has been 31.9%. Which means that in real terms the cost of providing prescriptions in Scotland – DESPITE an ageing population and the cost of new drugs – has FALLEN, not “risen by 25%”.
Readers might reasonably feel that anyone accepting the salary of a journalist ought to have been able to ascertain that simple and incredibly pertinent fact before writing the story. After all, they KNEW that inflation hadn’t been factored into the figures, and that inflation is a thing, and that inflation makes stuff more expensive, and that it’s not hard to find out what inflation has been over a period of time, and that you always, always compare costs over time with inflation included in order to present a true picture.
But that’s not how things are done in Scotland these days.
Because the truly spectactular news is that the BBC’s wildly misleading report (which can’t even round properly – 25.7 should round to 26, not 25) is still the most accurate one available to the unfortunate people of Scotland, because at least it MENTIONS the inflation factor, albeit halfway down the page in passing.
The Scottish print media, on the other hand, blares the news all over its pages – in at least two cases, as the front-page lead – WITHOUT mentioning inflation.
The Scotsman front-page splash doesn’t mention inflation at all.
The Herald’s coverage doesn’t mention inflation at all.
The Scottish Daily Mail front-page splash doesn’t mention inflation at all.
The Telegraph doesn’t mention inflation at all.
The Daily Record’s little corner piece doesn’t mention inflation at all.
In short, folks, there isn’t a single proper journalist left in Scotland. Good luck.
