Misleading by Omission.
This time last week, we were informed Ross County's Chair, Roy MacGregor, in his capacity as SPFL Board member; was meeting with Scottish Government Minister for Sport, Joe Fitzpatrick. The purpose of the meeting was to assess the readiness of Scottish football(and other sports) to restart. Joe Fitzpatrick laid out the various Government hurdles that must be overcome. Pretty innocuous stuff, then we find out a non SPFL Board member, Peter Lawwell is to accompany MacGregor to the conference. It's reminiscent of then SPL Chief Executive, Neil Doncaster being accompanied by Peter Lawwell on his trip to London to meet SKY TV officials in the immediate wake of Rangers being confined to Scottish football's lowest tier in 2012. After a photo of Neil and Peter sitting together on a shuttle flight being posted on social media, we found out Peter was a member of the SPL TV Rights Committee.
We have never found out the other members of said Committee, we do not know if it ever met again, and no minutes of the Committee meetings have ever surfaced. Similarly, there was no report of Roy and Peters attendance, no report of contributions made. It appears a D Notice has been slapped on the pair's involvement because both print and broadcast media have deliberately refused to report, or ask any questions. The epitome of this fact was Saturday's BBC Radio Scotland's Saturday football coverage.
The most petty and ill informed Off the Ball went out it's way to ignore it, and anything to do with football really. DrStu' wanted to talk about home schooling his son, Jack. After DrStu's family life and interests(mostly himself), the main filler during lockdown has been the 45 minute appearance of Professor Jason Leitch. The former Dentist is Scotland's National Clinical Director. DrStu' asks a few macro-political questions and sometimes Jason bites. Dominic Cummings, comparisons of competence between Westminster and Holyrood, and fawning over the First Minister's performance dominate. Tam asks submitted listeners' questions, none of them are about Care Home deaths or our pretty tired Health Minister being confused over casualty figures.
In Jason Leitch's first line on Saturday, he gave a resume of his week past; including he had attended the Joe Fitzpatrick conference on getting sport in Scotland up and running. Two Journalists that have defended their live interview with Craig Whyte several weeks past, due to public interest. obsessed over the machinations of Jim Traynor, and constantly demanded transparency; ignored Leitch's revelation. Our(the listeners) opportunity to find out the why, what, and where of Peter's involvement was deliberately ignored and fudged over. The Establishment Duo mislead by omission.
Another example of DrStu's array of convenient notional friends occurred, a question reference social distancing being ignored and stating the over crowding on Portobello beach photographs were the proof. Jason did not answer, DrStu' confirmed his photographer friends confirming all pictures were taken using wide angle lenses. Those folks crowding the sands were made to look closer than they actually were. Jason awarded the Scots public a ten out of ten for behavioural compliance.
Yesterday, Peter publicly thanked Neil Doncaster for his application and securing a Sky deal for Scottish football ie the liability of ending the season early has been pushed on to every Scottish football supporter who wants to see live televised games being broadcast from behind closed doors. Peter awards BBC Scotland ten out of ten for behavioural compliance.