About

Scottish Roundup is a website dedicated to digesting what Scotland’s bloggers and other “citizen journalists” have to say. The website is run by me, Duncan Stephen, with regular help from Will Patterson. There is also a team of regular contributors:

We are still looking for more people to join the team, particularly those who write about subjects other than politics. Please get in touch if you are up for helping out.

In order to ensure that a wide range of perspectives and writing styles can be featured, guest contributors are regularly invited to compile a roundup. Guest contributors include:

But that is only half the story, because there is not much we can do without your nominations. After all, it is easy for us to miss some brilliant writing in the blogosphere. So if you have anything to suggest, be it a blog post, a podcast, a YouTube video, or anything really, then please write your suggestions in the form on the right. Alternatively, you can email scottishroundup@gmail.com. By the way, we also encourage you to nominate yourself.

We also operate a del.icio.us account designed to highlight “newly discovered” bloggers, which you can find in the sidebar. You can use the same form on the right to point us in the direction of new bloggers.

Thanks should go to Misssy M for coming up with ‘NoPoScoBloRo’ as a name — much better and more eye-catching than the clunky “non-political roundup”!

The following is an edited version of a post I wrote on my on blog in September 2006 explaining why I felt the need to set up this website.

I was struck by an article written by Iain Macwhirter, The Scottish Media is Doomed. It paints a sorry picture. There have been massive job cuts in the current affairs departments of BBC Scotland and STV (Scotland’s only major broadcasters). Newspaper circulations are spiralling and Scots are increasingly turning to English publications for their news. (Neil McIntosh has some views on Iain Macwhirter’s post.)

And this is all happening at just the time when it shouldn’t be. The still relatively new Scottish Parliament is responsible for a lot of the legislation that affects the country, and power will now probably only ever move from Westminster to Holyrood. Yet the spotlight on Holyrood is getting dimmer. Surely more accountability is needed.

You think you know what I’m going to say. Scotland’s citizen journalists to the rescue, right? Uhh, not really. At times the Scottish blogosphere feels incredibly sparse. It’s not too difficult, with a bit of effort, to find Scots blogging about politics. But when you do, how often is it about Scottish politics? And when you do find them, there is little doubt that the Scottish political blogosphere isn’t quite as vibrant as the Westminster-orientated scene.

Maybe I’m just missing all the great blogging going on out there. That’s part of the reason why I wanted to start this roundup. I want to discover new blogs and hopefully get a bit more of a community going, with more discussion between bloggers of all hues — particularly with the Scottish Parliament elections gearing up in the coming months.

As I mentioned, there’s no way I’m doing this on my own. Not only is it a bit questionable of me to select myself as saviour of the Scottish blogosphere, the roundup wasn’t even my idea! Of course there is Tim Worstall, king of the roundups. But Stuart Dickson and CuriousHamster already had a go at a Scottish Political Blogs Review.

As for eligibility, I don’t see much point in being too restrictive, so I’ll adopt the Craig Brown approach — the most tenuous link to Scotland will do. If you’re from Scotland, living in Scotland or just writing about Scotland, it will all be fine by me. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be a blog.

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