News values

Monday's written answers on the Parliamentary website (here) reveal that in the financial year 2005-06 the Executive spent £1,961,586 on newspaper advertising. Of this sum, The Record managed to secure £906,551 whereas The Sun (with a broadly equivalent circulation) earned a relatively paltry £40,051.

The Herald quotes an Executive spokesman's rationale for this disparity (here):

An executive spokesman said: "The largest proportion of the spend in the Daily Record was on weekly double-page public information campaigns on issues like organ donation, anti-racism, and bullying."

It was therefore nothing to do with The Record's traditional support for Labour or with The Sun's on-off dalliance with the SNP.

Convincing? No, not really.