Stewart Ward

1 month ago | thenational.scot | Stewart Ward

The percentage of the crowd singing along to Ariana Grande's Into You is the first hint I'll give you that we are not, in fact, at a title party but instead seeing Tate McRae's SSE Hydro gig. The Canadian social media and pop star is here for Miss Possessive – her first arena tour, in support of her third album, So Close To What. (For those looking for a sense of scale, this 21-year-old has seven million Instagram followers and 52 million monthly Spotify listeners.) Back to our venue, then.

1 month ago | thenational.scot | Stewart Ward

A failure to properly scrutinise Keir Starmer before he became Labour leader may have put Reform UK on course to take power (Image: Henry Nicholls/PA Wire) “STEWART, please remove these words: the minister is just an insidious wee man.” The above legal note from our lawyers is one I regularly quote to students when chatting to them about defamation law.

2 months ago | thenational.scot | Stewart Ward

The BBC didn't just ignore the story ... it also managed to mislead in a separate piece "WHY has nobody else covered this already?” Every so often, a reporter in the National newsroom flagging up a story is met with that question. It’s usually something of such obvious news value that alarm bells start ringing. Has it been covered elsewhere and we’ve just missed it, maybe? Is there a legal issue – would we get ourselves in trouble by reporting this?

Mar 7, 2025 | thenational.scot | Stewart Ward

Oban is not 'remote' to many National readers (Image: Getty) “CAN we interest you in a story about a remote pub in Oban?” So came the appeal from a comms officer down the phoneline to one of The National’s reporters. “I’m not sure our readers would appreciate Oban being called remote,” was the rather flat reply from our journo. As a Galloway boy (who loves living in Glasgow), I’ve used this very newsletter to bang on about issues around central belt bias in the media.

Feb 21, 2025 | thenational.scot | Stewart Ward

SCOTTISH Labour sending out briefing notes to opposition politicians. A sweary Alex Cole-Hamilton tantrum. Murdo Fraser sharing The National’s front pages on Twitter. There there are some things in life we can count – and in my time at The National, the McCrone Report special edition has been one of these constants.