IT was not an occasion that the Queen felt she could overlook - not when the “Old Lady of Buchanan Street - namely, this newspaper - was marking her 175th birthday.
Thus a letter from Buckingham Palace, dated January 20, 1958, and written by her Private Secretary, conveyed to the newspaper’s editor her “sincere congratulations to all concerned in its publication on reaching this new landmark in the history of your great Scottish newspaper and her best wishes for the continued prosperity of the paper and all its readers.”
The paper published a commemorative magazine to mark the anniversary, with contributions from, amongst others, two former Secretaries of State for Scotland - Walter Elliot (he completed the article shortly before his death) and Thomas Johnston. And a television crew (above) visited the Herald’s offices to film some employees at work.
A leading article on January 27th put the anniversary into perspective, arguing that what really mattered was a newspaper’s devotion to truth:
“The real milestones,” it said, “are the days when a newspaper might win popularity and praise by compromising its independence - and does not; when it might tamper with the truth, or close its eyes to the awkward fact, or hurt the one to please the many - and does not. If the newspaper keeps faith with itself, the passing of these milestones goes unremarked by the world outside.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
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