More than 10,000 people have signed a petition calling for BBC Scotland to reverse its decision to stop broadcasting the country's daily coronavirus briefings.
The broadcaster announced on Thursday that it will no longer be providing live coverage of the press conference chaired by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon every day.
It is understood that, from next week, editors will decide whether the briefings will be televised based on "editorial merit".
But the decision has been met with fury from thousands of Scots, who have backed a petition demanding a u-turn.
READ MORE: BBC Scotland stopping daily live coverage of Nicola Sturgeon's coronavirus briefings
At time of writing, more than 10,300 people have signed the petition to the broadcaster - just 13 hours since it was launched.
Organiser Laura McNeil said the decision will put the country "at a serious risk".
She wrote: "The Scottish Government Covid-19 Briefings have been and still are an essential tool in dealing with this public health crisis, used to convey important information to the people of this country.
"To deny that is to put the country at a serious risk.
"We have no control over broadcasting rights and no national media and not everyone has access to internet.
"The BBC are causing an issue where the only one should be that of public health."
Those who backed the petition rallied in support of Ms McNeil's message.
One wrote: "Even although I live in England I watch it regularly to learn about developments."
READ MORE: Social gatherings reduced to six as stadium and theatre re-opening paused
Another said: "The FMs daily Covid-19 updates on BBC are vital to keep people informed and engaged and widely welcomed by the community."
Announcing their decision yesterday, a BBC spokesman said: "“We will continue to provide extensive coverage of the government press conferences across our news services, including live streaming online.
“We will of course consider showing press conferences live when any major developments or updates are anticipated.”
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
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel