David Leask has joined The Herald's columnist line-up with a new weekly column.
He'll be talking about everything from politics to the tackling of misinformation every Friday - make sure you have a Herald subscription to catch his column.
What’s been the highlight of your career?
For every journalist, the highlight of your career is fixing a mistake before you print it. And the lowlight is printing mistakes. I’ve done both.
What’s your favourite part of Scotland and why?
Honestly, a pass. But I do think a lot of our wee towns - the Airdries and Peterheads and Dumbartons have what estate agents call great bones and with a lick of paint would be as good as anywhere.
What was the last book you read?
I just put down one of Gianrico Carofiglio’s cracking and terrifyingly banal crime novels inspired by real cases.
What do you write about for The Herald? Give us a brief description
A little bit of everything except sport and the arts - though my background is probably mostly in crime and investigations.
What will be the biggest stories of 2021 and the next decade?
I have no clue but whatever happens, I suspect, will be heavily influenced by how successful we are at tackling online disinformation.
What do you make of both the Scottish and UK government’s response to Coronavirus?
For me, it’s too soon to say.
Who’s going to win the Holyrood election and why?
I’m hopeless at predictions but I’d guess what really matters is not who wins -it’ll probably be the SNP, or so the polls suggest - but whether they can hoover up both votes and get another majority.
What will happen with indyref2 after the election?
I have no idea but I can’t wait to find out.
Why should Scots sign up for a Herald subscription?
Because the alternative to serious news media is the free-for-all of the internet, where extreme voices are amplified and lies reign unchallenged.
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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