Parliaments have their own ways of marking the death of a member. Protocols are observed, some dating to an earlier age, others less so. As it is for legislatures, so it is for the media. While its methods may be more modern, certain rules still apply.

Most people will have heard about the death of Alex Salmond via a notification on their phone, or via a “breaking news” alert online, or on television.

After that initial summons to attention, the tributes to the former First Minister of Scotland began to flow on social media. From the King and the Prime Minister to the current First Minister and ex-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, it seemed everyone wanted to have their say. Some were quicker off the mark than others as though it was a race. Hour after hour the tributes continued, the hashtags changing but the sense of shock remaining steady.

After that the newspapers and websites took over, and then the Sunday politics shows. The 24/7 media machine was working as it should, packaging and processing the material. A man’s life reduced to a package of clips and a clutch of quotes.

Early as it is, hundreds of thousands of words have already been expended, all of them trying to capture the moment and convey a feeling. Yet nothing has been as powerful as the last few seconds of an interview on BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show.

As the presenter, Gary Robertson, said in his introduction, this was a very different programme than the one that had been planned. A balance had to be found between paying tribute to Mr Salmond while acknowledging the “difficulties” of later years. The same was required of every media outlet, yet there was always going to be particular attention paid to the BBC’s coverage, such was the fraught relationship between Mr Salmond and the corporation.

His last dealings with BBC Scotland had been over the recent two part series, Salmond and Sturgeon: a Troubled Union. He was scornful of the film, feeling it had reduced his political partnership with Ms Sturgeon to the stuff of soap opera, and accusing the BBC of a “venomous and institutional bias” against independence. “For any independence supporter to trust a single word the BBC, or associated organisation, say is one of the great mistakes in life,” he wrote on Twitter/X.

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After a brief look at Mr Salmond’s life and career and an interview with John Swinney, Robertson spoke to former MP Joanna Cherry KC and Geoff Aberdein, ex-chief of staff to the former First Minister.

Mr Aberdein, pale and still in shock, looked like a man who had had a long bleak night. But he had turned out to pay tribute to his old boss because it was the right thing to do.

As the presenter, Gary Robertson, brought the interview to a close, Mr Aberdein could hold the emotional line no longer and broke down. It was a very human moment, a natural and understandable response to the death of someone close. The two had their differences. Mr Salmond sacked his chief of staff no less than seven times. But that was Alec - never Alex to those who knew him best. Alec was complicated.

The term is mine, not Mr Aberdein’s, my contribution to the mountain of euphemisms that had built up by morning’s end. Others spoke of Mr Salmond as a “divisive figure”, or were keen to stress the distance between them even while paying tribute. “We had our differences,” was a familiar refrain.

For a politician rightly credited as one of the most polished media performers of his generation, Mr Salmond’s ability to make himself understood appeared to have deserted him in recent years. That is one view. His supporters might argue that circumstances and other factors conspired to rob him of a fair hearing then and since. It is an argument that will continue for many years to come, and indeed may never be settled now that one of the central figures has departed.

On Sky News’ Sunday with Trevor Phillips, the presenter was one of many journalists keen to pay tribute to Mr Salmond as “a formidable interviewee”. He had been booked to appear on the show next week. “We were bracing ourselves for a tough one,” said Phillips, before going on to say that today’s politicians could learn from studying Mr Salmond’s parliamentary career.

The Sky News presenter is not the first and won’t be the last to hold Mr Salmond up as an example to others. The former First Minister was part of a talented generation of politicians - Blair, Brown, Kennedy, Forsyth, take your pick - the likes of which some fear will never be seen again. Different individuals but with things in common, chief among them a hinterland and a healthy reverence for parliamentary democracy. Mr Salmond was a showman and proud of it. He also had a sense of humour, a commodity much lacking in modern politics.

Brian Cox, a guest on BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, had no hesitation in comparing some of today’s politicians with Mr Salmond and finding them wanting. One in particular, fellow guest and Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick, was described by the Succession actor as having “a head full of mince”. Given Mr Jenrick’s record as a minister included ordering a cartoon mural at an asylum centre to be painted over, it was hard to disagree. He now regrets this, we were told.

Elsewhere on the Sunday shows, one would like to have known what Mr Salmond thought of the performance of Jonathan Reynolds, the UK business secretary, who was busy trying to argue that the transport secretary, Louise Haig, did not speak for the government in calling for a boycott of P&O Ferries. On this and many other subjects, Mr Salmond would have had an opinion and expressed it well.

But talk of the new Labour government’s investors summit, starting Monday, asylum centres, leadership contenders talking nonsense - it was all a reminder that politics stops for no one. The caravan moves on, regardless.

Alison Rowat is a senior politics and features writer for The Herald