Scotland Tonight

Further to yesterday’s post about the SNP conference and a fringe event about vaping that got cancelled …

You may remember that I was in Glasgow last month having been invited to appear on Scotland Tonight.

Scotland Tonight is a nightly news and current affairs programme broadcast on STV at 10.30pm during the week apart from Thursday when the programme goes out at 8.30pm.

I offered to appear live in the studio on Thursday September 8 but the journey to Glasgow began two weeks earlier when I was contacted by an STV News reporter who explained that they were considering a programme that ‘will explore the Scottish Government’s plans to make the country a tobacco-free generation by 2034’.

In particular, she wrote, the Scottish Government has ‘already said it’s considering a “range of initiatives” to achieve this – which could include a New Zealand-style phased ban.’

At that stage there was no mention at all of vaping. It was first brought up (by me, I think) when we spoke on the phone later that day.

As I remember I mentioned that Forest supports vaping as a reduced risk alternative to smoking although our principal role is to defend the interests of adults who enjoy smoking and don’t want to quit.

Five days later I received an email that asked if I was still ‘happy to join us as a guest live at 8.30pm next Thursday [September 8]’ on what was described as the ‘Scotland Tonight special on smoking and vaping’.

I was keen to be on the programme so I confirmed my participation and said I would travel to the studio rather than be interviewed down the line, which was also an option.

The following week I drove to Glasgow, arriving in good time, but as you may have worked out, and as I wrote here, Thursday September 8 was the day the Queen died.

Within minutes of the announcement of her death I got a call to say the programme had been postponed.

Six days later I received another email:

Apologies about last week’s programme – I’m happy to let you know that we’ll be broadcasting this programme on Thursday 22 September at 8.30pm. We would still really like for you to be on our panel if possible. I understand that Glasgow may not be possible, but depending on where you are based we could either get you into one of our studios or have you join us via Zoom/Skype.

I had to be in Birmingham that day so I offered to do the interview from a studio in the city, a suggestion they subsequently agreed to and confirmed.

Two days before the rescheduled programme I had a five-minute chat with someone on the programme who wanted me to remind them of Forest’s position on smoking and vaping.

Then, 24 hours later, I received another email to say the programme had been ‘pushed back a week again’:

It’s a knock on effect of the Queen’s death and a network special is going in our slot. I’ll be back in touch when I find out a confirmed date for this to TX, but otherwise, we won’t need you this Thursday. Thanks so much for your flexibility on this and apologies that it’s been so on and off.

In response I said I couldn’t do the following Thursday (September 29) because I’d be in America but I’d be available after that and ‘happy to come to Glasgow’.

So when was the twice postponed programme finally broadcast? Why, on September 29, when I was attending the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum in Washington!

I know I couldn’t expect them to delay the programme again just for me but that’s not the half of it because the broadcast programme was significantly different to the programme that was originally scheduled for September 8 and September 22.

It was no longer about the ‘Scottish Government’s plans to make the country a tobacco-free generation by 2034’. Instead it was almost exclusively about vaping and the potential threat to young people including schoolchildren and the studio guests were now Sheila Duffy (director, ASH Scotland) and Mark Oates (director, We Vape).

When I queried this, after watching the programme the day after my return from Washington, they replied:

We decided to have our panel centred around vaping rather than smoking as we had made changes to the package, and felt the panel should reflect the debate around vaping rather than smoking.

Fair enough but what’s not clear is why they made changes to the package in the first place. What happened after September 22 that led to a significantly different programme being broadcast seven days later?

On August 29 STV News reported that the rise in the number of young people vaping is a 'disaster in the making' but that was a month before Scotland Tonight broadcast its programme on vaping.

It makes no sense to me why, a month later, a current affairs programme that began as an exploration of the ‘Scottish Government’s plans to make the country a tobacco-free generation by 2034’ should change tack and focus almost exclusively on vaping or, to be more accurate, fears about vaping.

This, btw, is the report STV News posted online on the day the Scotland Tonight programme was broadcast:

Scotland Tonight: Scottish Government urged to take action to regulate vaping amid addiction fears (STV News)

Read it and you probably don’t need to watch the programme. The content and tone are pretty similar.

As for the original plan, discussing the Scottish Government’s smoke free ambition, that seems to have been consigned to what used to be called the cutting room floor.

Is it unreasonable to ask why?