Welcome to this week's Media Watch newsletter. Remember you can get this in your inbox for free every week by clicking here.
THE Oasis reunion tour has dominated headlines over recent days after the Gallagher brothers announced they would be performing together across the UK for the first time in 15 years.
But who would’ve thought they would have managed to creep into a Sunday Mail story about SNP conference?
It was a conference of reflection and renewal for the party after the SNP lost dozens of MPs at the General Election, but John Swinney’s closing speech was somewhat overshadowed as a report on Sunday by the paper claimed Health Secretary Neil Gray had admitted to trying to buy Oasis tickets while chairing a discussion on brain research.
The headline the Record went with was “Look Nat In Anger” with Gray being described as a “bungling” Cabinet Secretary on the front page.
However, the SNP minister was quick to rebut the claim after he was accused of being “distracted” from his duties by Scottish Labour’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie.
He described the story as “total nonsense” on Twitter/X and explained that he was simply having a joke with a fellow panellist about being in the queue for tickets right at the start of the session. He insisted he was not trying to buy tickets during the fringe event.
“In intros to a fringe session I was chairing another panellist jokingly referred to Oasis tickets. I said like so many I was in the queue, but felt Half the World Away from getting any. People laughed and we went into the serious business,” he said.
“I wasn’t trying to buy tickets in the meeting. I was fully focused on chairing and contributing to what was an inspiring session on brain health research and how Scotland, by the experts’ own words, is leading the world.
“The contributions from the audience and the panel were in depth, insightful and inspiring. It was a pleasure being part of – with family experience of Alzheimer’s and dementia, it is too important an issue for me to do anything otherwise.”
The original story was also picked up by the Telegraph, the Scottish Daily Express, Scottish Sun and the Daily Mail as the media attempted to turn a simple joke into a political drama.
The SNP said they would not apologise for “a politician making a joke which others enjoyed”.
Gray had been appearing alongside leading experts Professor Frank Gunn-Moore from the University of St Andrews, Professor Terry Quinn from the University of Glasgow, and Professor Craig Ritchie and Dr Alison Green from Scottish Brain Sciences.
Responding to a user who asked if he had managed to buy tickets to the Oasis reunion tour, which will feature three gigs in Edinburgh next summer, Gray said: “Nope.”
