New media outfit aims to 'liberate' DIY journalists to produce film and other media exploring issues and initiatives in their communities

A NEW media production initiative wants to equip citizen journalists with the capacity to explore their own communities and tell untold stories about aspects of modern Scottish life.

The Unchained Media Scotland project will officially launch at the North East Independence Conference in Aberdeen on Sunday 24 February.

Beyond the Noise with David Jamieson is a weekly podcast with CommonSpace journalist David Jamieson, where he gets behind the 24/7 news cycle and gets to heart of issues, trying to find the substance behind the headlines.

THIS week, Jamieson is joined by Aaron Bastani, co-founder of Novara Media and author of the forthcoming 'Fully Automated Luxury Communism', about Corbynism and its relationship to the crisis of the British state, Scottish independence and Brexit.

Common Weal director Robin McAlpine says the solution to political despondency is to take action – with the development of a Scottish National Energy Company the perfect opportunity to show Scotland can be better 

ONE of the most useful lessons I was ever given was very simple – when you're down in the dumps, do something useful.

The Justice For All conference will feature prominent legal figures such as Aamer Anwar and Jonathan Mitchell

- New student-run conference will examine the relationship between law and the common good

- Conference organiser Michael Gray argues that Scotland’s legal community should play a renewed part in public debate

- Speakers will include a diverse range of legal authorities, activists and advocates

High profile leftists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are popularising the idea of socialism in the US – is Scotland and the UK falling behind?

SPEAKING in his State of the Union annual address [6 February], US President Donald Trump declared that "we will never be a socialist country".

Common Weal head of policy & research Dr Craig Dalzell looks in depth at Export Statistics Scotland’s latest publication, and finds it reveals truths about Scotland’s economy which do not easily fit the Unionist narrative

THE new Export Statistics Scotland publication shows the global opportunities for Scottish goods and the solid foundations for the economy of an independent Scotland. 

The People Before Profit MLA for West Belfast talks Brexit, democratic rights and the breakup of Britain with CommonSpace

GERRY CARROLL has been a distinctive left-wing voice within the political landscape of Northern Ireland for almost a decade.

Sturgeon has praised Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for “rocking the boat” – does the independence movement need to pick up some of her radical ideas?

FIRST MINISTER Nicola Sturgeon took Twitter time out from Brexit on Tuesday [29 January] to make a perhaps surprising intervention into the internal politics of the Democrats in the US.

Common Weal Director Robin McAlpine argues that there is two wrong approaches to independence, both of which must be avoided – the passive approach and the politically immature approach

PHEW, thank goodness John Major won the 1992 General Election, because otherwise the devolution movement's patient 20-year plan would have been scuppered.