If you control the story, you control the country. In Scotland, we don't own our story. Here's who does.

Daily Record / Sunday Mail - Owned by Reach plc, London. Biggest commercial publisher in UK. • 

Scottish Sun - Owned by News UK, subsidiary of News Corp, New York. Rupert Murdoch. • 

Scotsman / Scotland on Sunday / Evening News - Owned by National World, London. Was Johnston Press, went bust 2018. 

• Herald / Glasgow Times - Owned by Newsquest, owned by Gannett, Virginia, USA. America's biggest newspaper chain. 

• The National - Our only pro-independence daily. Also owned by Newsquest / Gannett, USA. Launched 24 Nov 2014 as a 5-day trial, meant to sell 15k. Sold 50k on day one. Now sells 2,568 copies a day (ABC 2024). 

Shares a desk with The Herald to survive.

Research on 2014 found Scottish papers "predicated upon press releases, briefings and interviews from London-based sources". Dr David Patrick's 6-month study of front pages found "a bias against Scottish independence, unremitting in certain quarters". His words: uniquely for a western democracy, the entire press industry united against independence.

The four biggest Scottish papers are owned in London and New York. The smallest site - this one - is owned in Bathgate.

Building in Glasgow, boss in London. Pacific Quay cost £188m, £62m over budget. Licence fee £174.50 goes to London - £3.7bn of BBC's £5bn income. Charter ends 2027, set in London. Regulated by Ofcom. BBC's own Audience Council Scotland questioned its impartiality in 2014. 60 jobs cut in Scotland to save £6.2m. Prof John Robertson (University of West of Scotland) found 3 to 2 bias to No, unfair sequencing and sourcing on Reporting Scotland and Good Morning Scotland.

The only one that passes. STV Group plc, Glasgow. Owns Channel 3 licences for Central and North Scotland. Licences renewed to 2034. BUT - it is an affiliate of ITV. It pays ITV plc in London a fee to show Coronation Street etc. It can opt out and show Scottish programmes, but it costs them the big show that pays the bills. Scottish-owned, but tied to London by money.

The line: 

BBC Scotland is Scotland's biggest newsroom with 1,000 staff, but it cannot be Scotland's broadcaster while its charter, cash and compliance are signed off in London.

Bauer Media - German giant, Hamburg. Bought our stations for £1.14bn in 2008. Owns Radio Forth, Clyde 1, Tay, MFR, Northsound, West Sound, Borders. 383k listeners on Forth 1 alone. 

Since 2008, local evening shows axed - networked from Manchester after 7pm.  

• Global Radio - London giant. Owns Heart, Capital, Smooth, Classic, LBC. Owns Capital Scotland, Heart Scotland, Smooth Scotland in Scotland.

All 260+ commercial stations get national news from IRN - Independent Radio News. IRN is owned 54% GCap, 22% Bauer, 20% ITN. But its editorial is provided by Sky News Radio at Osterley, London. 20 journalists, 4 studios in London, 1 in Westminster. They write the scripts, the audio, the bulletins 24 hours a day.

    Academic summary: "Notionally IRN still provides the service, but today it is contracted out to Sky... Because the UK has therefore only two sources of national and international radio news, Sky and the BBC, this is seriously restricting" plurality.

1. Bella Caledonia

Set up 2007 by writer Mike Small. Multi-author, pro-indy, left. Attracted up to 1 million unique users during indyref. Crowd-funded, no London owner. Find it: bellacaledonia.org.uk

2. The Ferret - The Gold Standard

Independent non-profit media co-op, launched May 2015. Investigative - fracking, far right, homelessness, asylum, land ownership, nuclear. Owned by its journalists and its members. They do the investigations mainstream won't, then sell them to The Herald, Guardian, Record. Won Scottish Press Awards for "Who Runs Scotland" and "Who Owns Urban Scotland" - actually forced questions in Holyrood. Secured $260k philanthropic grant because its journalism changed law. Find it: theferret.scot

3. Common Weal

Not daily news - ideas. Think tank from Jimmy Reid Foundation (UCS work-in, Clydeside 1971). Backers include Robin McAlpine. The policy behind independence. Find it: commonweal.scot

4. Wings / Scot Goes Pop / Newsnet

Wings launched 2011, biggest pro-indy site by crowdfunding. Scot Goes Pop does polling no one else does. Newsnet aggregating Scottish news since 2010. Find them: wingsover.scotland, scotgoes.wordpress.com, newsnetscotland.scot

5. Sceptical Scot / Scottish Review / The Skinny

The cultural backbone. Independent scrutiny, long essays, arts with a Scottish voice.

6. The New Broadcasters - Podcasts

Lesley Riddoch Podcast, The Ferret Podcast, Phantom Power. More live listeners some weeks than BBC Radio Scotland phone-ins.

OpenDemocracy flagged it in 2014: only four crowd-funded media initiatives in Scotland employing journalists - CommonSpace, Bella Caledonia, Wings and The Ferret. Ten years on, still the same handful. They work on donations, on small budgets, and they cover the stories Pacific Quay won't touch - who owns our towns, who owns our land, who profits from our energy. They are small. They are broke. And they are ours.

Papers owned in London and New York.

Telly governed in London, owned in America and Dubai.

Radio owned in Germany and London, news written by Sky in London.

Even our only pro-indy daily is owned in Virginia, USA, selling 2,500 copies a day to survive.

We are a nation that doesn't own its own story.