In modern Scotland, you’ll struggle to find a politician from any party who won’t agree with two propositions: that Scotland is a nation and that devolution has, on balance, been a positive experience.

Debates about Scottish nationality are rare these days too. A substantial majority of Scots define themselves as “Scottish only”. Even UKIP has quietly ditched its plan to abolish Holyrood and now talks of forming a government.

But for all this consensus, Scotland’s inability to fully represent itself on the airwaves and onscreen remains one of the most critical issues we must now face up to.

The referendum created an eclectic range of alternative media. But, whether we like them or not, large media institutions like the BBC maintain a reach both online and offline that only a very select number of new platforms can begin to rival.

No single project can address this problem. Only a systematic renewal of Scotland’s media landscape will change the current reality of managed decline.

With the notable exception of BBC Alba, since the Scotland Act was passed in 1998, the development of a genuinely national media for Scotland has scarcely progressed. This is a glaring anomaly whose roots can be found in the act itself. The original decision not to devolve control over broadcasting has left a faultline that goes to the heart of Scottish society.

Much was made during the referendum campaign of the BBC’s pro-union stance. Coverage by the likes of Nick Robinson and Andrew Neil often seemed openly hostile towards independence. But, puerile as their behaviour often was, focusing on individuals actually misses a deeper structural point about London’s grip on broadcasting. The BBC is the glue holding together a Britain that is breaking.

Many Scots, brought up with an attachment to the country’s biggest cultural institution, were shocked at the inability of the BBC in Glasgow and London to properly understand the campaign. But such outrage misses a bigger point. A national media plays a pivotal role in constituting the national community and the nation state. Expectations that the British Broadcasting Corporation would act impartially on the story of the potential collapse of Britain were completely misguided.

But don’t take my words for it. Consider instead those of Director General John Birt, the man at the helm of the BBC when New Labour set about creating devolved legislatures in Cardiff and Edinburgh.

Originally there was a question mark over whether broadcasting would be devolved. For many, the case for doing so was self-evident and democratic. Yet Birt’s 2002 autobiography, The Harder Path, contains some startling revelations about how top brass at the corporation worked with politicians to prevent this. Led by Birt, it lobbied senior Labour figures in Westminster to ensure that broadcasting was not devolved.

Devolution was viewed as an existential threat by the BBC, which is why it played such a defensive role when faced with the potential fragmenting of the British state. However, Birt’s disdain wasn’t just reserved for nationalists (though he does somewhat hilariously describe 1998 as “the high water mark of Scottish nationalism”). It was more broadly directed at a consensus within civic Scotland, in particular the broad campaign to establish a fully fledged flagship news opt-out, the “Scottish Six”.

The former Director General is triumphant about winning the ensuing “ferocious battle” with colleagues in Scotland over this issue. As Birt explains:

“As devolution loomed as a reality, and the emotional temperature rose, BBC executives in Glasgow, the Broadcasting Council, the Scottish media and even Scottish civil servants all began to support the case for an independent Six. I resolved to ensure that this potent alliance was not joined by all the main political parties in Scotland in particular the powerful cohort of Scottish Labour politicians.”

Birt’s overwhelming disdain for the ceding of any autonomy to Scotland goes way beyond institutional conservatism (in other areas he was a controversial moderniser). Rather, this was a remarkably successful attempt by the leader of the BBC to align the organisation with a unionist agenda at the outset of devolution. He would go on to find powerful allies in his campaign against an opt-out news programme:

“I wrote to, and then went to see, the new Prime Minister Tony Blair. I expounded not just from the BBC’s perspective but from the nation’s. I argued that we were one of the few institutions which bound Britain together. BBC news was iconic. Opting out of the Six would be a powerful symbol of Scotland moving away from UK-wide institutions. The end of a single, common experience of UK news, would, moreover, encourage separatist tendencies. […] Blair was quick, as ever, to grasp the case. ‘Let’s fight’ he said.”

It’s worth keeping in mind what Birt and the powerful converts to his evangelical British broadcasting agenda were actually fighting. The Scottish Six was a modest proposal by any standards. That a country worthy of a parliament was so categorically denied a flagship news programme tells us a great deal about the link between the concentration of media power and the continuity of the state itself.

Ever since that crucial opportunity in 1998 was lost in the face of unionist intransigence, arguments for the development of an authentic and serious Scottish media have fallen on deaf ears. In fact swingeing cuts at BBC Scotland have destroyed standards and morale at Pacific Quay.

Perversely, serious journalism in Scotland has declined just as representative democracy started to come of age. Few deny the health of the two are interlinked in the longer term. Yet, in 2006 another Director General again ruled out the Scottish Six option. The 2008 report of the Scottish Broadcasting Commission found cross-party support but was largely ignored when it went south.

The BBC’s controversial coverage of the referendum was partly the result of a deliberate and systematic neglect of Scotland since devolution. It’s not the lack of stories or talent that suffocates our national media. It’s the fact that the ability to produce vigorous current affairs coverage in Scotland has long been viewed as contrary to the interests of the British state.

However, if civic Scotland could get behind quality news programming in 1998 and 2008, it can do so again. There is common cause to be made with all who want to reverse media decline, whatever their position on the constitution. This includes journalists working for a range of organisations, including the BBC.

Blaming individual journalists for the media’s failings is like blaming workers on a factory floor for the quality of its produce. The problem lies, as ever, further up the food chain. The wounding experience of 1998 has left a management at BBC Scotland that is trapped in a regional mindset. It has accepted a “more with less” culture and the steep decline in prestige that goes with it.

There is no simple solution to this problem. But if there is a route out, it can’t simply be about trying to create a ScotNat media to confront the unionist BBC. Instead, in arguing for a vigorous, quality, media for Scotland this time, we need to make our demands more compelling, more precise and ground them in a genuine, popular campaign for a national media in Scotland.

There is very little evidence that the unionism inherent to the BBC has shifted after 17 years of a Scottish Parliament. In contrast, a Scotland that’s now full of consensus and confidence about its nation status and its democratic institutions is thirsting for a media to properly represent it.

But such a transfer of power always has to start from below: institutions never change unless the people demand it. It’s time to start getting organised.

Christopher Silver is currently working on The Case For A Scottish Media, a guide to Scotland’s media deficit and how we address it. You can support this project here.