Donald Martin’s move from the editor chair of The Herald papers to The Sunday Post certainly perked up Scottish media circles on Friday, with a lot of tounges wagging and people wondering why (and some saying good riddance), but if you look at the decision it makes sense for Martin and also reveals how bad things are for Scottish journalism, which is bad news for Scottish society as a whole. And a potential Scottish PR crisis for the Herald’s owners, Newsquest.

For many reporters, Editor is the job to aim for one day and growing up in Scotland in the early 80s, there were four top jobs in Scottish media – Editor of The Herald, Editor of The Scotsman (but that was only if you were pretentious, arty and from Edinburgh or English) or Editor of the Daily Record or Sunday Mail (then, by the late 90s The Scottish Sun top job also joined this lot) but The Herald was the one that always seemed the best.

That may be a slight west coast bias on my part but when you looked at the two papers, The Herald always seemed more vibrant, more connected to its roots but also with a better Scottish and UK perspective than The Scotsman. It wasn’t until the Jaspan revamp of the Scotland on Sunday that anything competed, but even then The Herald under the likes of George McKechnie was a fantastic paper, reaching out to all sections of society – but aiming for the highbrow with the Evening Times being there for the working class.

But since George left over funding for a General Election, it’s gone through editors like some football clubs go through managers. Time after time, the title has changed hands, each time with cuts coming in, massive redundancies as the owners have struggled to work out if the paper is a local, a Scottish national or a UK paper. There’s also been a ridiculous struggle with the internet where, despite having an incredibly talented team there, lack of budgets, vision by the top people and idiocy by owners has seen it never be considered one of the better Scottish online titles.

It’s a paper which has still won awards – for a few years mostly thanks to the efforts of Mike Tierney and the business team – and has a good editorial team with the likes of Lucy Adams and Gerry Braiden. In print, it’s a title that still tries to punch above its weight – as all good papers should.

The Sunday Post on the other hand is a very strange beast. It’s parochial – but not in a Dundee sense (which is where owners DC Thomson are based) – in terms of outlook, it’s inoffensive without being saccharine, it has news, sport, reviews but is very much a softer paper. It would never expose Glasgow gangsters or pay money to reveal MP expenses. It’s not a paper that rocks the boat, but – despite dropping circulation – it’s not in any bother. The real problem it has is that the core readership – based on experience and anecdote not any internal figures – is over 50, mostly in their 60s. And in Scotland, getting past 70 is an achievement, so that’s a dying readership. But it is owned by a company which is about traditional journalism and quality and, at the last check, was in better shape – relatively – than Newsquest.

Put it this way, if you ask Scots what they remember about The Sunday Post, the answers will contain the following:

• The Broons
• Oor Willie
• HonMan (later TandyMan)
• Francis Gay
• The Honest Truth

Ask even diehard hacks to name one hard scoop The Sunday Post broke and most would struggle. But that’s not a criticism. It breaks news stories, but does it in such a gentle way. It’s a very strange beast. It isn’t a fawning publication – the journalism in it would wipe the floor with the likes of Hello and other glossies – but it’s not a combative or aggresive tabloid. Bylines on stories are only a recent development.

Now that may change with Donald’s appointment. But I doubt it. This isn’t a paper that rocks the boat (as already said). It works by sticking to a formula.

So why has Donald – seen by some as a very talented, still (relatively) young editor  - made the move? I don’t know, but the fact that he has made it has set tounges wagging because very few people ever pictured a day when someone would go from the Herald big chair to the Sunday Post big chair.

The Sunday Post job is the sort of job that you stay in for at least a decade, probably being the most stable job in Scottish journalism (apart from HR – after all, someone’s got to hand out the redundancy slips) in Scotland.

Donald won’t have made the move for an easy life – he’ll still put in the hours and make The Sunday Post a hell of a paper – but the chat is that while he’ll still work long hours, he won’t have the hassles that he had at The Herald. And if that’s true, who can blame him for moving on? Let the editor edit instead of having to deal with other stuff being imposed upon him.

But what it does speak volumes of is how bad things are at one of Scotland’s flagship papers. To go – on the eve of a UK General Election – is incredible. This is an election which could lead to the break-up of the UK, it’s an election where people want to read online and see video of PPC’s being challenged, Labour could be toppled, the Conservatives could return. It’s like leaving The Sun to edit The People’s Friend – they both may be journalism but you don’t normally make that move.

The US owners probably won’t care that much. They struggle to grasp the Herald, seeing it as a Glasgow paper, a wee local like all their other wee local papers and try to run it down as such. It may even make it easier for them to bring in a Yes-Man to make more cuts, not realising that cutting editorial is cutting the very salvation of the paper.

I wish Donald Martin all the best in the new job. I wish his successor at The Herald all the best as well, they’ll need it. But this sends out a signal that one of the country’s best papers is not worth the hassles of editing and being in charge of – either for budgetary reasons or otherwise. And that has to be the case, otherwise why would Donald have left? You don’t leave the top jobs unless something is wrong, so what was it?

Of course the next question is: will anyone go with him?