Stick two Scots in a room and you'll get three opinions.

Ever since the referendum upturned the old certainties, Scottish public life has undergone a transformation. Politics is no longer so many monochrome debates in Holyrood committee rooms and Commons late sittings.

Politics is alive in Scotland. Too alive, some say, but passion need not be wasted on anger. There is a place for intelligent and engaging discussion, with some iconoclasm and plenty of humour along the way.

That is why STV News is today launching a new comment and analysis section. Our digital offering during the referendum and general election drew readers and generous feedback. The decision to publish commentary on our website charted new territory for STV and its success means it's time to expand.

Scotland is changing and the service we provide is changing with it. Starting today we will bring you a daily diet of opinion and analysis from some of Scotland's leading commentators and a few up-and-coming writers we reckon have big things ahead of them.

What we will be: Different, definitive, and entertaining. Expect new voices, new formats, new ways of looking at the world. "Aye been" has had its day.

What we will not be: Safe, parochial or partial. We intend to break new ground and we don't intend to stop at the Tweed.

There are outlets which supply their readers comforting reassurance, an echo of one particular party or point of view. We wish them well but we won't have a bar of it. We want to challenge you as often as we entertain you. All shades of political opinion will be featured here and we will hold the Scottish Government to account as tenaciously as we do the UK Government.

And it won't all be politics. There'll be fresh perspectives on hot-button social issues, cultural flash points, and more personal reflections.

These are difficult times for traditional news media. Print appears in uncheckable decline and dark mutterings abound that one or more of Scotland's quality newspapers could close in the near future.

Broadcasters are already feeling the heat from digital upstarts and those legacy outlets that fail to embrace and lead on digital will find themselves left behind in its wake. And established media are a focus of suspicion and even hostility as populist politics tears up once-embedded assumptions.

We no more have all the answers to these developments than do our colleagues in newspapers or other broadcasters. But we have made clear our commitment to digital in our news, sport, and features content and have put our resources where our mouth is.

It's about a conversation with Scotland and throughout Scotland. Today, we broaden that conversation a little more.

Stephen Daisley is STV's digital politics and comment editor. You can contact him at stephen.daisley@stv.tv.