The failure by the London press to give any news coverage to Wales at the same time as political power is increasingly being passed to the country amounts to a serious failure of both the democratic and journalistic processes, writes Clive Betts from the National Assembly press gallery.
The issue to which no-one has yet given much serious thought over rectification has been raised yet again in today’s issue of the NUJ monthly The Journalist.
Former BBC hack Hywel Morris, a union life member, was offered the Daily Mail at half-price for three months. Before he started a sub, he bought a copy. To find that there was in the 110 pages “not a single item of Welsh interest in the news or sports sections”.
Many senior journalists – in Cardiff as well as elsewhere – almost laugh at the point. The former MD of Western Mail totally rejected the point about non-London copy being included in regional editions.
Methinks his refusal to allow ANY comparison with what happens in Scotland – and used to happen, although to a much smaller extent in Wales – betrays an Imperialistic mindset, a belief that England is perfect, and that it shows an anti-Welsh attitude.
Mr Morris wrote in The Journalist, “I concluded that the Daily Mail is completely English, and particularly London-oriented – though in fairness it is probably no worse than other daily newspapers printed in London.”
It’s a pity that more journalists in Wales don’t take the same attitude, rather than quietly accepting what has existed since the demise of the Welsh editions of the Mirror, Express and Herald.
Far too little notice of the press in Wales has been taken by thinkers in this country. Aled Jones had very little to say of the present set-up in Press, Politics and Society, A History of Journalism in Wales.
A very valuable vignette was supplied, however, by John Humphries, ex-Mail editor, in his recent Freedom Fighters - saying basically that the management in Wales is anti-Welsh; or, at least, terrified of anything with which the word “Parliament” can be even remotely associated.
One of the few advances for Welshness in the press was the creation of the Llandudno Daily Post – but that was inaugurated by Trinity Mirror in North West England, not by its branch in Wales (ie Cardiff).
Of course, a regional approach to the Welsh press is pretty new and radical. It is the one adopted in the current issue of the academic magazine Cyfrwng – the Media Wales Journal.
Perhaps Public v Private Service; Trinity Mirror in south Wales is slightly spoiled by its left-wing bias and over-acceptance of the arguments produced by my own union, the NUJ. After all, one of that union’s members was violently critical of my repetition in Cambria of John Humphries’s arguments – until he had heard who was their originator.
But Mr Morris’s main complaint is about the attitude of the English nationalist newspapers. An increasing number of their stories are ridiculously inaccurate for Wales, as the Assembly’s political remit expands.
The sole move in a more healthy direction has been the launch of the south Wales edition of the Metro - which is owned by the Daily Mail.
This free morning is printed in Cardiff (by the Western Mail); and it carries each day a small number of local stories (plus plenty of local ads). About half of the entertainment material is southern Welsh (the other half is West Country).
On the sports pages, Welsh international material replaces the English equivalent found in its English editions.
And on occasions news stories change, too. One morning, the front page lead was about a development at Cardiff Airport. The Bristol edition chose a very different story.
London one day carried a story about that city’s Underground which, I hardly imagine was run in Cardiff (or anywhere else).
Were Metro to run the same amount of political-style content as in the Daily Mail, Wales would be justified in demanding that the paper’s London office (where all the sub-editing is done) editionalise its Welsh pages.
Unfortunately, the Metro is really a lite-paper. It specialises in thin, gossipy-style content. Which means there isn’t much cause to complain.
But only at present. Whenever the Metro prints a story which applies only to England, the Cardiff Bay cabinet should send out a sharp correction. And demand some action.
By all means, print whatever you like. But get the Welsh material right. Particularly as you possess the full ability to do so.
Mr Morris can’t stand the Daily Mail. Let’s make sure that his complaint can’t be made against the Mail-lite.
But that means the Cabinet and the Assembly’s departments will have to be ready and willing to act whenever the Metro transcends.
