Clive Betts writes from home in retirement

IT WILL be interesting to see how the Western Mail deals with the egg that plastered its face this morning because of its belief that the Trawsfynydd mother and her two children died because of anti-English racism.

What seems a superb story starts falling to pieces when other sources of news are brought to play.

Mainly, that Melanie Stevens is Blaenau Ffestiniog-born. And that’s not because she was what is called a “blow-in” in some parts of the UK.

The information sources that I possess do not mention whether she is a native-Welsh speaker.

But it seems she probably was. The family had emigrated to England a few years ago – which gave her an English accent.

This led the Western Mail to find a local woman – “who asked not to be named” – who said that Ms Stevens had been the victim of anti-English racism.

The paper reported, ‘The neighbour said police made several calls to the property in recent months after the family were targeted by racist vandals.

‘“She’s had a lot of hassle since she moved into this village –windows broken, etc. She’s got an English voice and she’s living in a Welsh village. That’s what they’re like round here.”

Interesting stuff. Rather inflammatory. Especially as it carried the page-lead headline, “NEIGHBOUR TELLS OF ANTI-ENGLISH TAUNTS”.

The reporter concerned – who would also have had access to the Press Association copy, which probably put the Western Mail onto the story – is the paper’s proficient northern reporter, based in the Daily Post‘s offices in Llandudno Junction.

Now, the other sources which carry the story – the Daily Post and the Daily Mail (which managed to struggle across the English border for once) – both carry quotes from a local individual who “did not want to be named”.

That sort of things happens in journalism. People who don’t want to be named are  great sources of accurate information. In the field where I worked, many were prominent politicians.

Are both Mails quoting from the same person ? Unlikely; the quotes don’t quite fit together. So, it’s not a case of one individual having sounded off to every journalist around, and the Post and English Mail having deleted those comments which sounded off about Welsh racialism.

In any case, journalists in Wales don’t wander around in packs. They are sometimes more likely to do so in England, where journalists from the English “nationals” realise the value of physically sticking together so that their offerings possess a similarity which hinders disparaging comments from news desks about why one newspaper has failed to uncover an angle which has been obtained by a rival.

The reason why the Cardiff journal has obtained a line which the others have failed to find is surely simply that the Llandudno Junction man arrived at a different time, has spoken to different people, and has therefore obtained a different story.

I have no doubt at all that the Ll J man in Cardiff’s pay (nothing wrong about getting your money from what used to be called Thomson House) heard what he heard.

But the Ll J man is English, uses a strong English accent, spoke to a person with a similar accent, and got badly let down – it seems – in the varacity of what he was told.

Was that English individual right in her (or his) belief that Ms Stevens was being targeted by local vandals ?

Or was that individual merely transferring her (or his) own dislike of the locals she couldn’t understand onto Ms Stevens, whe she thought was one “of her own” .

The police “did not deny that the family had been targeted by locals”. Well, police press officers, in my experience, are not a particularly high form of life. They are horrifyingly subservient to police officers – very much a lower form a life in the view of the man in blue; and they will be totally unable to obtain any worthwhile guidance for a journalist on that sort of issue (although the situation may be very different in the Metropolitan Police, who have to deal with experienced and “battle-hardened” English-”national” hacks).

I’m sure the Ll J hack was told by his newsdesk to check out the local English-woman’s claims. The press officer would then have taken refuge in the usual no-comment strategy, hardly imagining that  ”no comment” would help generate the Welsh racism headline. After all, police press officers in my experience are incapable of doing anything other than reading out a press release.

And they would have had no press release on anti-English taunts.

Not that privately Northern police officers wouldn’t have plenty to say on the often-difficult relationships between the local Welsh and the sometimes-arrogant English who think they own all of Wales, as well of as much of the rest of the world as they would like to possess.

It is difficult to imagine that a woman born in Blaenau Ffestiniog wouldn’t remember  enough Welsh to let any local yobbo know what he should do with his f… self.

Why did the Western Mail use this line ? Of course, the paper no longer possesses its own news editor. The same news desk now serves the Mail, the South Wales Echo (both are now printed in the very early morning, and distributed in the same WH Smiths wholesalers’ vans) as well as Wales on Sunday.

Alan Edmunds is still editor, but he’s now also virtual managing director of the Cardiff operation (the titular MD apparently remains in Liverpool). I hope that doesn’t mean he’s got too much to do.

We should be thankful that the racism line was NOT the front-page headline; after all, the story WAS the front-page lead.

The strife between the Welsh and English in Wales seldom makes the pages of the Mail. Perhaps because reporters are trained (although not overtly) to play down such differences and difficulties.

In this case, of course, it seems these differences DID NOT exist.

Many years ago I wrote a long story which did involve a very strong dollop of controversy between the two groups. I was sent by the then news editor, one John Humphries to write a story about a non-linguistic problem in Cardigan. It’s so long ago that I no longer remember the details of the story.

But I was very taken by the extremely strong points made by my informant about the difficulties caused by local English people. The informant was a first-rate individual; he was willing to have his name used; and to my surprise the story was used uncut.

Mr Humphries later became editor, and that story was very much an exception. Perhaps internal powers had words in his ear about playing up the differences between the Welsh and the English. He tells in his book Freedom Fighters (University of Wales Press) about his premature (albeit well-compensated) retirement from the paper, which he says was because he had refocused the paper on “Welsh national issues”.

The paper is now run by Mr Edmunds. While Mr Humphries was a man of Gwent, Mr Edmunds apparently hails from Ely (it is said, although Fairwater, where is father once had an estate agency, together with one in Albany Road, Roath, is a more likely origin).

He doesn’t speak Welsh, although he learned it at school. He now understands “pigeon Welsh”, he said when appointed to the editor’s job.  I would have thought “gull Welsh” would have been more suitable for Cardiff.

His period as editor has been noticeable for its lack of information on Welsh-language matters. While arts coverage of English events is presumably OK, the Welsh language half of art  doesn’t really exist.

The paper’s been acceptable over the S4C crisis. But it has definitely been written from and English-language standpoint. I don’t think the paper has yet called for the Welsh channel to be split between the Welsh and English languages – Mr E does at least possess some sort of political antenna – but the reports are scarcely written with a pro-S4C agenda in mind.

We all know that some programmes possess a theoretical audience of 0. But there always have been some such programmes. Why that happens is never explained. But then not much in Welsh is ever explained.

After all, a language spoken by pigeons is hardly worth bothering about.

Except perhaps if someone says that racism (linguistic or national; what is the difference ?) has led to the death of three individuals, a mother and her two children.

I am not blaming the reporter for running the story. But perhaps the news desk should have asked more questions. Had anyone on the news desk ever been anywhere near Trawsfynydd ? Did anyone in Park Street (where the car park of the Western Mail used to be located) know anything about local difficulties ?

The paper seems to have made a terrible mess with this story. Mr E possesses an antenna. But it seems to have let him down here.  Perhaps he has been longing to run this story for years. And now was his chance.

Surely Llais y Sais is NOT the Mail’s real title.

Similarly Mr E’s antenna let him down badly in the political world. For five years, the Western Mail closed its office at the National Assembly and left its Thomson House-based reporters to cover events there. In fact, they hardly ever did.

Llais y Sais didn’t want to hear what the Assembly was doing in case it might start to make a name for itself, with people wanting it to remain in existence and grow in powers.  Much better if the miniscule majority in favour fell to become a minority, and the Tories won power in London with a policy of holding a keep-or-abolish referendum.

Not that such thoughts would ever reach the editorial column. After all, if you’re losing circulation, there’s no sense in alienating most of those who remain.

Of course, the mess that the paper seems to have caused in Trawsfynydd may have no effect at all. Because no-one – or hardly – reads our “national” paper in the village”.

Perhaps one should ask what “national” means in this context. In the opinion of one extremely-senior individual at the paper, the “nation” referred to was that of Fleet Street, with the Western Mail ranked beside the Daily Express.

The nation certainly wasn’t Wales. Has the situation changed ?

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JANE IS the First Minister we never had, but should have writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.

Ms Davidson is regrettably retiring at the next election, which means she has reached currently the highest position she will ever occupy in Welsh governance.

But her performance when she took the  week’s cabinet briefing for the press indicates she would have been a strong contender for the top job – had she been willing to try for it.

Indeed, it could be said that she would have been better than the man who recently ascended to the big office on the fifth floor.

Why ? Because perhaps she lacks the cynicism which sometimes creeps into what Carwyn Jones says.

Also, because she refuses to be so over-political in a way that regrettably comes as second natures to so many British politicians.

Of course, it helps that she occupies a department where it is easier to find the high ground and to occupy it – sustainability.

When Ms Davidson was, prior to the election, looking after education, she managed to slip into a managerial mode when talking about what she was planning. Managerial and evangelical. But most of all, enthusiastic.

Ditto, when it comes to sustainability. But even more so. Within 15 years, Wales would be able to generate from renewables – particularly wind, much of it off-shore – more than twice its entire energy use.

Having dealt with that, the minister then proceeded to the stunt – well, I suppose we have to call it that – which involves giving out bags in a Welsh shopping centre as part of the lead-up to the consultation shortly to be introduced into the Welsh law which will state how much should be charged for each plastic bag given out by supermarkets.

Now, this is something about which we have heard very little from our Welsh press.  But then our main Welsh paper – the dearly-loved Western Mail – seems much more concerned with what’s going wrong with the Assembly, and with politicking between individuals, than with telling us about what can really concern us.

Although no doubt they wouldn’t agree.

And then there’s Ms Davidson on her coming trip to the very appropriately-named Bryn Oer on the mountain ridge above Tredegar to plant the start of a new Welsh forest to enable us to deal with our pollution problem.

When the minister can even get enthusiastic about a consultation on possible changes to planning laws, we start to realise the loss the Assembly will suffer at the 2011 election.

Except some of us already know. You don’t get listed by one of our English-national newspapers as one of the top 100 people in the UK in the sphere you are occupying unless there’s something special about you.

Ms Davidson managed that with the Independent one week.

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THE EMPIRE-BUILDING engaged in by Lord Elis-Thomas seems about to back-fire, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.

A couple of years ago the good lord engaged in a bit of furniture removal within what used to be called Crickhowell House.

For reasons which were never fully explained to us (perhaps because we never asked), the presiding officer decided to move himself from one end to the other of the unlovely office block that houses the Assembly’s administration.

In fact, he decided to take over part of the area occupied by the press.

To be more precise, he brought in the builders and gave himself a no-doubt lushish office next door to the press gallery.

To be exactly precise, he took over two press rooms. One was that occupied by the Trinity-Mirror group, and at one time was occupied by five journalists.

I was there representing the Western Mail, assisted by one colleague. The South Wales Echo had two desks. And then there was Tom Bodden, of the Daily Post (run from Llandudno, if you please, not Liverpool).

Lord Elis-Thomas made his move shortly after I was made redundant by the Western Mail; my colleague had already gone. As had the Echo pair.  For a full five years the Western Mail had no representation – except extremely rarely – in the Assembly.

So much for their belief in the Assembly.

The presiding officer also took over the room opposite the Trinity Mirror room – this was used for filing cabinets – mainly for my piles of press cuttings, indeed – plus a television for me to report on two or three committee meetings at the same time – and a teapot (not mine !).

Having realised (unlike the Western Mail !) how much news was being produced by the Assembly, after I was made redundant (with a payoff, still unspent but gaining interest in a good building society) I continued working fulltime in the press gallery, serving the weekly professional and technical press.

As I couldn’t really continue in my Western Mail desk having left the paper, I moved into a quite-large general press room. This housed at various times the Daily Mirror Welsh edition, the Evening Post (Swansea) and the Argus (Newport).

But, as these papers gradually gave up on the Assembly, I and my remaining fellow-journalists were left with plenty of room.

But now things have quietly changed. When the presiding officer took over the two press rooms, Mr Bodden was forced to move into the general press room.

And when the Western Mail saw sense at last and sent a reporter back to the Assembly after the 2007 election, that paper took over one of the empty desks for their reporter (David Williamson). And they demanded and got another empty desk in case the Echo should decide to turn up again (apparently some form of rental is involved).

Also occupying a desk in this room is the weekly Golwg. In other words, five people (although I myself am  not there that often, having given up serving the technical press after the disappearance of the old-style, information-heavy committee meetings about what the cabinet was really up to).

All well and good. Until things started happening in the television world in the last week or so. HTV (that was) decided to cut back on their political coverage. This meant that one of the HTV reporters for two days a week no longer had a desk in the big HTV room and studio.

On those days, he had to move to a desk in the general press room, where he contributed a column to the weekly Golwg magazine.

All desks were now occupied in that room – albeit with a ghost sitting at the Echo’s desk.

And then chaos approached.

Tinopolis, the Llanelli TV company, has decided to make moves to take over some work done by HTV. To do that they have started sending two journalists to the Assembly press briefings on Tuesday.

But they want more than just to attend briefings. They want two desks in the press gallery, in other words in the room we occupy. But there aren’t any desks spare any more, or any space, either. The presiding officer has taken over the space.

So what happens now ? My feeling is that Cambria (ie myself) will lose its desk. Not that anyone has had the decency to tell me.

Fortunately, I am giving up in mid-January and retiring.  And if necessary I can copy several other workers and work with my computer from the canteen, using one of two blocks of wall-plugs for electricity.

It’s good to see that so many journalists now want to try and cover the Assembly. It’s a pity that so few of them cover the printed press (Welsh evening newspaper editors are, sadly, not always the brightest of characters in seeing the importance of what happens beyond the county borough boundary).

Of course, we could send the Tinopolis reporters through the door into the area which once housed the Assembly’s committee clerks.  Once through the door, they could turn sharp left and occupy the first desk they find.

That would be Lord Elis-Thomas’s.

And if they want a breath of fresh air they could take a turn on the nice balcony outside.

That balcony used to be the “possession” of Trinity Mirror and the Press Association – both had access through sets of doors.

Once Trinity Mirror had lost its room, only the Press Association had an “interest” in sunning themselves outside there on our rare sunny days.  Unfortunately, PA do not seem to have put up much of a fight.

And Lord E-T has also gained control of that part of the former press empire.  Indeed, on hot and balmy days, E-T (the real man, rather than the skinny film character from another world)  can indeed be seen partaking of the joys of the outside world in what used to be a press balcony.

By the way the impending crush of media folk might perhaps be accommodated by doing away with the “posh” little kitchen Lord E-T provided us with during all these changes.

After all, there’s the main canteen just a lift-ride away.

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Arch Druid Dic Jones

WHAT ON earth has happened to the Western Mail, sometimes known as Llais y Sais?

The treatment of the death of Ceredigion farmer-poet Dic Jones has revealed that whatever improvements may have started to occur, the paper should still rapidly relocate itself to Bristol, where it once fondly hoped to be cock of the roost, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery (during sessions).

Although the Caerdiff people who ran the Western Mail - with bossing from the in-blows who thought they knew more than them – imagined the paper existed for the good of the South (the capital S was crucial, for the true provincials they were) Wales mercantile class, its true strength was in the West.

A good way of checking was to note the newspapers the bus drivers were reading (not when driving their vehicles, we hope).

In Caerdiff it would usually be the Sun (greatly by now outselling the Mirror, the other product from the Trinity Mirror group, owners of the Western – of England – Mail).

But down West, much further than Llais y Sais journalists would often venture, your lowly bus driver would be as likely to have the WesternMail propped beside his wind-screen.

Ring up the Western Mail and ask them what percentage of households in each council area purchased the paper. Down West the figure used to approach 50 per cent. Way, way above the Cardiff figure.

The Llais understood that some years ago when it launched a series of regional editions each morning. In those days, each region (a sort of old-style county) had its own edition.

Historically, the edition name was printed on the front page, and did little more than acknowledge the changes to the news that happened as the print time for each edition approached. Usually, in addition one page would be editionalised, carrying news only for that edition’s area.

But clearly someone in Caerdiff realised at one time that the regional editions could mean much, much more. So the news input for these editions suddenly rocketed – to the alarm of journalists who had to produce the copy.

Eventually, the “editions” became almost weekly supplements. NUJ members in Cardiff complained – not only about the extra work they were having to do, but about their fear that these new-style editions would eventually put local weeklies out of business.

The point is that the Western Mail in those days knew the power of the regions.

But now no more. Anything west of Fairwater (the “posh” part of Ely, which is otherwise a pretty awful council estate) is in the back of beyond (as if it lay west of Uxbridge, to a Fleet Street journalist).

That is where the death of Dic Jones, the sitting Archdruid, comes in.

At 75, he was too ill to attend the recent Eisteddfod at Bala (did the Western Mail mention that fact ?).

Mr Jones was a character in bardic and eisteddfodic terms. And not because he was often on telly, but it was because he was such a character that he was on telly and radio.

In his life and his language, he symbolised the West. The Western Mail was created for people like him. But of course the “Western”  of Llais y Sais didn’t really extend as far as the Bristol portal of the Severn Tunnel.,..

It is now not much more than Steve Dube’s weekly farming pages which remind us of the land that Dic occupied. This was real Western Mail territory.

But what did Mr Jones get on his death ?

Ten paragraphs on page 10 under a single-column headline, until it was stopped by an advert, in a spot where you would normally find the Llais’s News Bulletin snippets. No picture.

Who wrote it ? No name.

Smells to me very like a piece from the Press Association’s UK wire, which is sent to everyone in the UK. Not something from the Welsh wire because the Western Mail no longer subscribe to that wire because they “can’t afford” it – which explains why their Assembly converage can sometimes be rather lacking.

So, the story in the Western Mail about Dic would be the same one went to the Aberdeen Press and Journal.

The Llandudno Daily Post’s piece was at least written by a named-reporter. Eryl Crump’s piece contained a lovely line about Dic’s love of Bala, and that he would have “loved to live there if he had to choose anywhere else away from his native Ceredigion”.

Had that happened, he would at least have then been relieved of the need to consider buying the Western Mail anymore. Bala is in Daily Post land where almost the only people buying the “national newspaper of Wales” are those driving through to or from Caerdiff.

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HOW LONG before the expenses issue starts to blow up in the faces of AMs, writes Clive Betts from the National Assembly press gallery.

A new system of rules was, as expected, adopted sheep-like by AMs in Cardiff in response to the shenanigans in London.

The new, rather draconian, rules have been drawn up by an independent review under Sir Roger Lyons “in order to restore faith in the political process”.

However, it didn’t take journalists – for long not unknown for taking expenses rather than oft-inadequate pay settlement -  long to pick holes in them.

Some of the points are minor. Such as, what happens if an AM marries a member of his staff. He would then seemingly be barred from employing that person.

An arcane point ?  No, former Lib Dem leader Mike German married one of his staff members, and he remains as an AM.

The hope is that such issues will be dealt with through the “discretion” in the Assembly.

But can we rely on such “discretion” when a certain tabloid (the Western Mail) has shown that it is only too willing to go over the top on the expenses issue.

Remember the ridiculous saga over Tory leader Nick Bourne expenses, while that paper ignored so long the issue of two AMs occupying a single second home (they were, of course, married).

While Mr Bourne seems to have escaped largely unscathed, “Valleys and working class tribune” Huw Lewis may have scuppered his bid for his party’s leadership.

More right-wing screams from the Western Mail is the last thing we want to hear on this issue; no doubt that person truly loves to adopt the policies of the right-wing Tory friend the Taxpayers’ Alliance …

At least one AM seems rather worried about the effect of the new rules which are about to be introduced. LibDem Peter Black could suffer dangerously from the rule that Swansea is too close a location for a first home to justify a flat in Cardiff Bay.

Perhaps it is. Perhaps it isn’t. It is at least an hour’s car trip, which is two-hour’s less working time each day. And then there’s not quite a London-suburban train service on the line (the last train is 23.15).

It’s OK driving for an hour on an often-busy motorway when you’re awake; but what about when you’re tired  after a busy evening meeting constituennts …

Mr Black told the press that he had argued before the independent commission for Swansea to be designated a second-home town. Unsuccessfully.

The independent review panel’s chairman Sir Roger Jones seemed to fall a bit too much into the tabloid agenda. He said, “It’s like sending kids into a sweet shop with shelves knee-high off the ground; they were told to help themselves, and they did.”

Really, Sir Roger, we are talking here about enabling democracy. No AM possesses a duck island, even if one MP does.  But they need to tools to do their jobs properly and well.

No 50-year-old would want the job, “fighting off the press every morning…”  But most are seldom approached by the press.

And if we are bringing in rules which mean most 50-year-olds wouldn’t want the job, who would go for it ?

Inexperienced youngsters ?

Party hacks who are happy to swim in the slime of only their own party’s political dogma ?

That is not the sort of body which the National Assembly was supposed to be.  We should beware extremely carefully of being led to adopt such a situation as a result of screams from the tabloid press.

Or of the discoveries of London’s sole remaining broadsheet – although we should be eternally grateful about the discovery of the application of cash for a duck-island.

A note of sanity is brought into the issue with a letter in today’s Western Mail from my level-headed friend John Owen. He refers to meals allowances, and to how they are dealt with in a normal commercial environment (John was an engineer, often working away from home).

In such a world, the AMs’ £36.65 allowance would not be sniffed at by the accountant. Mr Owen says a receipt would be necessary. But what sort ? Is the Western Mail accepting that paper’s equivalent of £36 when it is hastily scribbled by the claimant on the ripped-out page of a notebook, with a rough date attached ?

The Cardiff temple of journalistic proprietyblew hot and furious about Tory AMs (led, of course, by the Temple’s favourite hate figure, the Assembly-friendly and slightly to the left of dead-centre Nick Bourne) travelling outside Wales to study the political situation in areas apparently remote from their concerns, such as Brussels.

The Temple put its considerable journalistic resources into discovering that the AMs  used quite a good hotel. Unfortunately, the paper failed (or didn’t try) to find out the discount (around 40 per cent).

Later that evening I chanced on a Lib Dem who waxed eloquent about the hatred being built up by the right-wing press against such foreign trips. Eleanor Burnham had spent taxpayers’ money travelling to Spain.

To sun herself on the beach ?

No, to travel to the Basque country to learn about their local-language daily papers.

Laugh if you like from the back of the public bar, as you peruse page three of The Sun.

I’d much rather listen to Ms Burnham on political issues (although, I know she is inclined to have her own take on them), than to the uneducated sections of the public bar on anything (unless they’re drinking good real ale, and that’s the last they’ll be imbibing).

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Victor BlankA TRIP to Bristol on the day after Sir Victor Blank announced he was resigning as chairman of the complete disaster that is the Lloyds-HBOS merger gave a good chance to look at another of Sir Victor’s bits of handiwork.

For some years, he was chairman of the Trinity Mirror newspaper group which controls so much – surely, too much – of the press in Wales.

The group also controls the Daily Mirror - and it was of course only that newspaper which pundits in London cared anything about.

During his years in charge at Trinity Mirror, that flagship newspaper endured very mixed fortunes. Generally bad ones. Solidly overtaken by Murdoch’s Sun, it could find little to hint that any turn-around might beckon.

Why ? A number of reasons were given. Page Three (lack of, in the case of the Mirror) was one.

But some people pointed to another reason for the failure. Apparently, at the time the comment was made, the Trinity Mirror board contained not a single member who had been a journalist.  In sharp contrast, Mr Murdoch, whatever you think about him, is a journalist to his finger tips.

His period at Trinity Mirror also coincided with the Western Mail’s downward slide in standards, it seems. That down-marketing had been underway for years, largely unremarked except occasionally.

When did the slide start ? What were the factors which sparked it ? As we know so little – Wales seems a country unhappy about delving into the proceedings of boars of public companies –  we may be in our thoughts totally unfair to blame Sir Victor.

But his period in charge coincides at least in part with a major change in the comparison between the newspapers in Cardiff and Bristol.

The Bristol morning, the Western Daily Press, was once even considered for closure. The paper kept going, as a tabloid, but one sometimes wondered how much strength lay behind it.

It used to be very much a lightweight comparison to the Western Mail.  While the Mail often dealt in serious politics – I suppose because it tried to represent a nation – the Press’s main point seemed to be reports of the previous evening’s parish council meetings. For some reason, West Country parishes could be quite inflammatory !

But now the relationship is totally different. The Press is now a lively and a fine and serious newspaper. The parish councils seem to have vanished. The paper seems to  consider its readers to be intelligent.

What has happened ? The paper has been taken over by the Daily Mail group. It even uses the same headline type on page one.

But it’s the Daily Mail with a difference.  The Press gives appropriate prominence to the opposite side to the story – which is hardly a strong point for the Mail.

And the paper’s evening companion – the Evening Post - even managed two pages of appreciation about the singer Paul Robeson, with appropriate emphasis on his membership of the Communist Party, his dogged fighting for the underdog, and his shameful treatment by the United States right-wing authorities.

The Post has also gone up-market and now shames totally Cardiff’s South Wales Echo. The difference can be most obviously discerned from the Bristol paper’s interest in its city’s history. Once upon a time, the Echo was similarly interested, but that sort of intelligence has long gone.

But then, the Bristol papers are owned by a company which understands journalism. The same cannot be said about the papers on this side of the channel.

How much of the blame can we lay on the doorstep of Sir Richard ?  He has been gone from Trinity Mirror for some time. But questions have to be asked of that company. Blame has to be allocated, and the problems affecting the Cardiff papers long pre-date the current advertising problems.

Perhaps one day part of the tale will be told of how the Cardiff press has gone resolutely downhill – at the same time as the city has become incredibly more important – while the Bristol papers have become a credit to journalism.

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A nasty jibe at newspapers and broadcasters in Wales from the Constitution Unit of University College, London in their latest Monitor.

The unit is faraway the UK’s premier commentator on the devolution changes we have undergone.

The paragraphs on Wales are written by Prof Richard Wyn Jones and Roger Scully of Aberystwyth university.

To highlight the depth of their concern, they lead with their comments on the media.  They refer to “the country’s immature political media, more comfortable with personalised sensation than serious analysis”.

One example is obvious. The Western Mail failed disastrously over its handling of the issue of Tory leader Nick Bourne’s expenses. How many front-page leads did this generate ? Where was the examination (supposing it to be justified) of the expenses claimed by the husband and wife AM who live in Penarth while representing far-flung parts of the Valleys ?

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If we are to talk of the importance to democracy of the existence of a variety of news sources, we must ensure our concerns extend beyond the fears that the HTV news operation will collapse, leaving a broadcasting monopoly to the BBC.

We must also look at the newspaper world.

That may prove difficult. Because politicians are scared of the Trinity Mirror group. And with good cause.

Whatever you may think of the Western Mail, it possesses in fact a near-monopoly of newspaper-journalism in Wales. And the paper has not been afraid to use that power.  Remember how they axed then-culture minister Alun Pugh as a columnist after he dared to criticise the paper’s standards.

Currently, the Mail has been throwing its weight around in a non-stop effort to have Nick Bourne sacked as party leader. At the behest of whom ?  Surely, right-wing anti-Assembly Tories.

And now we have the news that Trinity Mirror are to combine their Welsh (Cardiff) and North-West (Liverpool) divisions.  In a  press release (which was NEVER released to the company’s web-site), TM say this has been done “in response to current trading conditions, and it also makes good strategic sense to group both our Wales businesses into a simplified structure as part of one region”.


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