Newspaper subsidies- hope for the Press?

The world is rapidly turning upside down as far as newspaper subsidies is concerned – which is enormously to the advantage of Wales, the country the “national” newspapers have never heard of.

In the background lies the fact that the Welsh Assembly is being hideously handicapped by the London newspapers totally ignoring the country’s political decisions whenever they run stories – which is frequently, on matters such as health or education – where what happens in Wales is significantly different from what happens in the heart of the empire (otherwise known as England).

At one of the many hearts of the British (and Irish, presumably) “constitution” is the belief that the press is independent of government – which means it pays its own way, and never receives a subsidy.

Of course, that constitutional principle, held in other countries as well, has always tended to run into trouble when the numbers of readers may be insufficient to produce a commercial profit.

That problem has always tended to exist in the Welsh language. When the weekly Y Cymro first applied for Welsh Office money a couple of decades ago, I recall writing a story for the Western Mail pointing out that their application was breaking a constitutional principle dating back a couple of centuries.

Whereupon, Woodalls, the name of the owners at the time I believe, let the application drop – only to resurrect it a year or so later.

But now the problem is rather more general, and is beginning to affect majority-language publications, as well.

Some people will say that the web (bloggers, etc) will fill the gap.

But that’s a load of rubbish. From where do bloggers get their information. Overwhelmingly (if they want it to be fairly accurate and believable) from newspapers.

Some will be picked up from the BBC (provided they have been listening carefully enough and weren’t distracted).  Some will come from websites. But where will those websites get their info from ?

You’ve guessed ! From the only people who go out and do the donkey-work, wielding pen and paper, and listening to what was said… ie newspaper journalists….

An almighty flap has occurred because some of the biggest daily US papers are facing bankruptcy. Bloggers (particularly if they are American) try to hint this is due to the dying of print.

Rubbish; it’s due to some owners (they are American, after all) having expanded radically on the basis of debt, and being now unable to refinance (because the banking system is in hock to the sub-prime crisis involving funding houses for low-income caravan-dwellers).

This is when it becomes interesting, and when Wales gets involved.

On Monday, the Independent carried a big headline, “Democracy can’t exist without newspapers.”

The piece was written by Tim Luckhurst, the north-Brit former editor of The Scotsman, which is sometimes seen as England’s voice to those living north of the Wall.

After bemoaning (via a few swipes at devolution) the decline of the two serious (Edinburgh and Glasgow) dailies in Scotland (Llais y Sais is no more than the equivalent of the Aberdeen local morning, the Press and Journal), Prof Luckhurst  declares, “broadcasters are ill-equipped to fill the vacuum left by [Scotland's] failing newspapers; broadcasters can never do the job of a free press”.

He then adds, “Some wag of an MSP may propose state-subsidised newspapers.” Scotland, he says, is in danger of becoming the first modern democracy without reliable organs of free speech.

Perhaps Prof Luckhurst hasn’t heard of Wales.

The following day, in the cerebral monthly Prospect, a similar point was taken up. After bewailing the dumbing-down of the British press, a contributor floats the idea of ” a new, credible and unregulated [print] news media, some owned privately, some run as not-for-profit, or funded by endowments or even, as in France, bailed out by the government”.

That final possibility had already been put forward in Wales for Y Byd - until someone, probably Rhodri Morgan, got cold feet, and the then-Plaid culture minister Rhodri Glyn Thomas failed to realise what sort of pup he was being invited to promote.

But the world if now a’changing. Things will never get as far as some Yanks reckon (but that country is hardly a land of calm thought). But it has already changed sufficiently for public (arm’s-length, of course) funding of newspapers to have entered main-stream thought.

The Western Mail is hardly likely to enter dodo-land, thus meaning public cash is not a prerequisite for what remains of Thomson House. But Y Byd is another issue.

And what about the “national” dailies ?  And how about the Cardiff and Swansea Metro daily – which is distributed free on the buses  ?  Currently that paper contains scarcely a word of Welsh news (it’s put together by the Daily Mail group in London).

Perhaps our very competent heritage minister Alun Ffred Jones had better get his thinking-cap on…

The first job is to shame the London “nationals” into bringing back some form of the regional Welsh editions they used to enjoy (and still maintain for sport).

But now the new shape of  the print world is providing a second string to Alun Ffred’s bow in the shape of that once-unmentionable.