Anyone who has even a passing interest in Welsh politics will have come across the complaint about “a weak Welsh media” (in the English language) at least a couple of times.
The complaints range from a basic lack of coverage of Welsh current affairs (usually aimed at the UK media), coverage of the wrong things, disregarding the realities of devolution or coverage that doesn’t go into enough depth or doesn’t challenge enough. It’s a broken record.
I looked at the media and the implications of independence (and devolution) in 2019. It seems every four-to-six months or so “the state of the Welsh media” rises to the top of the agenda briefly before sinking back down.
Instead of fully re-writing it, it’s worth reviewing how things have changed (or not) since then – and there have been some significant developments in the last three years or so that have been cause for both optimism and pessimism; it depends on how you want to interpret it.
I’ll get the bad news out of the way first.
One issue that’s going under the radar – despite being a topic examined in depth by the Senedd last term – is the increased centralisation of local commercial radio. In the last few days, “Greatest Hits Radio” (formerly Swansea Sound) cut the majority of its local content in favour of networked output.
While a lot of the focus has been on print and online journalism’s relative decline in Wales, the decline in locally-produced radio has been as alarming as the decline in newspapers yet is getting a fraction of the attention.
Turning to newspapers, while it’s stating the obvious, they face a perilous future – and not just at a Welsh level.
Four-figure circulation figures are now the norm for Welsh newspapers. The Western Mail’s circulation has seemingly fallen to around 7,100 per issue as of 2021 according to the circulation bureau ABC.
The long-term future of some local Reach titles – particularly the Glamorgan Gazette (circulation of around 1,600), Carmarthen Journal (4,000), South Wales Echo (7,000), Merthyr Express (under 700) and Rhondda Leader (under 600) – must be in doubt. Newsquest titles have similar circulation figures.
“I know all too well that people expect news for free. If you don’t offer it, more often than not readers go to a publicly-funded outlet (i.e. BBC) or one of the bigger established titles (i.e. Wales Online). Online journalism has become disposable with no thought given to the effort that goes into it.”
I don’t see how they can last much longer on these numbers because newspapers must surely be getting less and less attractive to advertisers as they seemingly are to readers. Of course, a fall in newspaper circulations doesn’t mean that people aren’t reading the stories published in them, with the growth of Wales Online, other dedicated online sites and aggregators like In Your Area.
A semi-related matter is the closure of The National (a Newsquest-backed title; briefly selling a print edition) and the sister Welsh language site Corgi Cymru in 2022.
Given the latter was awarded £100,000 in public funds by the Books Council, it’ll have to be examined in more detail by the Senedd. I don’t know the ins and outs of what went wrong there but if there are any issues with journalism grants they need to be nipped in the bud now.
Generally, the output at The National was excellent, but quality can only get you so far. Unlike many other people, I don’t believe it was a mistake to get an established player like Newsquest on board. The big concern is that the failure of The National will deter any similar effort in the future. It was a praiseworthy attempt to improve plurality but perhaps based on over-optimism on what the title could achieve commercially in a short space of time.
I know all too well that people expect news for free. If you don’t offer it, more often than not readers go to a publicly-funded outlet (i.e. BBC) or one of the bigger established titles (i.e. Wales Online). Online journalism has become disposable with no thought given to the effort that goes into it.
In my opinion, the only way a print newspaper can launch and be a success nowadays would be as a freesheet funded entirely by advertising – a bit like Metro – and/or a press subsidy. Iceland’s Fréttablaðið (which, ironically, closed recently) was a template I picked out for Wales to possibly follow back in 2019.
Next, there’s that phrase I’ve come to loathe: “the democratic deficit”, or public service journalism or whatever you want to call it.
The pandemic was arguably a positive when it came to coverage of the Senedd and local politics. There were the regular Welsh Government ministerial press conferences and people couldn’t avoid the news.
“When deciding to mothball Senedd Home it was in expectation that day-to-day coverage of the Senedd (questions, debates, laws, committee inquiries etc.) would be picked up elsewhere by better-resourced outlets. That means the LDRS or one of the online publications in the ascendency that receive public funding – yet that hasn’t happened.
“You can probably make the argument that Senedd/parliamentary business now gets less day-to-day coverage than it did before the pandemic. Additionally, there are too many current affairs stories being published that are based mainly or entirely on press releases with little to no context or analysis attached to them.”
I did warn following the 2021 Senedd election that as soon as the pandemic recedes, the media interest in Welsh politics from the UK outlets will recede along with it and that’s what’s happened. We’re back to where we were, with Wales/Welsh politics only getting coverage at the UK level for human interest reasons, a major policy divergence from England, or sport. The story from the Senedd that’s had the biggest cut through in the last six months or so is Mark Drakeford’s outburst in the Senedd chamber, which while “entertaining” and “PASHUN!” wasn’t really relevant to anything.
The situation within Wales perhaps isn’t as bad. The “political gossip” and talking-point-of-the-week commentary is there – but it always has been.
When deciding to mothball Senedd Home it was in expectation that day-to-day coverage of the Senedd (questions, debates, laws, committee inquiries etc.) would be picked up elsewhere by better-resourced outlets. That means the LDRS or one of the online publications in the ascendency that receive public funding – yet that hasn’t happened.
You can probably make the argument that Senedd/parliamentary business now gets less day-to-day coverage than it did before the pandemic. Additionally, there are too many current affairs stories being published that are based mainly or entirely on press releases with little to no context or analysis attached to them. I know because I get sent the same press releases.
I know why that happens: it’s too much work to produce articles that, while meeting the definition of “public interest news”, won’t get any traction audience-wise except amongst the people already interested in it. It’s news that you have to cover to keep people properly informed and so done for its own sake, yet at the same time will never go viral. I’ve tried it; it was an incredibly demoralising experience.
You do, therefore, get a sense that you’ll only get coverage of those kinds of things (and investigative journalism) from journalists who have that particular brief and can keep their head above water by “supplementing” that work with clickbait and advertorials. So it’s perfectly reasonable to argue that the output from Wales Online, for example, contains both the worst and best journalism in Wales without any contradiction.
Is that good enough for us? Probably not, but it seems to be the nature of online journalism now.
One thing that could impact that business model going forward is the uncertain future of the main social media platforms.
Text-based media and investigative journalism don’t translate that well onto growing platforms like TikTok. Meanwhile, the future of the big players such as Facebook and Twitter – which many media outlets rely on – is somewhat uncertain because of billionaires in mid-life crises.
