.........
The
proceedings are reported in the language in which they were spoken
in the committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous
interpretation is included. Where contributors have supplied
corrections to their evidence, these are noted in the
transcript.
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Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:34.
The meeting began at 09:34.
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Cyflwyniad,
Ymddiheuriadau, Dirprwyon a Datgan Buddiannau
Introductions, Apologies, Substitutions and Declarations of
Interest
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[1]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch a chroeso i Bwyllgor
Diwylliant, y Gymraeg a Chyfathrebu, a chroeso i aelodau’r
pwyllgor a’r tystion yma heddiw. Os bydd larwm tân,
dylai pawb adael yr ystafell drwy’r allanfeydd tân
penodol a dilyn cyfarwyddiadau’r tywyswyr a’r staff,
ond ni ddisgwylir prawf heddiw. A all pawb droi eu ffonau symudol i
fod yn dawel? Rydym ni’n gweithredu’n ddwyieithog fel
Cynulliad, ac felly bydd cyfieithiad ar y pryd ac addasu’r
sain i bobl sy’n drwm eu clyw. Cyfieithu ar y pryd sydd ar
gael ar sianel 1, a chwyddo’r sain ar sianel 0. Nid oes angen
cyffwrdd â’r botymau ar y meicroffonau gan y gall hwn
amharu ar y system, a gofalwch fod y golau coch ymlaen cyn dechrau
siarad. A oes gan unrhyw Aelod rhywbeth i’w ddatgan? Na.
Diolch yn fawr iawn. Ymddiheuriadau a dirprwyon: ymddiheuriadau gan
Dawn Bowden a Neil Hamilton, ac nid oes dirprwyon ar eu rhan yma
heddiw.
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Bethan
Jenkins: Thank you and welcome to the Culture, Welsh Language
and Communications Committee, and welcome to members of the
committee and witnesses here today. If there is a fire alarm,
everybody should follow the ushers and leave the room, but
we’re not expecting a test today. Could everybody switch
their phones to silent? We operate bilingually as an Assembly, and
therefore simultaneous translation and sound amplification is
available. Translation is on channel 1 and sound amplification on
channel 0. There is no need to touch the buttons on the microphones
because this could impair the sound system, and please ensure that
the red light is on before you start speaking. Are there any
declarations of interest? No. Thank you very much. Apologies and
substitutions: apologies from Dawn Bowden and Neil Hamilton, and
there are no substitutions on their behalf today.
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09:35
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Newyddiaduraeth Newyddion yng Nghymru: Sesiwn Dystiolaeth
13
News Journalism in Wales: Evidence Session 13
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[2]
Bethan Jenkins:
Symudwn ymlaen, felly, at eitem 2:
newyddiaduraeth newyddion yng Nghymru, sesiwn dystiolaeth 13. Diben
yr eitem yma yw cael tystiolaeth yn rhan o ymchwiliad y pwyllgor i
newyddiaduraeth newyddion yng Nghymru. Mae Aelodau wedi cytuno ar y
cwestiynau o flaen llaw. Diolch i’r tystion: Alan Edmunds,
cyfarwyddwr golygyddol cyhoeddiadau rhanbarthol Trinity Mirror; ac
Alison Gow, prif olygydd digidol rhanbarthol Trinity Mirror. Yn
amlwg, rŷm ni wedi cael Paul Rowland yma, sydd yn
cynrychioli’r hyn sydd yn digwydd yng Nghymru, ond roeddem yn
credu ei bod yn bwysig i gael Trinity Mirror yma heddiw i ateb
cwestiynau, efallai ar lefel Brydeinig, felly diolch yn fawr ichi
am ddod i mewn. Bydd y cwestiwn
cyntaf gen i, os yw hynny’n iawn—bydd Aelodau’n
gofyn cwestiynau wrth inni fynd ymlaen: a ydych chi’n cytuno
â’r hyn y mae Ofcom yn ei ddweud, sef nad yw
Cymru’n cael ei gwasanaethu yr un mor gryf ag ardaloedd
eraill o’r Deyrnas Unedig o ran y wasg yn gyffredinol, nid yn
unig yn ysgrifenedig, ond drwy ddarlledu hefyd? A ydych chi’n
cytuno â’r analysis hwnnw?
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Bethan
Jenkins: We move on, therefore, to item 2: news journalism in
Wales, evidence session 13. The purpose of this item is to receive
evidence as part of the committee’s inquiry into news
journalism in Wales. Members have agreed the questions beforehand.
Thank you to the witnesses: Alan Edmunds, editorial director for
Trinity Mirror regionals; and Alison Gow, editor in chief, digital,
Trinity Mirror regionals. Clearly, we have had the attendance of
Paul Rowland here, who represents what’s happening in Wales,
but we thought it was important to have Trinity Mirror here today
to answer questions, possibly on a UK level, so thank you very much
for coming in. The first question will be from me, if that’s
okay—Members will be asking questions as we go on: do you
agree with what Ofcom has said, namely that Wales is served less
comprehensively than other UK nations in terms of the media in
general, not only as print media but also broadcasting? Do you
agree with that analysis?
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[3]
Mr Edmunds: If I may go first, Alison, I think it partly
depends—. I think generally I do. So, if you compare it with
Scotland, which is the comparison that’s normally made,
Scotland has always had a stronger national print media, in terms
of the number of titles. I think that, from a broadcasting
perspective, I don’t think the issue is as strong. I think
BBC Wales serves Wales very well. I think that, in the digital age,
Wales is not so different from the rest of the UK. So, WalesOnline,
for example, is very strong, is one of the largest websites in the
UK and performs very well. BBC Wales is very strong. So, I think
that in terms of the digital provision, that is certainly less of
an issue.
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[4]
Bethan Jenkins:
Unrhyw sylwadau?
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Bethan
Jenkins: Any comments?
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[5]
Ms Gow: From my point of view, in the north, where I am,
we’ve got, obviously, the BBC, S4C, The Daily Post and
various weeklies. So, I think that we have quite decent service
there, and certainly I know that I have, discretely, 11 news
sources just for my village and area alone. I would say that one of
the big problems that you have in Wales is the geography of it.
There’s so much country in between, it can be difficult for
that kind of blanket coverage to happen. Just getting reporters
around the place can be a challenge because it can take some time
to get to stories. So, you might find that some, especially the
smaller titles, might struggle to send to—. For example, if
you’re in Pembrokeshire, you may not come up here and cover
stories. So, I think there might be deficits around that. I
wouldn’t say that we have news deserts in the way that, you
know, you see news deserts in some of Europe and the USA,
though.
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[6]
Bethan Jenkins:
Pam ydych chi’n credu bod yr
Alban yn well o ran print? Byddai’n ddiddorol clywed hynny.
Ac, a ydych chi’n credu bod y diwydiant yn gryf yng Nghymru
o’i gymharu â gweddill y Deyrnas Unedig? Neu a fyddech
yn cytuno â rhai pobl sy’n dweud ei fod yn mynd yn
wannach o ran teitlau lleol yn hynny o beth?
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Bethan
Jenkins: Why do you think that Scotland is better served in
terms of print? It would be interesting to hear your views on that.
Do you think that the industry is strong in Wales, as compared to
the rest of the UK? Or, would you agree with those people who say
that it is becoming weakened in terms of local titles
particularly?
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[7]
Mr Edmunds: The Scottish issue has always been raised in
Wales. It’s just historically different. Scotland has had a
range of national titles or Scottish editions of national titles
historically, where Wales hasn’t. That’s just simply
been the way it’s always been. It’s partly due to
reader demand, and partly due, as Alison said, to geography.
It’s very difficult to explain, but it’s where we are.
In terms of the current state, the issues facing the press in Wales
are no different at all from the issues facing the printed press in
the rest of the UK and, in fact, around the world. There is just
nothing that singles Wales out as any different or being any more
vulnerable than anywhere else.
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[8]
Bethan Jenkins:
Rŷm ni wedi clywed gan Dr Andy
Williams o Brifysgol Caerdydd, sydd wedi bod yn trafod effaith
strategaethau digidol er mwyn targedu pobl sydd yn darllen neu sydd
yn mynd i ddarllen newyddion ar-lein. Dywedodd:
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Bethan
Jenkins: We’ve heard from Dr Andy Williams from Cardiff
University, who has been discussing the impact of digital news
strategies in targeting those people who access news online. He
said:
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[9]
‘A potential problem with such performance-related data is
that it might further de-prioritise coverage of areas of public
life which many in the audience might not be interested in,
but which is nonetheless squarely in the public
interest.’
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[10]
I ba raddau y mae hynny’n
ddadansoddiad cywir yn eich barn chi? Roedd Paul Rowland wedi dweud
ar trydar ddoe:
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To what extent
is that an accurate analysis in your view? Paul Rowland said on
Twitter yesterday:
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[11]
What we’re aiming to do is use all the information available
to us to give our readers what they want, when and where they want
it.
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[12]
A ydy hynny’n meddwl wedyn fod
straeon sydd, efallai, ddim mor boblogaidd, sydd yn fwy difrifol,
am wleidyddiaeth, er enghraifft, ddim yno cymaint oherwydd eich bod
chi’n edrych ar beth mae pobl eisiau? Efallai nad ydyn nhw
eisiau’r straeon penodol hynny.
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Does that mean
that stories that aren’t, perhaps, as popular and are more
serious and politically based aren’t as prominent, because
you are looking at what people want to click on? Maybe
they’re not looking for those particular stories.
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[13]
Mr Edmunds: Shall I go first?
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[14]
Ms Gow: Yes.
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[15]
Mr Edmunds: Briefly, then I’ll hand over to Alison. I
would endorse what Paul said. Again, I see no difference from the
printed media. We have a mixture of stories. So, if you take a
newspaper on any given day, you would have a story, usually about
health, education or politics, alongside maybe a story that is much
lighter or is to do with films or culture. Online is no different.
If you look at WalesOnline, for example, in the last year, our
greatest growth in audience has been around the issues of health
and education. So, politics, education and health are growing, in
terms of unique users, faster than the average growth of users on
the site. So, that shows there’s a very engaged audience for
those issues and we deliver a lot of content on it.
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[16]
Bethan Jenkins: Suzy.
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[17]
Suzy Davies: Just on this, because obviously you’re regional
editors, you mentioned that headlines could be health, education or
politics, all of which are devolved. Obviously, Trinity Mirror
national tends to report through a very English lens, what’s
your experience of how readers differentiate between the two,
because they’re likely to be buying Trinity Mirror papers
regionally and obviously the national dailies?
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[18]
Mr Edmunds: I think there’s been a lot of publicity, I
would say, in the last couple of years, certainly around the BBC
trying to make it clearer, when they were dealing with health
stories and education, in saying what the impact in Wales was as
compared to England or Scotland. It depends which titles you look
at, how often that’s an issue, but if you take the
Mirror for example and its current campaign on presumed
consent for organ donation, it’s constantly referencing Wales
and what Wales has done and urging England to follow. So, I think
that there are some great examples of a greater national awareness
within the national media of devolved issues. I think that that has
improved.
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[19]
Suzy Davies: It may be improved, I still don’t think
it’s exemplar, but thank you for your answer. Did you want to
add?
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[20]
Ms Gow: I would say one of the things that we try and do in
digital is put ourselves in the position of the readers. So that
you think, ‘Well, why would they read a political
story?’ It’s always about what are the people within
it. So, for example, with Betsi Cadwaladr and the special baby
unit, people really understood that it was something that was a
devolved issue because they were deeply involved in it. So, I think
the best that we can do as journalists is to ensure that we give
clear examples, that the stories are explicit and we make ourselves
try and look at it from a reader point of view, rather than coming
at it from a political point of view. I think you can’t make
somebody read a political story if they don’t want to. You
have to try and find a way in for them.
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[21]
Suzy Davies: I accept that, actually. Thank you.
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[22]
Bethan Jenkins:
Mae’r cwestiwn olaf sydd gen i
ynglŷn â’r mater y gwnaethom ni ei godi y tro
diwethaf gyda Paul Rowland, yng nghyd-destun y ffaith eich bod chi
ar hyn o bryd yn gwneud y rhelyw o’ch arian o’r print,
ond eto i gyd mae gennych chi bolisi digidol yn gyntaf, er nad yw
hynny yn dod â’r un refeniw o ran y gefnogaeth ariannol
ar lein o ran hysbysebion. A allwch chi ehangu ar y
rationale o wneud hynny a phryd ydych chi’n credu y
bydd balans yn dod pan fydd yr hysbysiadau print yn dod mewn lein
gyda’r hysbysiadau ar lein?
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Bethan
Jenkins: The final question I have is on an issue that we
raised in the past with Paul Rowland, in the context of the fact
that you currently make most of your revenue from print editions,
but you have a digital first editorial policy, although that
doesn’t bring in the same revenue in terms of financial
support through online advertising. Can you expand upon the
rationale for doing that and when do you think you will strike a
balance where print advertising comes in line with online
advertising?
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[23]
Mr Edmunds: To answer the second part of your question
first, obviously, from our point of view, we are driving digital.
So, on growth, we would hope to reach that point that you’ve
referred as soon as we can, but it takes time. But, we put a lot of
effort and a lot of thought into our strategy to grow audience and
to grow revenue. The reason that we’re digital first is
because it’s audience-driven, so, for example, if
there’s a crash on a main road, then you have people wanting
to know instantly, particularly if that affects them, what that is
and what the details are. So, you have to create that content for
digital because digital is immediate.
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09:45
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[24]
You can’t create it for print first and then say,
‘Well, what will we now put online?’ So, the nature of
the audience demand is that digital content has to be created
straight away. So, the natural process that you would create
journalistically in that is to create it for digital first and then
print follows.
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[25]
Bethan Jenkins:
Ocê, so nid digidol yn gyntaf
oherwydd eich bod chi’n blaenoriaethu hynny fel cysyniad, ond
ei flaenoriaethu oherwydd natur pob dydd y broses o greu newyddion.
Mae hynny bach yn wahanol i beth yr oeddem yn credu yr oeddech yn
ceisio ei ddweud yn flaenorol.
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Bethan
Jenkins: Okay, so it’s not digital first because
you’re prioritising that as a concept, but you’re
prioritising it because of the everyday nature of news generation.
That’s slightly different to what you were trying to say
previously.
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[26]
Mr Edmunds: I don’t think it’s—. For us,
print is very important. For us, it’s all about the content
that we create and then we’ve got various platforms on which
we can deliver it to our readers and advertisers. So, we just have
to organise ourselves in the best way to do that most effectively
for that audience.
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[27]
Ms Gow: People will shift towards the most convenient
platform for them, I think. So, you can’t, as a business,
make a move after an audience has gone somewhere. If they move onto
a new platform, they want to find familiar and known brands that
they trust there when they get there. So, if you’ve got
people who are moving on to Twitter, they will look for WalesOnline
or they’ll look for the Daily Post because they know
them in print, and we need to have presences on there and be giving
them content digitally to be able to build that audience.
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[28]
So, I think you have got different strands in the business: print
is one audience, and people will read that because they get a
certain experience and they have a need state for print, which we
meet, but then, digitally, we’ve got the websites with the
live blogs and the instant stories, and then you’ve got your
social media platforms as well, and people want it from that. I was
just saying to somebody yesterday that, if you’ve got a video
story, it’s really hard to tell that in print; you have to
tell it for the platform that it’s appropriate for and then
look at ways of translating it and how it would connect to your
print audience, because we are going to have a print audience for a
long time. I think you will have people who will want some kind of
printed element always, because it’s so convenient. If you
drop your phone down the loo, then you’ve had it.
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[29]
Bethan Jenkins: Or it breaks, like mine did yesterday.
Jeremy.
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[30]
Jeremy Miles: I have some experience of working for a media
organisation that is headquartered in London, but has subsidiaries
in other parts of the UK and internationally, and some of the
operational tensions that arise within that. My experience is that
subsidiary companies often feel that too many decisions are
centralised in the parent company or in the HQ. We’ve heard
evidence that that is true of Trinity Mirror. What’s your
feeling on that?
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[31]
Mr Edmunds: Any particular—
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[32]
Jeremy Miles: Budgeting, staffing and overall
policies—the critical stuff.
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[33]
Mr Edmunds: I’ve seen it from both sides. So,
there’s a certain amount of direction from the centre over
certain issues, which you would expect, and a lot of autonomy as
well. If you look at the nature and the history of how the company
has come together, and last year, we became bigger when we acquired
the Local World titles, we’ve integrated those titles well
into the company and what we have to do, obviously, is look for the
opportunities to share the advantages of our scale and to share
excellence. So, when you’ve got a lot of regional titles and
regional websites, then there’s a lot of talent across the
company, and a big part of the roles that Alison and I play in it
is trying to make sure that really good things happening in one
place are repeated and shared in another. We’re very, very
good at that.
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[34]
Jeremy Miles: In terms of staffing—let’s take
that as an example—what sort of pressure is there or what
discussions would happen between the parent company and a regional
business in relation to the overall staff budgets or head count or
the deployment of staff? How do those conversations play out?
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[35]
Mr Edmunds: So, as editorial director, each of the regions
has an editor-in-chief, who reports to me and I have those
discussions with them. So, not all regions take identical
approaches. So, there are some things we do where there’s a
lot of commonality, and then there are some things we do that are
changed more, determined by the nature of the portfolio, for
example, or the marketplace.
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[36]
Jeremy Miles: And how does it work in general terms? Is
there a sort of overall budget for each individual region or
company within the group, and then they allocate that as they wish,
or is there more of a directive from the parent company?
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[37]
Mr Edmunds: It will depend on what the specifics are. So,
for example, one editor in chief might spend more on freelance,
have a bigger freelance budget, and another might have a much
smaller freelance budget. So, to try to answer your question,
within their different budgets, they may spend that in quite
different ways, depending on the nature of their portfolio and
marketplaces, I would say.
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[38]
Jeremy Miles: And the proportion of an operating budget for
an individual region or however you organise your units within the
group, as it were—the decisions on how that budget is
allocated are done locally or centrally?
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[39]
Mr Edmunds: That’s over discussion and time. So, that
depends on different companies’ revenues and so on. So,
that’s just a budgeting process that would happen by
discussion with each region.
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[40]
Jeremy Miles: Okay. So, it’s a kind of consultation
process, is it?
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[41]
Mr Edmunds: Yes.
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[42]
Jeremy Miles: Okay. So, it’s not agreed between the
two. It’s essentially a decision taken at the centre, but
with consultation locally.
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[43]
Mr Edmunds: Well, I think it’s a joint decision taken.
So, obviously, ultimately, we come to a final decision, but each
editor in chief, with me, would agree their budget.
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[44]
Jeremy Miles: Okay. If you look at the staff incomes of
specialist journalists employed at Trinity and their organisations
over the last five years, what has the trend been in term of head
count?
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[45]
Mr Edmunds: Obviously, we’ve had to—. I mean,
I’ve had to—. I’ve been in this building
explaining why we’ve had to cut our costs over the last
decade because of falling revenues as the market changes.
We’re very open about that.
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[46]
Jeremy Miles: What sort of reduction has that amounted to in
percentage terms?
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[47]
Mr Edmunds: It will depend. Again, it will differ by region.
So, in terms of editorial labour, it’s very difficult for me
to say. It would depend on what period and what region, but, you
know, obviously—
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[48]
Jeremy Miles: Say overall in the last five years.
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[49]
Mr Edmunds: I couldn’t give you a percentage, because
I wouldn’t know if that was accurate, I’m afraid.
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[50]
Jeremy Miles: That’s fine. We’ve heard evidence
that actually doing that is critical to maintaining profitability.
Is that a fair assumption?
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[51]
Mr Edmunds: Yes, that’s right. It has been, yes.
We’ve been very conscious of the fact that I think that
we’ve needed, in editorial, to be more efficient. And as the
audience has changed, then we’ve had to look at our editorial
resource because audience demands have changed significantly around
the world. So, it’s about if you carry on doing the same
things in the same way, and delivering the news in the way that you
always have done, then, obviously, you will just lose audience. So,
what we’ve done very successfully in Trinity Mirror is that
we’ve grown our audience online very substantially. And
that’s been a big success.
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[52]
Jeremy Miles: Okay, thank you.
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[53]
Bethan Jenkins: Diolch. Lee Waters.
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[54]
Lee Waters: Clearly, you’re existing within a very
fierce commercial environment, and you are primarily a commercial
business. But you’re a different business because your
activities have a public interest impact. I sense, talking to you
and your colleagues over a number of years, that there’s a
great deal of frustration that politicians and policy makers
don’t really understand the nature of the pressure that
you’re under in your business. Can you tell me a little bit
about what you think is generally misunderstood or not properly
grasped from the challenges you face?
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[55]
Mr Edmunds: If I go first, and I know Alison—. I
don’t feel that too strongly. I think it’s improved. I
think we’ve been very open to dialogue. I think I’ve
been here four or five times in this sort of forum, and we’ve
invited many of you and your colleagues into the building to show
you, really, how we’ve had to change. I think probably one of
the frustrations has been that, over time, the idea that somehow
digital offers a less serious forum for news, and I just
don’t accept that at all. So, if you look at WalesOnline,
which, obviously, we’ve talked about quite a lot today, it
won the website of the year in the Regional Press Awards, it was
commended for its tremendous online coverage of the Aberfan
anniversary, and the skilful way that the new content, some of the
new interviews that had never been heard before—.And I think
the frustration is sometimes the sense that digital platforms are
not suitable for providing great, serious journalism, because I
think they can be. There are some fantastically talented
journalists in our newsrooms, who are doing some amazingly clever
things online, and engaging very well with their audience. And
Wales has been at the forefront of that. So, I do think, in Wales,
WalesOnline has been a huge success over the last 10 years, and I
think that that’s really important for Wales, because if you
only had BBC Wales as a national news platform, then that,
obviously, would not be the ideal place for plurality. So, the fact
that our strategy was to build WalesOnline—. We didn’t
do the Western Mail online and we didn’t do South
Wales Echo online; we built WalesOnline and we created a
national platform for news. I think that’s been really
important for Wales.
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[56]
Ms Gow: It’s really hard following Alan, because
he’s very eloquent. For me, the thing I think is, I’ve
worked in local journalism for over 20 years and I think
politicians generally, at a local level, really do understand the
pressures that newsrooms face, and understand their journalists.
And that’s probably why there is a strong feeling around,
‘Why are you changing this and cutting that?’ because
we are a part of the community. So, I completely understand that.
The thing that worries me particularly is actually the way that the
public mood has changed towards news, the false news and the
misinformation and the kind of ‘read the headline and then go
straight to the comments’ and the confirmation bias that has
really started to become a big issue recently. It’s probably
in the past two or three years where you find that people
don’t actually read the facts. So, to come back to what you
were saying about politics, actually, people will actively not read
a story because they will have a view, and they will then, for
example—. If you look at Facebook posts, you can see how the
conversation becomes an echo chamber, and it’s really—.
I think one of the great problems that we face is trying to burst
filter bubbles around that and try and engage people in
conversations.
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[57]
If you look at WalesOnline, on Facebook, you probably see quite
often that they will go in and say, basically, ‘That’s
not what the story’s about. It’s this—’.
So, I think, from an understanding point of view—. I mean,
I’ve had politicians in the Daily Post newsroom when I
was editor there. That was standard. They’d come and see how
the live blog ran, how the live desk worked et cetera, and I think
they went away with a better understanding. But we always say that
people can come in. The Liverpool Echo has a rota for
readers who just sign up and say, ‘I want to come in and sit
in your conference on Tuesday, the seventeenth’. I think we
would always extend invites to people, but we shouldn’t just
extend invites; I think we should be receptive to people just
saying, ‘I’d like to come in’, and more of that
is what I would like to do.
|
|
[58]
Lee Waters: Okay. You’ve moved a little away from
where I was hoping to focus on. You said earlier that you
didn’t believe that there were any news deserts in existence,
but inevitably, because of the commercial pressures you’ve
discussed, and in particular the decline in classifieds at the
local level in particular, the way that the news of an area is
covered has changed significantly in the last 20 or 30 years. Do
you feel that there are areas that are no longer sufficiently
covered by anybody because of the commercial pressures that you
face?
|
|
[59]
Ms Gow: I’m sure that that’s going to be the
case, you know, if I’m in—
|
|
[60]
Lee Waters: I don’t just mean geographically, I mean,
for example, courts and councils are often mentioned—
|
|
[61]
Ms Gow: Yes, I see what you mean.
|
|
[62]
Lee Waters: Are there gaps because of the changing nature of
the market?
|
|
[63]
Ms Gow: You’re not going to have the luxury anymore of
a reporter going and sitting in a magistrates’ court for four
hours on the off chance that something will happen. That
just—. It was a nice morning, but it wasn’t
particularly a productive one, necessarily, although it’s the
serendipity, sometimes, that you miss from that. So, where
we’ve tried to be more clever is to actually look at the
court list, and the courts have been really brilliant since
they’ve been putting their court lists on electronic media so
we can look and go through it, but I would say, you’re not
going to have—. I did Whitland council. Somebody sat in
Whitland council covering it is not going to be happening at the
same level, I would suggest, that it once did.
|
|
[64]
Mr Edmunds: I agree. It’s a good point you make and
it’ll be interesting to see how hyperlocal coverage evolves
over the next few years. In the end, I think it will come down,
largely, to whether there’s a demand to read the coverage.
And where there’s demand, usually, someone supplies it. So,
at the minute, we’re in the middle of the change, really.
|
|
[65]
Lee Waters: Sure, but I’m just, you know—.
Clearly, the issue that concerns us is the gap that opens up
between you as a commercial provider following reader demand, and
the analytics you have allow you to do that in a far more refined
way now, but that leaves a gap that may leave the public interest
not properly filled, and I just wonder if you have any thoughts
about how that might be filled if it’s not going to be by you
anymore.
|
|
10:00
|
|
[66]
Mr Edmonds: It might leave a gap, but I sometimes think
there was a lot of content produced in the past that people
didn’t read, clearly. It was done that way because it always
had been done that way. So, ultimately, I think it will depend on
demand, and if there is a demand to read it, I think that supply
will arrive. It just depends on the business model. And because the
media is changing so much, new business models are emerging.
|
|
[67]
Lee Waters: But not everything’s about the commercial
imperative, though, is it? Clearly, from a public interest point of
view, there are some things that may not have a high readership,
but are important to be challenged and scrutinised and reported.
So, how’s that going to be done? Because, obviously, the
hyperlocal market is very patchy; it’s not curated.
|
|
[68]
Mr Edmunds: In other words, if there’s no business
model for it then there would have to be some sort of public
provision, wouldn’t there, if it was deemed necessary.
Because if there is no business model, then, obviously,
that’s not sustainable.
|
|
[69]
Lee Waters: Indeed, and that’s what I’m trying
to edge towards, really. Do you think there is a case for some kind
of non-market provision to cover those areas the market has
retreated from?
|
|
[70]
Mr Edmunds: I’m not convinced, because, although I
take your point that sometimes it can be in the public interest, I
think you can—a lot of hyperlocal information, where it
really matters and really is in the public interest, does get
covered. So, for example, if there is a big issue at a very local
level that is in the public interest, a big story, it will be
covered by the mainstream, generally, in my view. If it’s
hyperlocal and only of interest in that very local area, but you
could still classify that as in the public interest, then I think
that’s the more difficult question to answer.
|
|
[71]
Lee Waters: Let me just use this for a local example, then,
because you mentioned the local titles that had been successfully
integrated into the business more generally, and I think in terms
of my personal experience of the Llanelli Star, a strong
newspaper, a very strong local brand, has significant shrinking of
reporters as reporters have moved around the titles—I
understand why that’s happened. The relationship between the
local newspaper and the local council, for example, is not a
particularly critical or challenging one, and now there is a
hyperlocal emerging that is providing some tension in that
relationship, but you don’t often find those stories where
there is local interest that Facebook would pick up on, for
example, locally, finding their way into the Llanelli Star.
From a commercial point of view, that’s an example that is
working perfectly well, the synergies in the business are being
explored, but in terms of local challenge and accountability, there
is a space there.
|
|
[72]
Mr Edmunds: I think I can only answer with what I just said,
really. I think it—
|
|
[73]
Lee Waters: You’re relaxed about that.
|
|
[74]
Mr Edmunds: I think it depends on the level of it. So,
hyper, very local issues may not be covered if there’s a very
low demand to read them, but I still think if you look at the role
that we play in challenging authority, it’s enormous.
|
|
[75]
Lee Waters: Well, it’s patchy.
|
|
[76]
Mr Edmunds: Well, around Britain, it’s enormous.
|
|
[77]
Lee Waters: I’m talking about local, in particular,
here.
|
|
[78]
Mr Edmunds: Where it’s not so enormous, maybe at the
very hyperlocal level, it’s still significant.
|
|
[79]
Lee Waters: Well, I’m not convinced about that. Just
finally, one of the things we’ve discussed previously as a
committee is the potential provision of a wire service that could
be tendered. We’re going to talk about the BBC scheme in a
minute. But an investment of money to allow a wire service, for
example, of courts and councils that then would be freely available
to both mainstream and hyperlocal to use. If that was available
free of charge, is that something you would find useful?
|
|
[80]
Mr Edmunds: We’re open-minded to everything, so I
would have to understand the idea and the concept behind it in more
detail—
|
|
[81]
Lee Waters: But it’s not a complicated idea. You
subscribe to wire news services—
|
|
[82]
Mr Edmunds: It would depend on the arrangement and who
provided it. But—
|
|
[83]
Lee Waters: That would be for discussion, but the concept
of—if for perfectly legitimate commercial reasons you were no
longer able to cover Whitland council or Llanelli
magistrates’ court on a Wednesday morning, if there was a
publicly funded but arm’s-length-run wire service, which
could be run by PA or it could be run by Trinity Mirror under
contract, do you think that would be a useful addition to the
ecology?
|
|
[84]
Mr Edmunds: Yes, potentially. I’d be very open-minded.
It would be a very new idea, wouldn’t it, but as we’ve
shown with the BBC, you know, we’re very open minded to
engage in everything as news provision changes.
|
|
[85]
Lee Waters: Just briefly, we heard from Enders Analysis last
week of, in Canada, a subscription model emerging for a more
quality niche end of the market, which was proving successful. I
think it was called La Presse. Is that something that
Trinity Mirror has looked at as a potential—if there’s
a market there for that?
|
|
[86]
Mr Edmunds: We look at everything, obviously. We’re
always looking at what’s happening around the world. Alison,
you’ve just been to America—
|
|
[87]
Ms Gow: Yes.
|
|
[88]
Mr Edmunds: Do you want to say—? Looking at what
they’re doing.
|
|
[89]
Ms Gow: Yes. I’ve just been out to a conference of
about 150 journalists and Trinity Mirror was the only local,
regional publisher that was represented there, just to try and see
what others are doing in that space. And, actually, to come back to
what you were saying about the wire service, AP are doing an
automated writing experiment at the moment, which I think’s
really interesting, and you’ll probably see, emerging either
in PA or Reuters here, within the next 18 months or so, where they
are automatically generating market reports and stuff, and it may
well be that that translates more into areas—council minutes,
for example—being automatically turned into stories that are
there for people who then want to access them. So, what
you’re saying about wire is coming down the road and it may
actually not need Assembly intervention; it might be created
anyway. But I’ve wandered from the topic again. I keep doing
that, I’m sorry.
|
|
[90]
Lee Waters: The subscription model I was asking about.
|
|
[91]
Ms Gow: Yes. So—
|
|
[92]
Bethan Jenkins: We need to move on.
|
|
[93]
Ms Gow: Okay. La Presse tries everything. About every
two years, they try something, it’s hailed a success and then
they change their minds and they try something else.
|
|
[94]
Lee Waters: Right. In a fast-failure environment,
that’s not a bad thing.
|
|
[95]
Ms Gow: No, but I don’t agree with fast failure; I
agree with fast learning. I don’t think that you should then
wipe off a huge amount of money on one thing and go, ‘Oh
well, fail fast, on to the next thing’. It’s like,
‘Think about it and look at where your audience is going and
see if that’s going to be—. Actually, is the
subscription model something that people will want?’ I hope
that it works for them and then they’ll have done the
experiment and maybe we can learn from it.
|
|
[96]
Lee Waters: Have you learned from their previous
failures?
|
|
[97]
Ms Gow: IPad apps are definitely not the way to go. Yes.
|
|
[98]
Bethan Jenkins: Okay. Suzy Davies.
|
|
[99]
Suzy Davies: Yes. Just going back to the local
accountability—[Inaudible.]—what you made about
not being able to attend court and all the rest of it, local
authorities, at least, are under some pressure and have had finance
to live stream certain of their meetings. What has your
organisation done to make sure that they’re tapping into that
so that they don’t actually have to disappear off to Whitland
court, but it’s running as background in the office and
suddenly you hear something that’s worth listening
to?
|
|
[100]
Ms Gow: Live streaming is a really great initiative. I think,
where councils do it, it makes an enormous difference. It’s
not that you—. You would still want to go there in person for
the big committee meetings, because part of it is actually the
contacts and the conversations that you have while you’re
there. But a live stream that isn’t just for journalists, but
actually opens a chamber up for anybody who wants to watch
it—.
|
|
[101]
Suzy Davies: Yes. It’s a double-edged sword, though,
because, if there are people who’re interested in listening
directly, they’re then going to be asking you why
you’re not covering it.
|
|
[102]
Ms Gow: We have to have an answer for that, to be honest,
though. If we’ve got audiences coming to us and saying,
‘Why wasn’t this in the paper?’ or ‘Why
wasn’t this online?’ then you need to have a word with
yourself and make sure that you are looking at that topic and
covering it, because there’s interest.
|
|
[103]
Suzy Davies: Okay. I was just trying to get a sense of whether the
live streaming thing has permeated your actual offices.
|
|
[104]
Ms Gow: Yes. We very much use it.
|
|
[105]
Suzy Davies: Okay, thanks.
|
|
[106]
Bethan Jenkins:
Hannah.
|
|
[107]
Hannah Blythyn:
Thanks. You touched briefly
on—[Inaudible.]—and the role of hyperlocals in
your previous answer and I’m sure that colleagues have got
more questions on that. But I want to perhaps turn to how the idea
of collaboration can perhaps best support news journalism in the
future within Wales. The south Wales editor-in-chief of Trinity
Mirror, Paul Rowland, previously suggested to this committee
establishing
|
|
[108]
‘some form of syndication network
that allows hyperlocals to gain a revenue stream from the nationals
or organisations like ours’.
|
|
[109]
I was wondering what you made of that
suggestion.
|
|
[110]
Mr Edmunds: I saw that in Paul’s evidence. It would be
something, wouldn’t it, that we’d just have to sit down
and talk about to see what’s feasible. When I was talking
about hyperlocal earlier, what I was stressing was, ‘What
about finding a new business model?’ and I think that’s
what it’s all about. Hyperlocal is all about what the
business model could be.
|
|
[111] Ms Gow:
If a hyperlocal had a story, for example, that they wanted to work
on and didn’t have necessarily the resources—whether
that’s people or time or money—to put to it, I would be
really open to working with them, and that story then getting
syndicated, because we have a syndication department, and making
sure that there was a revenue share around that. I think that
we’re not in—. I’ve always worked in a
collaborative space, and I think most of our newsrooms do, and I
would be keen to see that happen. We haven’t got a formal
syndication agreement with hyperlocals, but it’s certainly
one that we could have a talk about. I know that it arose from this
committee, didn’t it? Paul came away with the view of doing
that, and I think that that’s a good thing.
|
|
[112] Hannah
Blythyn: So, there’s the potential there, but there
aren’t any plans as yet.
|
|
[113] Mr
Edmunds: No.
|
|
[114] Ms Gow:
No.
|
|
[115] Hannah
Blythyn: Do you think—? Trinity Mirror publications do
have a market dominance in towns and cities across Wales. Do you
think that places more of an obligation on you to collaborate to
support news across the country?
|
|
[116] Mr
Edmunds: I think, generally speaking, there’s good
collaboration in Wales. There’s no reason not to collaborate
and, actually, journalists tend to be pretty collaborative. We
encourage collaboration, absolutely. So, there are no issues around
our willingness to collaborate to strengthen the Welsh media
whatsoever.
|
|
[117] Bethan
Jenkins: Can I just ask, on the back of what Hannah
said—? You said there are no plans as yet. Who’s going
to initiate that conversation with hyperlocals, or within
hyperlocals? Because, obviously, Paul Rowland was sitting beside a
hyperlocal. Do we just wait? Is there going to be a discussion
ongoing therefore on that, or is it something that we may have to
put in a recommendation for people to act on?
|
|
[118] Mr
Edmunds: What we would do—. I mean, we’ve spoken to
Paul about it, and we would carry on discussions. I wouldn’t
make any pledges, because we’ve got to just discuss it to see
what the options are.
|
|
[119] Bethan
Jenkins: Okay. We’ll keep an eye open for that. Suzy.
|
|
[120] Suzy Davies: I want to talk a bit more
about hyperlocals, but I just want to examine that last point you
made about collaboration is your modus operandi, really. Certainly,
as politicians, our received wisdom is that the press want
exclusives, that, actually, they don’t want to talk together.
Where does that disinformation come from?
|
|
[121] Mr
Edmunds: That’s different. You always have fierce
competition between the press, but you also get a lot of
collaboration behind the scenes. You’ll see it, for example,
where sports reporters, will—you know, at that
level—help each other out on a story, but also you get
collaboration, I think, in terms of when you want to challenge
things. So, I’ve been involved, over many years, in
challenging legal decisions that have been made with other media
outlets where you will come together to raise a challenge, and on
big issues around, for example, public notices and trying to keep
public notices in papers.
|
|
[122]
Suzy Davies: I’ll come to that now.
|
|
[123] Mr
Edmunds: When I was in Wales I brought all the Welsh media
together on that. So, there are many instances where we collaborate
on really important issues. Obviously, what you’re
referencing is the natural competition that you get in the media. I
was talking more from a sort of business perspective.
|
|
[124] Suzy Davies: I think it is important
though, because, if your hyperlocal has a story, it would strike me
that they might be a bit nervous or suspicious of coming to a
bigger organisation to handle it, lest it wander out of their
control.
|
|
[125] Mr
Edmunds: I don’t think they would be.
|
|
[126] Suzy Davies: Okay. Well, that’s good
to hear. Just to go on to statutory notices, then, you’ll
have heard in evidence here that the hyperlocals would love to get
their hands on some of the money that relates to these notices,
perhaps unsurprisingly. We’ve also heard from Enders that the
balance of advertising revenue is changing—it’s moving
away from print into various parts of digital, not necessarily your
online equivalents. What kind of effect would it have on Trinity
Mirror’s interest in local titles if hyperlocals were allowed
to take that statutory money away? Within the business model,
they’ll be contributing nothing, will they, in terms of
commercial advertising.
|
|
[127] Mr
Edmunds: When you say—. I don’t quite understand
the question.
|
|
[128] Suzy Davies: Let’s say the
Glamorgan Gazette, just as a random example, suddenly loses
its, let’s call it, monopoly on statutory notices and all
that money goes off to hyperlocals. How would these local Trinity
Mirror titles make any money?
|
|
[129] Mr
Edmunds: Oh, I see. In the discussions we’ve had about
them, obviously you would expect me to very much want institutions
in Wales to spend money with us. I think I’ve said before
that—. When I’ve given evidence about why we’ve
cut jobs back and then someone has said, ‘Well, we’re
also analysing how much we spend with you’, well, obviously,
if public institutions spend much less with us, then that’s
going to reduce our revenue. So, naturally, if we lose significant
revenue, then we inevitably have to look at our costs,
but—
|
|
10:15
|
|
[130]
Suzy Davies: And the viability of those titles?
|
|
[131]
Mr Edmunds: Well, the viability of the titles depends on a
multitude of different factors. That would just be part of
it.
|
|
[132]
Suzy Davies: A significant part?
|
|
[133]
Mr Edmunds: It will depend by title. It’s extremely
variable, so it will depend by title.
|
|
[134] Suzy Davies: All right, I take that; I
accept that element of it, but, if you’ve got a newspaper
that’s not being widely read and is losing a fortune,
it’s going.
|
|
[135] Mr Edmunds: Well, you know, I can’t
generalise—
|
|
[136]
Suzy Davies: I can. [Laughter.]
|
|
[137]
Mr Edmunds: We have so many titles that it will depend on—.
So, what’s important is—. If you look at print, print
will be there as long as there’s a demand for it and
it’s a profitable business model. So, you have to look at
that in the case of each print title. And our aim is obviously to
make sure they thrive.
|
|
[138]
Suzy Davies: Thank you.
|
|
[139]
Ms Gow: With that, if you see—. I’m not saying
this is the case, but, for example, if you looked at your Glamorgan
population and the analytics showed—. If that audience was
migrating online, so you might well have a corresponding drop in
print, but they’re coming with you to the digital brands,
then you’ve still got a business. If they’re not, then
you’ve got a problem.
|
|
[140]
Suzy Davies: And that local connection is kept. Because
that’s partly what’s behind my question, that you lose
local connections and journalistic expertise as well.
|
|
[141]
Ms Gow: Yes. The local connection is—. You can’t
do your job if you don’t have boots on the ground and people
who are talking to journalists, so the local connection, from our
point of view, it’s absolutely key and we are restructuring
now to look at—not in Wales at the moment; we’re doing
pilots in other parts of the country—how do we get
journalists out into communities more and not sat at
desks.
|
|
[142] Suzy Davies: No, I understand that as
well. Are you worried about the migration of advertising revenues
to Google and Facebook?
|
|
[143]
Ms Gow: I think that’s always going to be an issue,
yes. Google and Facebook are at great pains to tell us how valuable
we are and how much they want us to be involved
in—
|
|
[144]
Suzy Davies: We understand they steal your content as well,
according to—. I think we heard evidence from Martin Shipton
that—
|
|
[145]
Ms Gow: I saw that. I don’t really understand that,
because, at the end of the day, Google’s a tech company;
it’s not a media publisher, and it doesn’t have—.
It amplifies our content; I wouldn’t say it steals it, but,
you know—
|
|
[146]
Suzy Davies: Maybe I put words in his mouth.
|
|
[147]
Ms Gow: No, I did see that.
|
|
[148]
Suzy Davies: Oh right. Was that your view as
well—‘Well, it’s there and we’ve just got
to deal with it’, more or less?
|
|
[149] Mr Edmunds: We’re in a fiercely
competitive environment and that’s the nature of the work we
do.
|
|
[150] Suzy Davies: Okay. Well let me take you
back, finally, Chair, to the hyperlocals. Having established that
they’re not going to be in competition with you exactly, and
that there is a space for collaboration, I’m assuming that
you’ve got no real objection to them being supported in some
kind of way, and we’ve had suggestions that hyperlocals could
have start-up funding or, potentially, tax breaks. I don’t
know what our levers over that are. What is your view on some of
the suggestions that have come forward for supporting hyperlocals,
notwithstanding the potential competition on statutory notices?
|
|
[151]
Mr Edmunds: You know, it depends. Always, it’s about the
detail of propositions. I mean, you know, it depends what you class
as ‘hyperlocal’ as well, because that’s a term
that’s widely used. What does it mean? My focus, I think, has
been on, if we look at what’s happened in Wales—so,
lots of weekly titles—I think the important thing has been
are we serving those communities digitally. So, the task that we
set ourselves was to say, ‘Well, what would be awful would
be, as print sales decline and you live in an area where the weekly
sales have fallen dramatically, is if we are not saying,
“Here’s a great digital service” on top of it, if
we’re not delivering that’. That’s why
WalesOnline has been successful. Our coverage of Wales, north and
south, from WalesOnline is very well spread and we’ve had a
lot of success, I think, in that migration. That needs to be
recognised. I think it’s really important, which is why
I’m repeating it. We say that WalesOnline has been a huge
success and I do urge you to recognise that.
|
|
[152]
Suzy Davies: Okay, thank you. Alison, anything—
|
|
[153]
Lee Waters: I’m not sure anyone is denying that, are
they?
|
|
[154] Mr Edmunds: No,
but I think, often, questions, which are fine, start from the
premise that it’s not as good as print. And I think
digital is every bit as good as print and has some tremendous
advantages over it from an interaction with the audience
opportunity that we’ve exploited very well. And, you know, we
have great engagement with the audience in Wales.
|
|
[155] Bethan
Jenkins: What I’ve heard more is that the Evening
Post, like what Lee said about the Llanelli
Star—those online sites disappearing in brand is
something that has consumed the minds of some readers. I
won’t give examples of stories, but for some stories in
Swansea you have to go into various parts of the website and
it’s not there in your face, whereas when you used to go to
the Evening Post website, because that was the face of South
Wales West, it would just be there on the front page. As opposed to
saying WalesOnline isn’t a good website and that it
doesn’t provide that—that digital isn’t as good
as print—it’s not that that I’ve heard;
it’s the mega website bringing in all the different areas
that once existed as standalones.
|
|
[156] Mr
Edmunds: But WalesOnline had more audience from Swansea than
the Swansea website had before they merged, and our users tend not
to come in through the homepage.
|
|
[157] Mr
Edmunds: So, if you want Swansea news, you know where to come
into WalesOnline to get that, and on our app you can configure it
so that that is very personalised, and most of our audience does
not come through the homepage where they see different stories
prioritised; they come in a way that they would normally come in,
or through social media.
|
|
[158] Ms Gow:
Yes, search is really important. There are a lot of people who will
search ‘Swansea Evening Post’ just in the URL and that
will take them directly to the Swansea section on the website, but
then social media, you know, direct traffic from that, is really
one of the biggest drivers we have, and then the onus is on us to
make sure that within an article there are routes to related
content around it so people can go on a journey. I wouldn’t
say that the homepage is dead, but the homepage isn’t a
destination for people in the way that it was five years ago. So,
we just have to—. It keeps us on our toes, definitely.
|
|
[159] Suzy
Davies: Can I just ask one quick one on this? What sort of
conversations have you had with the Welsh Government about the
roll-out of superfast broadband? Because you’re increasing
the emphasis on digital and obviously losing readers in other parts
of the print media. Which bit of Wales aren’t you getting to
now?
|
|
[160] Ms Gow:
The connectivity in Wales is a big issue for us, and it is factored
in quite often to conversations that we have around growth. I
don’t have broadband at home; I have an Assembly grant for
satellite broadband because I can’t get it—and thank
you very much. So, I am not unique in that, and I think that when
you’re looking at how we grow digital in north Wales
particularly, and I would say areas—
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[161] Suzy
Davies: Are you speaking to the Welsh Government as a company
from time to time?
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[162] Ms Gow:
Well, we have done, yes, definitely, and the Daily Post has
got a very strong campaign that’s been running for a good
five years around mobile connectivity and also broadband.
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[163] Suzy
Davies: Okay, thank you. ‘Yes’ was the answer I was
after.
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[164] Bethan
Jenkins: Okay. Dai Lloyd—BBC.
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[165] Dai
Lloyd: Diolch, Gadeirydd. Rydw
i’n ymwybodol iawn o’r amser, felly dim ond cwpwl o
gwestiynau byr ynglŷn â chynlluniau newyddiaduraeth leol
y BBC. Nawr, rydw i’n clywed beth rydych chi’n ei
ddweud ynglŷn â phawb yn cydweithio â’i
gilydd, rydych chi’n berffaith agored i syniadau, ac eto mae
yna gystadleuaeth. Ond a allaf i jest ofyn ynglŷn â, yn
benodol, cynlluniau newyddiaduraeth leol y BBC? A oes gennych chi
gynlluniau i fod yn rhan o’r broses yna? Pam fyddech chi, gan
eich bod chi’n gwmni mor fawr ta beth? Rydw i’n derbyn
beth rydych chi’n ei ddweud ynglŷn â phawb yn
cydweithio, ac mae pawb yn hapus gyda’i gilydd ac ati, ond yn
y lle cyntaf, ynglŷn â chynllun y BBC, pam fyddech chi
eisiau bod yn rhan ohono fe? A oes gennych chi gynlluniau i fod yn
rhan ohono fe? A pha agweddau o gynllun y BBC fyddai fwyaf
defnyddiol i chi?
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Dai
Lloyd: Thank you, Chair. I’m very aware of the time, so
just a couple of brief questions on the BBC local journalism plans.
I’m hearing what you’re saying regarding how
everybody’s collaborating together and sharing ideas, and yet
there is competition. But I’ll just ask specifically about
the BBC’s local journalism plans: do you have any plan to be
part of that process? Why would you, because you’re such a
large company anyway? I accept what you say about everybody
collaborating and everybody’s content, but in the first
place, regarding the BBC’s plan, why would you want to be
part of it? Do you have plans to be part of it? And what aspects of
the BBC’s plans would be most helpful to you?
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[166] Mr
Edmunds: We’ve been heavily involved with the BBC
throughout the discussion. So, David Higginson, who unfortunately
wasn’t able to be here today, has been our representative on
that. You know, we’re in that stage now where you bid, I
think, until 13 October, and we’re looking at that. So,
we’re extremely engaged in it and fully supportive of it.
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[167] Dai
Lloyd: Yn amlwg, rhan o’r
cynllun yna ydy’r gallu i gael gohebyddion
ychwanegol—staff ychwanegol. A oes yna unrhyw oblygiadau, os
byddech chi’n dilyn y cynlluniau yna, i’r staff rydych
chi’n eu cyflogi, felly?
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Dai
Lloyd: Clearly, part of that plan is the ability to have
additional reporters—additional staff. Are there any
implications, if you followed those plans, for the staff that you
employ?
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[168] Mr
Edmunds: No, because it’s obviously to cover very
specific areas of content. It’s a very clear remit for this
project. We’ve been involved in all the discussions from the
beginning to reaching this point. The BBC, I think, has done a
great job in working with regional media on it, and we’re
very confident about it and very excited about it.
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[169] Dai
Lloyd: Diolch am hynny. A ydych
chi’n credu bod yna fodd i wella ar gynllun y BBC o gwbl?
Ynteu a ydych chi yn berffaith fodlon a rhadlon braf ynglŷn
â’r cynlluniau i gyd fel y maen nhw?
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Dai
Lloyd: Thank you for that. Do you think that there is a way to
improve the BBC’s plan at all? Or are you completely content
about all these plans as they are?
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[170] Mr
Edmunds: As I said, we’ve been involved, so we’ve
had a lot of input. We’re very pleased with what’s come
out of it, so we’ve got no issues.
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[171] Dai
Lloyd: Ocê, diolch yn
fawr.
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Dai
Lloyd: Okay, thank you.
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[172] Bethan
Jenkins: I just want to be devil’s advocate. You said
earlier, in response to—I think it was—Lee again, that
you felt that you were confident that you were covering what you
could, and where you weren’t covering things like hyperlocal,
then that was something, potentially, that wasn’t within your
commercial remit to do. So, why do you need to be part of this BBC
scheme when it seems to me that you’re quite comfortable
about what you are covering under the current auspices of Media
Wales? What do you need the BBC—this scheme—for? Could
it not be for hyperlocals who feel that they may be squeezed out of
this process to get involved in, more than yourselves, who are
already, potentially, strong enough in that sense?
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[173] Mr
Edmunds: My point to Lee, when we were looking at hyperlocal,
was what the business model was and that the bigger stories tended
to be covered. What the BBC scheme affords, obviously, is the
opportunity to produce even more content from local councils and so
on, which is a great opportunity to cover them in great detail and
to—
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[174] Bethan
Jenkins: If they’re that important, why are you not doing
them now anyway, regardless of the BBC?
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[175] Mr
Edmunds: Well, we do, but we don’t do it to that extent.
The whole philosophy of it has been, hasn’t it, to increase
the coverage of those and to make sure, in coming years, that
it’s very strong. So, that’s what it’s designed
to do, and we’ve been part of the discussion, looking at what
we do cover and what the opportunity is. I mean, I don’t want
to give the impression, for one moment, that we’re
comfortable about anything. We spend most days beating ourselves up
about what we’re not doing, not patting ourselves on the back
about what we’re doing well. Our culture, every day, is about
the stories we could have done better, or about the stories someone
else got that we missed.
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[176] Bethan
Jenkins: What I’m trying to get to is you did have staff
that were doing these things. Some of them don’t exist
anymore. You did have processes whereby there were local titles.
Even if they do still exist, they don’t have offices in their
local areas. Are you therefore using the BBC and that potential
relationship to do the work that you should actually be doing
anyway?
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[177] Mr
Edmunds: What you’re characterising there is the way that
local media has changed everywhere over a long period. That’s
why this BBC scheme has come in, isn’t? Because it’s
about looking at the current media marketplace, the current
provision of news, and seeing how collaboration with the BBC can
improve it.
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[178] Bethan
Jenkins: Okay.
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[179] Ms Gow:
Just really quickly, the other thing it will afford is: instead of
that agonising over the rota as to who can spend a half day in the
council meeting and then a full day writing up, that person would
go and cover it, but they can do something else. If there is
another reporter sat in there doing that, then you have a reporter
who is freed up to do other things. That’s just me with my
practical head on, really. We do need to cover these things. We
have to be represented. The local community, as somebody said, they
would very quickly challenge us if we weren’t covering
councils, and we will still be going. You might end up, sometimes,
with two people sat in a council meeting, because we can’t
just withdraw from these fields. You can’t seed the ground to
say, ‘Well, the BBC’s going to that.’
You’re still going to want to go for contact reasons.
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[180] Bethan
Jenkins: Okay. If there are no more questions, then I’ll
bring that session to an end.
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[181]
Diolch yn fawr iawn ichi am ddod yma
heddiw. Fe fyddwn ni’n cadw mewn cysylltiad ynglŷn
â’r adroddiad a’r hyn rydym ni’n ei wneud
fel cynigion i’r adroddiad hwnnw. Diolch yn fawr
iawn.
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Thank you very
much for attending today. We’ll keep in touch with regard to
the report and the recommendations in that report. Thank you very
much.
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10:29
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Papurau
i'w Nodi
Papers to
Note
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[182]
Bethan Jenkins:
Rydym yn symud ymlaen at eitem 3,
papurau i’w nodi. Mae papur 3.1 yn ohebiaeth gan Ysgrifennydd
Gwladol Cymru. A oes unrhyw sylwadau ar hynny o gwbl?
Na.
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Bethan
Jenkins: We’re moving on now to item 3, paper to note.
Paper 3.1 is correspondence from the Secretary of State for Wales.
Any comments on that at all? No.
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