Media 39
Task and
Finish Group on the future outlook for the media in
Wales
Response
from NWN Media
As a
substantial newspaper group with obvious interest in engaging with
our audience in the most effective fashion both commercially and in
setting a serious Welsh news agenda, I feel it
essential that our relevance and range is fully
understood in the current debate on changes in the Welsh media.
With a three
edition daily title dominating the market place in the most densely
populated region of North Wales and with respected weeklies
covering huge areas of North and mid Wales we are continually
concerned that any impression of Trinity titles providing the only
hard news platforms and forums of debate presents a skewed version
of reality in Wales.
We are a group
of titles who are extremely proud of our positive interaction with
the communities we serve and our championing of the various causes
that spring from their midst.
While we are as
concerned as other companies with the challenges facing local
media, we believe there is still a vibrant agenda-setting local
media (print and online) in Wales and that the evidence for that is
found in titles such as our own. We would feel confident that a
reader’s search for serious Welsh regional news in North East
Wales and many other population centres in the North would begin an
end with an NWN Media title – a position we feel is not
presented before you in this climate of analysis that presupposes
the dominance of England based newspaper groups across the Welsh
map.
It could be
argued that the North Wales was the area perhaps least receptive in
the initial stages to Cardiff governance. Many areas within our
publications footprint looked east – culturally, economically
and socially to the North West but were no less Welsh for that?
It is to the
Welsh Government's credit that those initial fears that South Wales
thinking would dominate every perceived need have largely vanished.
The administration’s determined steps to be inclusive at all
levels coupled with the enthusiasm of our local members has
resulted in an obvious embracing of devolved government in recent
years where once there remained suspicion of Southern
priorities.
We take our
commitment to Wales extremely seriously. As the leading Welsh based
family owned publisher we have and will continue to make
substantial investments here. Our titles are printed here –
in Wales and about Wales! We have formed a pioneering partnership
with Glyndwr University in Wrexham to provide an NCTJ accredited
course to train Welsh journalists to work in Wales. No one else is
doing this at this level.
Our big news
today is that we are now at the planning stage of offering the
first course anywhere allowing journalism students to achieve their
NCTJ qualifications though the medium of Welsh. This a first and
has come about again through the pioneering partnership of a media
group, an academic institution and the NCTJ working together to set
a ground breaking vision in place.
Local
independent ownership of NWN Media means that it provides the only
true Welsh voice in the region. We compete with rival media in many
of our marketing areas, and that is right and proper. However we do
feel that as market leaders in many of those areas that we should
be seen as such when analysis takes place and when commercial
decisions are made.