We reconvene on item 6, which is a debate on the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee's report: the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on journalism and local media. I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion, Helen Mary Jones.

Motion NDM7491 Helen Mary Jones

To propose that the Senedd:

Notes the report of the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee on the Impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on journalism and local media laid in the Table Office on 14 September 2020.

Motion moved.

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm pleased to present this report from the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee on the impact of the pandemic on journalism and on local media. I'd like to begin, of course, by giving my thanks to my fellow committee members, to our wonderful team of staff and to all of those witnesses who gave both oral and written evidence.

I'm sure we would all agree that it is vital to democracy that we have thriving press and media that can hold us all to scrutiny. I'm sure we would also all agree on the vital importance, at a time of crisis, of accurate information at such a dangerous time. Our report looks at three areas in this regard. We found that the crisis has exacerbated and highlighted ongoing challenges for the Welsh media and for local media, and threw into sharp relief a persistent failure of some elements of the UK media to report accurately on devolved matters. We looked at the nature and accuracy of information about the response to the pandemic, the impact of the threat of redundancies on key news outlets and long-term support for local journalism and media. We're grateful to the Welsh Government for accepting all but one of our recommendations.

Reporting on devolved matters quickly became problematic at the beginning of the pandemic. Many people, of course, in Wales rely on UK news outlets, whether that is broadcasters or newspapers, for their news. It was frequently the case that UK-wide news providers did not make it clear that there were different rules in different parts of the United Kingdom across the four nations. It is true to say that reporting on devolved matters started very badly and it did, through the pandemic, improve, and it became clear that more and more people were aware that the rules here were different. We gradually did see a move from the reporting of English regulations as if they applied to the whole of the UK to reporting on England and Scotland, and, eventually, to reporting on the four nations.

It is crucial at this difficult time that people across the UK know what rules apply to them, and this is why we called on the Welsh Government to urge the Office of Communications to ensure that broadcasters maintain impartiality and accuracy of reporting on all four UK nations equally as a matter of course. We're pleased that Ofcom has written to broadcasters to remind them of this and of the broadcasting code. We have seen some improvement since, but it still continues to be the case that this is something that broadcasters and journalists continue to need to be reminded of. The committee has felt some frustration in this regard, particularly with elements of public sector broadcasting.

In July, Reach plc, which, of course, is the company that owns some of our national and our most important local news outlets, announced that almost 90 journalists' jobs were at risk. We were able to take evidence from the company and from the journalists' unions. We were very concerned about the potential for job losses, and we asked at that time for the Welsh Government to meet representatives from the sector to get an understanding of what support might be needed and what they could do at that time. I'm hoping that the Deputy Minister will be able to tell us whether he has been able to progress that work with key stakeholders that he agreed to undertake.

One crucial source of support, of course, for local news outlets is advertising revenue. We recommended very strongly that Welsh Government should ensure that statutory notices, which are great source of revenue and are within Welsh Government and local government control, should be published in hyperlocal and online providers, as well as in the larger outlets. And again, it would be good to hear from the Deputy Minister the extent to which that is being monitored and the extent to which that has happened.

At the time, we recommended that the Welsh Government should advocate to the UK Government for an extension of the job retention scheme, and I'm sure we're all highly relieved that that scheme has been extended.

The pandemic has, as I've said, accelerated problems that were already facing our local and national media in Wales, and the decline in newspaper sales has been, of course, stark and continues. At the height of the pandemic, they were selling almost no physical newspapers at all. We heard a lot of evidence about the difficulty of monetising online news media—how difficult it is for companies to make a profit. It is ironic in some ways that just as the Senedd has gained further powers, public interest journalism is being put under threat in Wales and potentially being forced to retreat.

We called on the Welsh Government to urgently act to encourage new entrants into the market and to support innovative approaches to the provision of news journalism in Wales. We were pleased to hear from the Deputy Minister, in committee on 17 September, that he's asked Creative Wales to consider whether it might be able to act as an arm's-length body to provide some direct financial support for key local news outlets in Wales, and again I'm looking forward to hearing more from the Deputy Minister in this regard.

There is much more I could say, Dirprwy Lywydd, but I'm very anxious to hear from other Members, both members of the committee and others, who will want to contribute to this debate. I'm grateful again to all who took part in the inquiry, and I hope that we can all agree that it is vital to the future of our fledgling democracy that that democracy is accurately reported on, so that people can become aware of the important decisions made in this place that affect them. Diolch yn fawr.

I'll try not to repeat the excellent points made by Helen Mary, but I do wish to be associated with them fully. I would say this though about the improvement in the coverage of devolved matters, that Mark Drakeford has become something of a cult figure throughout the United Kingdom. This is a policy-free statement on my part, but he has had a profile, he's been profiled also on Radio 4 by Nick Robinson, and we heard all about his upbringing in Carmarthenshire and his love of Glamorgan County Cricket Club and his visits to St Helen's, which, I have to say, took me back to my teenage years as well. I do think that that's really important, because that should be the standard—people should realise that we are now a decentralised state. And on some things it's crucial. For instance, the Financial Times a few months ago carried an interesting couple of articles on test and trace, and compared the Welsh approach with the approach in other parts of the UK, particularly England, and did say that the connection between public health and local authorities in Wales did seem to be the way to go. Now, the evidence is out there, and the FT has formed its own judgment, but I thought that was interesting.

Let me just make two very specific points. Earlier this autumn, the 'Global Satisfaction with Democracy' report was published, carried out by Cambridge University. It had international coverage. It's regarded, I think I can safely say, as being hugely authoritative. It warned that the effect of social media is driving people in society into silos, where there are, particularly in Anglo-Saxon countries, two opposing tribes, and this mirrors the two-party system. I suppose, at the UK level, we could roughly say, it still prevails in terms of choice of Government, even if it doesn't quite prevail now in Scotland and in Wales. But I do think there's a real issue with people getting a lot of their primary political information on social media. I think, as a complementary tool and giving voice to ever so many people, social media is wonderful, but as a primary source we've got to be really careful. And as we are about to start a vaccination programme, which will be open to the whole population within the next six months or so, it reminds us of how important sources of information are in the public health field, because there's a lot of fake news out there in relation to many of these issues.

My second point, I go back to the 1830s and probably the greatest theorist of democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who went to America and wrote that famous book, Democracy in America. He thought one of the key things that permitted democracy, and something approaching mass democracy, in terms of male suffrage anyway, was occurring for the first time in the world—not even the Greeks got anywhere close to that—in America in the 1830s, and he thought it was a free press that was required, and competition in a free press. And if I can just quote one of the things Tocqueville said:

'The sovereignty of the people and the liberty of the press may therefore be looked upon as correlative'.

You need both, and I think that's a very powerful insight.

And I'll end with this piece of evidence that we received; I thought it was the most powerful thing we heard from the professional journalists. We are losing professional journalists daily and it's diminishing our democracy. But it was emphasised to us that the biggest loss is that the professional journalists who used to live in the local communities they wrote about are no longer there, and that's a great worry and we've got to find a business model that can address it.

I'm not a member of the committee, but I took a great deal of interest in this report, particularly because there are two sources of very good-quality journalism that I use—it isn't one of the big ones—and that's Senedd Home, which is run by Owen Donovan, and it's run entirely as a labour of love. It is the best summary of these debates that you will see anywhere, and I would recommend any Member of the Senedd—I know I've spoken to the Deputy Minister about this before—use that as a source for finding out what has gone on post debates, because it is the best summary you will see, short of reading through the whole Record yourself, which, of course, isn't possible. And I'm sure this will get a mention in his summary as well, which is not why I'm saying it, Deputy Minister. The other issue, though, is that public notices don't apply to him because it's an online service. So, there is an issue with the publication of public notices.

The other source that I use—and Senedd Home is absolutely independent and supports independence—is the Caerphilly Observer, and the Caerphilly Observer is a stunning piece of work. It started in 2009 as an online source and now has a print run that runs across the Caerphilly borough. It is completely independent, and I know it is because there are stories in there that have driven me mad. But I also know that there are stories in there that have driven Plaid Cymru mad. And, in fact, it's good to see that the Plaid Cymru people in Caerphilly insist it's a Labour rag and the Labour people insist that it's a Plaid rag, so you know very well—and if there were any Conservatives in Caerphilly, I'm sure they'd say the same about other parties. And it is a very, very good source of independent information. Because they've got a print run, they can run community print notices, so they do get a subsidy by that route. I spoke to the publisher last night; I had a chat with Richard Gurner who started it, and it's his work, and one of the things he said was, if you go down the route of a direct subsidy, the problem becomes accountability. At least if you're doing the public notices, the benefit of public notices is there's a public service, which you're being paid for directly. And I know all the political parties that are represented in my community, the main political parties, advertise in the Caerphilly Observer. There is another form of public subsidy, and that is without fear or favour. So, I think that is the better route with regard to—I think it's recommendation 7. I haven't got the report in front of me, but I think it was recommendation 7, Chair.

But it doesn't disguise the huge long-term problems that the industry is facing. Good, proper, well-researched, detailed, accurate news is much harder to monetise than a clickbait post. That's the biggest problem facing the industry at this time. I know we all go on Facebook and we provide our information as accurately as we can, regardless of party. I've seen Members across this Chamber providing good information on Facebook, but there is a tide that swamps us all, and the danger is that this tide will swamp the likes of the Caerphilly Observer. So, the problem also faced is that businesses that currently advertise in their print edition, as electronic media takes off, the newer businesses don't want to use the print edition either. They're currently keeping a good income through print advertising, but that isn't likely to be sustained long term.

So, the publisher of the Caerphilly Observer told me that his answer to this is two things: continue that public services subsidy that we've mentioned; but also—and I'll use his words—'the solution is in developing highly engaged online audiences who are willing to pay for their information, but for that information also to be available to all'. 'I know that not all of my audience', said Richard Gurner from the Caerphilly Observer, 'is willing to make a financial contribution, but if enough do, then that could lead to a sustainable business model not reliant on advertising. It's a really tall order, but it's not impossible'. And I tell you something, if you go in to a shop in Caerphilly and you talk about a recent incident, somebody is likely to say to you, 'Oh, I saw that in the Observer.' They don't mean the Sunday Observer, they mean the Caerphilly Observer. People talk about that paper, because it is a reliable and trusted source, and Richard is starting to see the benefit of that through people paying subscriptions.

The final thing he said to me was that the Welsh Government has shown leadership in supporting the independent sector through the independent community journalism fund. This helped him keep afloat, but what he would like to see is to see that expanded. So, it would be really important to see that expanded through the independent sector. Even though it does come back to this issue of state subsidy, it is as arm's length, to an extent, which is beneficial. So, that's where my interest is. I want to see good-quality hyperlocal journalism; even if it isn't in my favour, I want to see it. And I think the two shining examples that I've identified today—Senedd Home and Caerphilly Observer—are the ones who are leading the way.

Thank you to the committee for another brief but very important report, containing some sensible recommendations for the short term and the longer term in terms of sustaining and supporting local media and the press. Every time we discuss this area, I do declare an interest, because I am journalist by trade, and a member of the National Union of Journalists, and have been for almost 40 years now. There is no doubt that the journalistic landscape has changed significantly over that period, particularly, perhaps, in the past 20 years, and that change has gathered pace recently because of COVID-19, as we well know. However, I would agree with the comments made by others, namely that there is a fundamentally important role for journalism in our democracy, and that role is fundamental for the maintenance of a healthy democracy.

There has been a great appetite for news during the pandemic, and it's been more important than ever to ensure that the people of Wales have access to accurate and relevant news, not only for the good of our democracy, but also for the good of public health. But, as others have mentioned, the pandemic has also highlighted the challenges facing journalism, particularly local and print journalism.

If I could mention some of Plaid Cymru's ideas in this area. A Plaid Cymru Government would promote Welsh media representing the people of Wales, and what's important to the people of Wales. We would create an independent Welsh media commission to fund a network of English-language digital news providers. Of course, that wouldn't be at the expense of Welsh-medium journalism; we need to ensure that there is sufficient support available for Golwg360 and so on if they are to develop further. We need plurality in our journalism; there is a great need for that in Wales. 

We need to tackle the current democratic deficit, which emerges from historic weaknesses. The report draws attention to the important role that the media has in educating first-time voters of 16 and 17 years old as we approach the election. But there is also a democratic deficit across age ranges, and I'm grateful to Delyth Jewell for raising those concerns recently in the Senedd. Only 6 per cent of people of Wales read Welsh newspapers; the figure for Scotland is 46 per cent. Isn't it time we had one national newspaper for Wales, whilst accepting, of course, that digital journalism is the future and the way forward?

We need to consider establishing a scheme or a fund for multiplatform journalists to work in areas that don't have a newspaper—not everyone is fortunate enough to have a Caerphilly Observer or Caernarfon and Denbigh Herald and other such papers. One could model this on the local democracy correspondents scheme that is already in play, but that could be enhanced to include all sorts of news and journalism. And ensuring easy access to the journalism industry is crucially important too. Journalists face a range of barriers, including, very often, having to complete a number of internships that are often unpaid or at a very low salary, and journalists are now expected to have a degree at least. The Government should be looking at various alternative ways, through apprenticeships, perhaps, to attract new journalists from backgrounds that haven't been sufficiently represented in the past.

To conclude, the media will play an important role over the next few months. As news of vaccines is announced, we must ensure that there is a robust system in place to promote vaccines and to tackle the misinformation, or the fake news, that is so often shared at the moment. Journalism has a major role to play in that regard, and the Government needs to work closely with the sector in order to ensure that there is a major new public health campaign developed to educate our population on the importance of vaccination, as well as emphasising that vaccines are safe. Thank you very much to the committee for its thorough work once again.

There was an old National Union of Mineworkers banner that had as its main logo on it 'Knowledge is power', and that motif has never been more true. The reason why so many billionaires, millionaires and oligarchs want to own the media is not because of their love of journalism, love of the print world or the media, it's because they know it gives them power, and we have to recognise that the control of that information and that power has a direct impact on the quality of our democracy.

I welcome many of the comments that have been made already. I welcome also, from the evidence that we received during this committee, the improvements in the quality of broadcasting in beginning to recognise devolution, even to such an extent that we now have UK Government Ministers who also are aware of devolution and refer specifically within the context of their responsibilities, as opposed to devolved responsibilities. I think that is a very significant step forward.

I'd like to make just a few comments about aspects of evidence that emerged with regard to the state of the media within Wales, and it is a long-term issue. COVID has exacerbated, catalysed and brought focus, I think, on those particular problems that we have: the move away from the print media to online, the control of that, and also, one of the real concerns that I think were raised in the committee, and that is the point that David Melding made about the loss of community-based journalism. I would say also the loss of specialist investigative journalism. We have seen some excellent journalism recently, for example, by Martin Shipton in WalesOnline on issues, but those areas of investigative journalism are few and far between, and often, when they are done, they aren't actually put out then on social media because of the policy of the way the media is operating within Wales. Also, there are concerns about the way media is being increasingly domiciled outside Wales, admittedly, with all the assurances, but I don't think there was a great deal of confidence in those assurances.

Can I finish with some comments about the way community radio has really begun to come into its own? Certainly, in my constituency, GTFM is a very professionally run and operated community radio service—a vital service, for example, that we had during the flooding last February, keeping communities informed of what was happening and where support was, but also now during COVID. One of the ways in which Government can support community radio is actually through things like public service broadcasting. Can I say it is better than it has been? But I think it is still inconsistent.

There was a time when a lot of public service broadcasting done by Welsh Government on Welsh campaigns didn't go to community radio. That is changing, but it seems to me as a matter of course—. For example, with the vaccination public information we're going to have, one of the key sources of getting into our communities has got to be the use of community radio. And I think, in the longer term, we should see community radio as being a real opportunity for the provision of quality, impartial information into our communities about what happens in this place, about what happens in Wales more generally. But in order to do that, we have to support it. It is run on a shoestring, it is very variable across Wales, and I think we should now see it as a quality democratic asset. Thank you, Deputy Llywydd. 

I now call the Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism, Dafydd Elis-Thomas.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank the committee for preparing a comprehensive report in such a short time on an issue that's of vital importance to us all in a public health emergency, as we are in at present.

The report shows the challenges that face the media sectors in Wales as a result of the global pandemic, and it also does remind us of the problems that have been with us for many years in terms of how the people of Wales can communicate with each other through the medium of the system that we have at present in the media. And I would like to refer specifically, because we've accepted all the recommendations, apart from the one relating to the BBC, to the reason why we've taken this position. And I'd like to explain that it's only for a constitutional reason and we're very eager to see the very interesting developments in terms of the central management of the BBC, where Wales will play a very prominent role in the future of the BBC centrally—that there is an opportunity to have a new discussion with the BBC about the way in which that public medium can reflect devolution far more clearly. 

I'd also like to thank the committee for the effective way in which they engaged with stakeholders, and they gave a clear emphasis on the need for Welsh media to reflect and to be productive, because I think there's one great weakness in terms of several debates about the media, namely that the media only reflects things. The media darkens as well, because if issues don't get the due attention, democracy is not possible, and that was behind a request I made to Creative Wales to consider their role in relation to strengthening the media in Wales. And I'm pleased to say that the board of Creative Wales have met.

Unfortunately, I haven't had an opportunity to join them yet, but in the first meeting that I will attend as Deputy Minister responsible for this area, I will be discussing the way in which they can assist us in developing this principle of having better communication in terms of what's happening in Wales. And that includes, hopefully, the fact that we can develop a partnership between the Welsh Government and the Senedd Commission here so that these issues—well, I know that these issues have been issues of concern since I've been part of the Assembly, that we haven't had that sufficient understanding of our activities. I think that there is scope for the Senedd Commission, and I understand that they're willing to do this, to collaborate in a model of communication and to develop communication in Wales that is more adequate.

It's important to state that any body that funds communication of any kind or has oversight of any kind does operate on an arm's-length basis, which has been so effective in the cultural realm. And I think it's possible for us to have an operational means that sustains journalistic independence while ensuring that the ability of Welsh people to communicate with each other and the ability of the Welsh nation to be an understandable nation in the world are protected. Thank you very much. 

I have no Member who has requested to make an intervention, therefore I'll call on Helen Mary Jones to reply to the debate.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I'm grateful to all Members who have contributed to this debate. I think the breadth of the discussion shows how important these issues are to Members across the Chamber and not only to Members of our committee. I, of course, don't have time to respond to everybody's comments, but I will try and pick up on some of the main ones.

I think David Melding's comments about the risk of tribalism on social media, how we can end up hearing what we want to hear; hugely important, and that reinforces the need for tried and tested journalism, and as he said, journalists living in their communities, understanding their communities. And he is, of course, quite right that without a free press and without accurate information, democracy is impossible, and that's a point, of course, that was touched on by several Members.

I want to spend a few moments responding to Hefin David, who I thought made some very, very good points. I use Senedd Home a lot, too, and I also don't always agree with what it says, but it's incredibly accurate, and I think, in the committee, we did make recommendations about this, about those sorts of websites having access to the funding that comes through public notices; that they have a crucial role to play, and that is, as Hefin David says, a very effective way in which the public sector can support local journalism—or indeed, in this case, Senedd Home, national journalism—but without the kind of risks that he rightly highlights of direct funding, but I'll come back to that in a minute.

It's interesting that in a further session that we've had, the Caerphilly Observer was highlighted to us as a really good practice example of how a certain amount of seed funding through local journalism was able to kick things off and that now it's a successful commercial enterprise. It was also, though, put to us in that session that that wouldn't work in all communities, and that you need a particular individual to drive it.

So, that's, kind of, one model. But we were convinced by the evidence that there will be some need for more direct public support, and that comes back to the Minister's point about needing to do that at arm's length. Of course, there is a precedent: the Welsh Government does that for Golwg360. It's not a huge amount of money, but it just helped to get it off the ground and made it sustainable. I think one of the things that came through was the need for a variety of models, and I think Hefin David's point about subscription models for online. In our discussions with Reach, they were sceptical about that, but I think we as a committee felt that they should explore it further. I was going to say they hadn't tried hard enough, but that's probably not fair. But that that should be explored further, and of course, there are innovators in the sector in Wales who are looking at precisely that kind of model for national journalism. So, I'd like to thank Hefin David very much for his contribution because I think it was a very valuable one.

Thanks to Siân Gwenllian as well. She's right to highlight that these challenges to the sector are not new but, as we heard in our evidence, the pandemic highlighted it and made it worse. I thought the point she made particularly about access for a wider range of young people to professional opportunities in journalism, that was very well made and that may be something that we need to pick up.

Mick Antoniw was right to remind us that knowledge is power, and his passion for community radio is well established and absolutely deserved. And again, the points about how we can use public sector advertising.

I'll bring my responses to a close as quickly as I possibly can, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm grateful to the Minister for accepting most of our recommendations. I'm glad that he's intending to have those discussions with Creative Wales about how they might be able to create a kind of arm's-length model to provide support, particularly perhaps support to get local journalism off the ground. I hope that he will be able to come back to the committee soon on that, because what we heard in our evidence was that there are outlets disappearing, journalists are disappearing on a week-by-week basis and we need to address that urgently. This is obviously a matter that the committee will continue to want to keep under review.

And I will end by saying, Dirprwy Lywydd, that there is, of course, one thing that all of us can do, and we can buy our local paper. We can, those of us who can afford it, subscribe to services that make that possible and this work certainly reminded me that perhaps I shouldn't always go to WalesOnline and I ought to be buying the Western Mail. So, thanks, everybody, once again for participating in the inquiry and in this debate, and these are matters to which I know we will return. I commend the report to the Senedd.

Thank you. The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? I don't see an objection, therefore the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.