‘We were given to the Serbs.’ In July 1995 the Bosnian town of Srebrenica fell to the forces of General Ratko Mladić and his Serbian paramilitaries. At least 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred. Deportations and rape followed.
In Cardiff’s Temple of Peace the 21st anniversary of the greatest atrocity in Europe since the Second World War was remembered through the testimony of three Bosnian Muslim survivors and the daughter of Bosnian refugees who was raised in Scotland.
Religion is an element in many high profile stories today but how well are journalists supported in their efforts to understand and interpret its role? I have organised with NUJ Training Wales the first event in Wales to address this urgent skills issue.
WHEN RELIGION MAKES THE NEWS: Workshop & Networking Event, Cardiff
A workshop for all journalists living or working in Wales: 8th November 2016
Continue reading When Religion Makes the News – A Workshop for Journalists
During this year’s Celtic Media Festival in Dungarvan I was on a panel about factual tv. I took immediate issue with the assumption behind the session’s brief – The most prolific and successful genre in the Celtic nations is factual, both in English and in the indigenous languages. Is factual prolific and what is the measure of success? But further, I question the festival’s decision to ignore the biggest challenge to the factual genre – adequate media policy.
Continue reading The Politics of Celtic Media – Get Your Facts Straight
PSB Television in a digital world – what’s the recipe for Wales?
On April 6th there was a chance to get Welsh voices on the record at the session for Wales of David Puttnam’s Future of PSB TV Inquiry. The event was hosted by Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. This independent inquiry is gathering evidence from around the UK and will report in June.
I spoke for the Institute of Welsh Affairs alongside Angharad Mair (Tinopolis, BAFTA Cymru), Huw Jones (S4C), Rhys Evans (BBC Cymru Wales) and Ian McKenzie (Nations and Regions, Channel 4).
See Future of TV Inquiry – Content and Platforms in a Digital Age
“The Inquiry has been set up to consider the nature, purpose and place of public service television today and for the future. It aims to address how public service content can be most effectively nurtured taking into consideration a range of services, platforms and funding models. Continue reading Future of PSB TV Inquiry – Wales
“Here’s a man who plays hide and seek with the secret police and cuts his prison cell bars to escape as he faces the gallows”, says Guto Harri in this 60-minute documentary about St John Roberts (repeated on Sunday, 3rd April at 10pm on S4C with English sub-titles). “He acts more like James Bond than a saint. The issues underlying the history are echoed today, dealing as they do with someone considered to be a religious extremist, living abroad and considered a threat to the very fabric of the state.”
Broadcasting in Wales: the Future of the BBC Charter, an event organised by the Wales Governance Centre. will scrutinise the future of the BBC in Wales (6pm Tuesday 15th March, Millennium Centre, Cardiff).
At a time when the future of the BBC’s Charter is being debated in public, and with politicians in Cardiff Bay and Westminster looking at the future of the media, this is a crucial time for broadcasting in Wales. This event will look at the key topics emerging from these debates and how they might influence the future of the BBC in Wales. Continue reading Debating the BBC (and more!) in Wales
The director of a major social science research body has warmly praised work done as part of the Wales Media Audit 2015. The Audit was produced by the Media Policy Group of the Institute of Welsh Affairs.
Continue reading Praise for impact of WISERD research on Media in Wales
The Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee is to be congratulated on having elicited from the Welsh Government ‘Details of the work of, and output from, the Welsh Government’s Broadcasting Advisory Panel’, a feat no one else had managed to achieve.
Continue reading The Curious Case of the Broadcasting Advisory Panel
Public service broadcasting in Wales is on a knife-edge and there are loud demands for reform. The response will cast light on whether Wales is genuinely seen as a full partner within the UK.
Small but perfectly formed. Is that a fair description of Wales? Small Wales certainly is, with a population of 3.1 million compared to the 53.9 million of its neighbour, England. This part of the British Isles claims distinctiveness as a nation while remaining attached to the union. Democratic devolution was endorsed initially by the slimmest of margins but the people of Wales went on to vote 2 to 1 for full legislative powers as the devolutionary process established itself. That process continues. It is the context for any valid consideration of broadcasting in Wales. Here, in broadcasting terms, there is a nation to be served with all that implies about complexity and breadth.
But broadcasting in Wales is challenged by two particular weaknesses: market failure and inadequate influence over its media policy. Together these create in Wales an unhealthy paradox: while the public clearly supports increased self-determination as a nation within the UK, the media − whose function is to enable national self-understanding − are increasingly disabled.
This can only result in a stunted Wales, struggling to assess its own potential or needs and, ultimately, unable to benefit properly from devolution or to contribute distinctively to the UK ‘project’. A withered branch tends to get lopped off. For Wales, in the debate around Public Service Broadcasting, the stakes are very high indeed. Continue reading Towards Better Broadcasting in Wales
Since Rona Fairhead, Chair of the BBC Trust, a year ago, effectively killed off the body that she chairs by calling for it to be abolished, many have been wondering how the BBC should be governed and held accountable in future. After all, the corporation has suffered more than its share of troubles in recent years. But in re-shaping the governance of the BBC there is a lot at stake, too, for us in Wales.
For that reason the IWA’s Media Policy Group has made a submission to the review of BBC governance being carried out by Sir David Clementi, a former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, for the UK Government. If the BBC Trust generally is not fit for purpose, then neither are the current arrangements for accountability in Wales. Continue reading BBC governance must catch up with devolution