Category Archives: Blog

Merthyr Meirionnydd – A Welsh Martyr

Blog, Portfolio, PortfolioTelevision, Producer

“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.”

img022

Continue reading Merthyr Meirionnydd – A Welsh Martyr →

Debating the BBC (and more!) in Wales

Blog, Industry, Media, Portfolio, PortfolioTelevision

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 →

BBC governance must catch up with devolution

Blog, Industry

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 →

Seamus Heaney – Walk on Air

Blog, Poetry

I want to end 2015 by writing about something that connects death and life.  On August 12th I went with my husband and our friends, Anne and Huw to the large village of Bellaghy in County Derry, Northern Ireland. I’d been there before to visit Bellaghy Bawn, a substantial house dating from the early seventeenth century, from the days of the Plantation  of Ulster. It has for some time housed memorabilia connected with the poet, Seamus Heaney who grew up not far away.

But it’s not so much the Bawn that has stayed with me from this visit. It’s the graveyard.

photo Belfast Telegraph
photo Belfast Telegraph

Continue reading Seamus Heaney – Walk on Air →

What’s in it for Wales? Tony Hall’s new BBC

Blog, Industry, Portfolio, PortfolioTelevision, Television

“This is the story I want to focus on this evening.” said Tony Hall, Director General of the BBC in a speech given to Cardiff Business Club on Monday 23rd November. “The BBC as a home for distinctive quality and creativity, supporting the best talent and brightest ambition – a driving force behind the UK’s extraordinary global competitiveness in the creative industries.”

Continue reading What’s in it for Wales? Tony Hall’s new BBC →

IWA Wales Media Audit and Cardiff Media Summit

Blog, Industry, Media, PortfolioTelevision

IWA montage

“get reading this thorough and classy piece of work”

I had the pleasure of chairing the second Cardiff Media Summit on the 11th November at the Wales Millennium Centre. The first summit was held in December 2014, a half-day event. It was clear then that in order to address the problems and take advantage of the opportunities facing the media in Wales there was an urgent need for objective facts as the basis for policy recommendations. Just under a year later we have the IWA Wales Media Audit 2015 , launched at the summit.

This is an update to the Media Audit done by the IWA in 2008. The 2015 Audit offers information about provision in Wales of press, online and broadcast media, includes a review of all major policy statements since the last audit and, drawing on the information gathered, makes 37 recommendations. Continue reading IWA Wales Media Audit and Cardiff Media Summit →

An End to the Centre-Periphery Game? Arts and the Media in Wales

Blog, Industry, Media

David Anderson , Director General of Amgueddfa Cymru takes the BBC to task for its poor coverage of arts and culture in Wales. In a hard-hitting article in the latest edition of the IWA’s ‘The Welsh Agenda’ magazine he analyses how what he calls ‘The Centre-Periphery Game’ has encouraged this shortcoming, exacerbating a failure of perception on the part of the BBC centrally but also a failure of the arts community in Wales to challenge the status quo.
Continue reading An End to the Centre-Periphery Game? Arts and the Media in Wales →

Is the BBC Trust getting the message from Wales?

Blog, Industry, Media, PortfolioTelevision, Television

The BBC Trust held a seminar in Cardiff ‘as part of the Charter review process’ on 20th October. It was open to the public but the majority of those present were media workers, academics or correspondents. The Western Mail report on it is accurate but conveys nothing of the atmosphere among the attendees which was, at times, mutinous and, finally, outspokenly critical. These sore spots have to be examined or they will go on festering to no good purpose.

Continue reading Is the BBC Trust getting the message from Wales? →