llanblogger gets BBC TV mention

* Huw Edwards hosts BBC1s Wales Report in which llanblogger was mentioned. 

llanblogger has had a mention on nationwide TV in Wales.

Our news site figured in a studio discussion on the future of the media during last night’s edition of BBC1's Wales Report presented by Huw Edwards.

Main theme was how hyperlocal news sites such as llanblogger are now operating alongside more traditional Welsh newspapers,  many of which are experiencing an on-going decline in circulation.

In some places they have actually replaced newspapers, and the programme contained a short film on the Port Talbot Magnet, a news site being operated on a voluntary basis by professional journalists after the local paper closed.

One of two experts interviewed in the studio was Ken Skates, Labour Assembly Member for Clwyd South and himself a former newspaper journalist in Wrexham.  

Asked by Huw Edwards about the media situation in his constituency, he said there were a number of good hyperlocal news site, in Wrexham and “just down the road in Llangollen where we have llanblogger”.

While stressing the importance of such sites Mr Skates (pictured below, right) said he wished to see them regarded as part of the wider news provision rather than an alternative to established newspapers.

Huw Edwards posed the question whether the fall in newspaper circulations might be a quality issue.

But the other studio guest, Professor Ian Hargreaves, a former national newspaper editor and now professor of digital economy at Cardiff Business School, said this was not the case and that falling newspaper sales was down to advertising – any regional newspaper’s lifeblood – moving online.

He added that to combat this, news organisations must adapt to the way they do things in the digital age.

Ken Skates said there were “some excellent journalists” in Wales but many young people were moving out of the country because there were better  job prospects outside the country.

Part of the answer to this drain, he said, was for more resources to be invested in training opportunities for journalists such as apprenticeship schemes.

Both guests rejected the idea of extra money for training coming from the Welsh Government and Prof Hargreaves said more schemes for young journalists were needed like the one he was involved in at Cardiff Business School.

He also had a message for council officials on how to handle the new age of digital journalism.

“If they see someone coming along with a video camera to record a council meeting they shouldn’t kick them out but rather say thank goodness that someone is taking an interest in what they’re doing,” he said.