It’s worth reading Rob Williams over at the Independent about the impact on the ever shrinking Welsh Broadcast media that the Digital Economy Bill will have and he highlights the lack of interest from Westminster for what's in the Bill, no surprises there then
Rob’s answer is that broadcasting should be devolved to the National Assembly for Wales and I agree, it’s something that has been raised before and rejected by Labour and Plaid Cymru on cost grounds as the money would come out of the block grants, and don’t blame the recession this happened before we knew of the budget cuts to come. The other reason is that Plaid Cymru can’t be seen to be taking money away from S4C after fighting for its creation. It would be a bold and welcome step for Assembly to agree to this and it would prove that they aren’t afraid of more scrutiny and can do things outside Party interest, but don’t hold your breath for comment from any of them.
The main reason people get so worked up about a stronger Welsh media is because a healthy democracy needs proper press scrutiny especially as Devolution grows and beds down.
If you don’t believe that our politicians currently get away with an awful lot just take Peter Hain’s job creation article in the Western Mail it lacks even the most basic elements of scrutiny, there were no comparisons of the number of new jobs created in the last five years under the Labour UK Government here in Wales or whether the figures Peter was quoting are realistic, no indication of what industries those jobs are in or what areas of Wales they would be, there is also no mention of what the opposition parties are offering on job creation to contrast the ideas or any comment from the other parties to Labour’s plans and this is just one example and Labour aren’t the only ones who get away without answering questions, never mind difficult ones.
If Devolution is to be successful we need a Welsh press that isn’t worrying about its future and can ask difficult questions and uncover uncomfortable truths because if they can't in the current anti politics mood it could be a major reason for the irrelevance of the Welsh press and National Assembly for Wales in the future.Any source
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