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Peter Black and South Wales West Liberal DemocratsRepresenting Aberavon, Bridgend, Gower, Neath, Ogmore, Port Talbot, and Swansea |
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‘I am not in favour of a state owned press’
November 25, 2011 9:52 AM
Welsh Liberal Democrat Shadow Minister for Heritage, Peter Black, has responded to an article written by a Plaid Cymru AM calling for the Western Mail daily newspaper to be taken over by the Welsh government.
Peter commented:
"Important as journalism is to the effective scrutiny of government and political life, it is difficult to get away from the fact that the Western Mail is a business and that it stands and falls on how many papers it can sell and what revenue it can derive from advertising.
"I am not in favour of a state owned press. Such a concept conjures up images of Soviet Russia. If we were to go down that route then we would see an end to objective reporting and the holding to account of the Welsh Government by independently-minded journalists.
"I think that the Welsh Government has enough on its plate in trying to sort out the economy, education and the health service without asking them to sort out the problems of the Western Mail as well. Equally, I am not prepared to hand over to Ministers the 'national newspaper of Wales' so that they can turn it into their own propaganda sheet."
Notes: Bethan Jenkins' article on Waleshome: http://waleshome.org/2011/11/time-for-radical-solutions/
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