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Leighton
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    Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts

    16 January, 2009

    Digital inclusion

    Digital inclusion is a process not an event. We are all learning more about interactive opportunities as we go along.

    I'd given up on Twitter as having any point to it, but at the EU Digital Inclusion event in Vienna in December some people tried to persuade me that there were uses for Twitter - so I have added it as a way of updating Facebook from the mobile.

    Let's see if it makes any difference....

    15 January, 2009

    No merger of Post and Mail...but what about Mail and Echo?

    I see Trinity Mirror has ruled out a merger of the Daily post and the Western Mail - which doesn't surprise me, different papers and different audiences.

    But what about the Western Mail and the Echo?

    14 January, 2009

    When will the Echo and Western Mail merge?

    News that Trinity Mirror has merged its Welsh operational management with that of North West England, leading to the redundancy of its MD in Wales, (one of whose last tasks was to escort the Prime Minister around the office) must bring closer the day when the group merges the Western Mail and the South Wales Echo.

    Over the last year, the two papers have come closer together, with journalists writing copy for both. A few weeks ago the Echo started appearing in newsagents in the morning at the same time as the Western Mail.

    Trinity Mirror's weekly titles saw recent mergers of offices and editors, ( an action we were able to fight off three years ago) and prices have gone up yet again. (The Rhondda Leader now costs 75p: six years ago it was 32p).

    They will deny it now I am sure, but in the near future we will see a new paper called the South Wales Echo and Mail, or something like it.

    Meanwhile, the BBC is bailing out ITV's regional news operation.

    04 December, 2008

    Radio Cwmni on-line

    Radio Cwmni is back - and you can listen online.

    I'll be joining Sharon and the team tomorrow afternoon.

    14 October, 2008

    Thought for the Day - come home to the Valleys!

    It's not often initiatives we launch as Ministers get to be the subject of the Radio Four Today programme's Thought for the Day, but thanks to the Rev Roy Jenkins our Valleys Homecoming Initiative in 2010 has done so.

    You can read Roy's words here, or listen here.

    11 August, 2008

    Lle aeth pawb - where did everyone go?

    A clever bit of photoshopping ages a generation of Rhondda Fach footballers by 30 years instantly on the S4C's lleaethpawb site

    01 August, 2008

    ITV Wales

    There used to be quite a good programme about politics on ITV Wales called Waterfront, presented by Jo Kiernan and then Lee Waters. It was replaced a year or so back by a less interesting programme called Sharp End.

    Now ITV Wales has pulled the plug, meaning that there is even less competition for the BBC in political reporting.

    This is what we have all feared.

    04 May, 2008

    Guardian gets it wrong

    Yesterday's Guardian leader claimed there is now a Tory councillor in the Rhondda.

    No, there isn't.

    There is a Tory on RCT, representing Llantwit Fardre.

    The Guardian's journalists should get out more.

    24 April, 2008

    BBC Tries Harder

    Maybe some of the messages we have been giving the BBC hierarchy about the UK network's
    failure to get to grips with Britain post-devolution have hit home.

    Today on Breakfast News they had Colette Hume from Cardiff explaining the Wales and England teachers' strike, and on two occasions Bill Turnbull was heard to talk about elections for all the Welsh and some of the English councils. In that order. Then they had a report on the Northern Irish economy with Declan.

    Of course, it could just be a flash in the pan: sustaining it will be the test.

    11 April, 2008

    Rhondda Lives goes live!



    Last September, I told the story of how the Rhondda Lives project had come about.

    Today Rhondda Lives has gone live and you can see the output here on the BBC Wales website.

    The project was launched at Valleys Kids who have run the project in collaboration with BBC Wales's digital story-telling team and the National Library's National Screen and Sound Archive, with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund.



    I was delighted to see the wonderful films generated by the story-tellers, and also to welcome the National Librarian, Andrew Green and BBC Wales Head of Strategy Cath Allen to the Rhondda.

    We also opened the refurbished vestry in the Soar Ffrwdamos complex and the writer Elaine Morgan did the honours along with Mrs Parry from the Soar Ffrwdamos congregation.

    27 February, 2008

    Welcome back Rhys radio


    Penrhys based community radio station, Rhys Radio, takes to the air for another month from Monday March 3rd. It follows a successful first broadcast last September. You can find the interview I did last time round here.


    Rhys Radio is part of the RCT Community Radio Project (along with Radio CwmNi in Treherbert and Dapper FM in Penywaun) which aims to make Rhondda Cynon Taff the centre of excellence for Community Radio here in Wales. It follows the award of more than £270k funding from the Welsh Assembly Government’s Communities@one programme to fund the project.

    Communities @One aims to help people in Communities First areas make the most of new technology. The programme is jointly funded through the European Union’s Objective 1 & 2 programme and the Welsh Assembly Government. Communities @One is administered by the Wales Co-Operative Centre.

    21 January, 2008

    Radio Cwmni


    A warm welcome back to Treherbert's Radio Cwmni, the Rhondda's first dedicated community radio station, which goes back on air today for 4 weeks. The station broadcasts on 87.8FM in the Upper Rhondda Fawr and will also stream live on the internet. The broadcasts are funded by the Assembly Government's Communities@one programme.

    15 January, 2008

    You can't have e-democracy without e-inclusion

    I spoke at the OFCOM/NIACE Dysgu Cymru E-Democracy conference yesterday, with a significant focus on the Welsh Assembly Government-supported Communities At One programme. My theme was You can't have e-democracy without e-inclusion.

    Mediasnackers has a write-up. I will post more on this in due course.

    09 January, 2008

    Facebook

    I explained in December why I had finally succumbed and gone on Facebook.

    The South Wales Echo has now done an article about some of the AMs on Facebook (though the headline calls us MPs), written by Ben Glaze, who is, er, on Facebook.

    Like a few other Trinity Mirror journalists I could name!

    We're watching you too guys....

    Combatting digital exclusion

    My introductory video for the Commuities@one website has now been posted up. Communities@One is the Assembly-supported scheme to tackle digital exclusion.

    19 December, 2007

    Getting People Online

    Today wearing my Ministerial hat I launched the new Communities@One website.

    Communities@one is the Assembly's scheme that helps people use technology in the communities that need it most in Wales. The project provides support to community groups and voluntary sector organizations to engage with technologies in ways relevant to their lives. It includes a grant fund to help groups access technologies. The project is managed for us by the Wales Co-op. It is one of our approaches to tackling digital exclusion.

    The Communities@one website also has a blog written by the Assembly-funded community brokers who work for the scheme.

    12 December, 2007

    Facebook

    I felt too many politicians were joining Facebook so I refrained from doing so. However, there is now a Cardiff City Fans Facebook group so I have finally joined.

    Also Chris Bryant MP has a useful Transform the Rhondda discussion group there too.

    By the way, is it rude to poke?

    17 November, 2007

    BBC Trust review

    If the BBC Trust is serious about reviewing coverage of the devolved nations on the BBC's UK news network then I welcome it.

    The dominance of a metropolitan agenda is the problem rather than an English bias. But it means that the BBC fails to reflect the real diversity of the UK. Too often coverage of Wales is about 'quirky' issues rather than a real engagement of life in post-devolution Britain.

    ITN is worse. And the London newspapers are as bad, of course. All of them, without exception.

    But the BBC should be the benchmark. It has invested internally in training its journalists at regular intervals about the differences in the UK - eg in health and education - but the reality that appears on screen in the context of breaking news takes England as the norm - eg primary care trusts not local health boards - and too often fails to clarify when Whitehall initiatives apply only to England.

    I have written before about this of course - not least on Blogging the Beeb, the blog I set up when I was starting the research for the book on the BBC and Britishness I am still writing....slowly.

    29 October, 2007

    Debate on Welsh Broadcasting

    My Rhondda colleague Chris Bryant MP has launched an important debate on the future of broadcasting in Wales. His pamphlet can be found on the interactive website he has launched here.

    02 October, 2007

    Rhys Radio

    I was interviewed recently on Rhys Radio, the new community radio station for Penrhys. You can listen to the interview here.

    Rhondda TV
    The Labour Party

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    Promoted by Leighton Andrews AM, National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff CF99 1NA.

    Author's editorial policy: This blog does not publish anonymous comments, unless they are really witty and I like them. If you have something to say, then have the courage of your convictions and use your name or an identifiable alias. Even then I reserve the right not to publish comments that are malicious, defamatory, stupid, pointlessly cynical or boring. Any of the statements or comments made above should be regarded as personal and not necessarily those of the National Assembly for Wales, any constituent part or connected body.