NUJ briefing on the impact of Covid-19 on the Welsh media/Cyfarwyddyd gan yr NUJ ar effaith Covid-19 ar y cyfryngau yng Nghymru
July 2020
The National Union of Journalists is the voice for journalism and journalists in the UK and Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has more than 30,000 members working in broadcasting, newspapers, news agencies, magazines, book publishing, public relations, photography, videography and digital media.
Introduction
Wales has a long and proud journalism tradition. But the present Covid-19 crisis has hit an industry with underlying health conditions. Welsh newspaper titles had already been hollowed out by cuts to journalist numbers and a lack of investment in journalism before the virus appeared. Quality journalistic content has been a much lower priority than the interests of shareholders, the requirements of investors and the pursuit of profits. When the going was good the publishers creamed off profits of 20-30 per cent, rather than investing in the future. Mergers have severely dented media plurality.
The decline quickened as printed publications started to lose advertising to the internet. And while they moved journalism into digital, the advertising did not follow; particularly hitting local newspapers. Since then Facebook, Google and the other tech giants have taken the newspapers’ content without paying for it and thanked them by hoovering up all the advertising. As the 2019 Cairncross review reported, the number of fulltime frontline journalists working in the UK had fallen from 23,000 in 2007 to 17,000. In that period, newspaper annual advertising spend dropped by 69 per cent (£3.2 billion) and annual circulation revenue declined by 23 per cent (£500 million). The job losses and loss of advertising is now much worse. As government Covid-19 aid schemes run down, the union fears that without urgent action, there could be an avalanche of redundancies and newspaper closures.
A more detailed look at the crisis in different areas of journalism in Wales
1. The output of media organisations across broadcasting, print, radio, new media and others has continued to a varying extent during the crisis. The commissioning and production of broadcast, print and online journalism has moved from studios and newsrooms to kitchen tables and spare bedrooms. That journalism has continued is a testament to the skills and flexibility of our members. The crisis has shown a real need and thirst for trustworthy and reliable news. Viewers and readers have flocked to newspapers, websites and TV, but unfortunately the advertising has tanked at the same time.
2. The Covid-19 crisis has exposed the problem the Welsh media has in being able to sufficiently serve its population. As the different jurisdictions issued separate guidance, it soon became apparent that getting critical health announcements and messages were hampered because Welsh citizens were getting information from England-based media. The NUJ’s Welsh Executive Council has now called on the Welsh government to call a national inquiry into the dissemination of public health messages during Covid-19.
3. The NUJ has written to every Welsh MP and every Member of the Senedd asking for their support in a campaign against redundancy proposals announced by Reach plc, the largest publisher of newspapers in Wales. On July 10, Reach told more than 90 of its journalists in Wales that they were at risk of losing their jobs because of lost revenues during the lockdown. The union believes the proposals pose a grave threat to Welsh democracy. Reach is by far the largest publisher of newspapers in Wales, with a stable that includes the Western Mail, the Daily Post, the South Wales Echo, the South Wales Evening Post, Wales on Sunday and a number of associated weekly papers, as well as the news websites WalesOnline and North Wales Live. In Cardiff, more than 70 journalists were told their jobs are on a redundancy "at risk" list, while in North Wales the number is 20. The union is deeply concerned with proposals to effectively merge Media Wales – the Cardiff and Swansea operation – with an English division of Reach covering the Midlands, Cheshire and Lincolnshire. There is no longer an editor-in-chief based in Cardiff, and the new cross-border division will be run by a "Marketplace Publisher" based in Birmingham. The editor of the Daily Post was removed from his post at very short notice and the business run by a Marketplace Publisher based in the north west of England. There are plans to integrate the work of journalists working in Wales with the London-based "national" papers, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Express and the Daily Star and their websites. The redundancy proposals are subject to a 45-day consultation period.
4. Newsquest has cut 25 jobs in Newport and north Wales. Its titles include the Western Telegraph, South Wales Argus, South Wales Guardian, The Leader, Tivyside Advertiser and Pembrokeshire Farmer. The company cut 23 of its 164 positions in Newport, but it is not known which roles will be affected. In North Wales it is cutting two of its five reporters.
5. BBC Wales is to lose 60 posts in 2021/22; it has already delivered £6m of savings over the past 3 years, partly due to a move to new premises, but still needs to save another £4.5m.
6. The NUJ surveyed all members at the end of April/beginning of May and found that 45 per cent said their employer had furloughed editorial staff. Of those, more than half (52 per cent) had not had their pay topped up by their employer. A fifth (22 per cent) said their employers made up the full 20 per cent difference between the amount paid by the government. The Westminster government’s furloughing scheme has been widely deployed in Wales. Reach plc, which owns the Western Mail, South Wales Echo, Daily Post and South Wales Evening Post, as well as Wales Online and a series of weekly local newspapers has roughly half its editorial staff on furlough at any one time. Newsquest, which owns the South Wales Argus and The Leader, as well as local weeklies, has taken similar measures even proposing redundancies when the furlough scheme was announced, until the NUJ intervened.
7. Our members have had pay cuts imposed on them – mostly without any consultation with recognised unions. These have hit our members hard, especially after years and years of below-inflation pay rises. At the time of writing the union is backing action for members at Reach titles who are challenging the necessity of these cuts, at a time when we believe the company’s cash reserves are £20m.
8. The National Media Association, which represents the UK’s major newspaper publishers, successfully lobbied the DCMS to fund an “All in, All together” campaign to see them through lockdown. This has paid out approximately £40m in return for wrap arounds and other print advertising. Digital-only publications and newspapers that are not daily or weekly were excluded. Unfortunately, the campaign seems to have been geographically tone-deaf, at least in places, with some examples of Welsh newspapers carrying advice for England, which contradicted lockdown rules in Wales.
9. The Welsh Government recognised this problem and organised an £8,000 grant for each Welsh member of the Independent Community News Network, paid from an existing budget for grants to fund hyperlocal news. In return, the Welsh Government has requested that Welsh guidelines and health messages are given prominence in those titles. In the absence of a pluralistic local press in Wales and increased reliance on social media, it becomes more likely that misinformation, or wrong information which does not clarify differences between policies across the four nations, will take hold. This can have real-world health consequences for Welsh citizens.
10. Freelance journalists have been hit very hard with work diaries drying up overnight when sport was suspended and major events such as the Hay Festival, Royal Welsh Show, National Eisteddfod and party conferences cancelled. The NUJ survey revealed that freelances feared the impact on their livelihoods will be felt keenly for many months to come – a third said they did not think their income would improve until 2021; 39 per cent said they did not expect work opportunities to improve for three to six months; while 16 per cent said they did not expect to make a living at all following the pandemic.
11. Many freelances have also found that they have fallen foul of the criteria needed to get access to the Westminster government’s Self Employed Income Support Scheme. A key group is PAYE freelances and those who have PAYE income. Over the past 30 years, freelances doing shifts for newspapers, broadcasters, magazines and publishers have been forced by companies, often under the direction of HMRC, to be taxed at source via the PAYE system. These individuals remain self-employed/freelance for the purposes of employment law with no protection or employment rights such as sick pay or maternity leave yet are forced to pay tax and National Insurance Contributions (NICs) at an employee rate. This PAYE income is now considered by HMRC to be ‘employee’ income rendering those individuals ineligible for the SEISS scheme. Another group is people who work via limited companies/personal service companies – often forced to by companies – and have paid tax and National Insurance via PAYE or have been found to come within IR35 and are taxed at source, and are also ineligible for support.
12. BBC Wales is required to save £4.5m this financial year and a further £3.5-£4m in the next financial year, as part of a UK wide series of cutbacks due to a loss of income caused by the pandemic. Management estimates 60 posts, representing some 6% of the workforce, will need to go by April next year. Savings this year are likely to come from the cancellation of a significant number of productions such as the Eisteddfod, the Royal Welsh Show and the Cardiff Half Marathon. Further cuts to programme budgets must be expected.
13. An ongoing review of its news and sport operation, almost a third of BBC Wales’s annual spend, will also now look for cost savings. Detailed numbers for department-by-department job losses are expected in October once an assessment has been made of the voluntary redundancy requests received as part of the BBC-wide scheme. BBC Wales has already made one notable change by suspending its Welsh television news bulletins at breakfast time, depriving viewers of information about the Welsh Government’s distinct response to the crisis. However, it does offer live daily coverage of the daily ministerial press conference, which it also supplies to S4C.
14. The BBC had already been required to provide the majority of S4C's funding, following a drastic cut in the finance provided by the DCMS to the Welsh-language free-to-air television channel. The net affect has been to cut nearly £20 million from S4C's annual budget over the past decade. The remaining UK government funding, worth £7million a year, will end in 2022 and funding will be transferred to the BBC. The NUJ’s Welsh Executive Council (WEC) said: “It is essential that this money is replaced as further budget cuts would inevitably undermine S4C's credibility with its audience. Programme quality will suffer and the already excessive number of repeats would rise further. The WEC is under no illusion that it will be difficult for the BBC to find the extra money.” The latest cuts make the situation even worse.
15. The NUJ continues to campaign for the UK Government to accept its responsibility to fund free TV licences for over-75s. Since it handed responsibilty to the BBC earlier this year, it has been costing £40m a month, with any solution postponed until after the crisis. Responding to the BBC Wales cuts and similar cuts announced by the BBC in other parts of the UK, Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said: “The BBC is at a pivotal point in its history. Already faced with achieving cuts of £800m, the additional Covid-19 funding gap of £125m will lead to swingeing cuts to jobs, programming and services. At a time when our public service broadcaster has brilliantly risen to the challenge of a global pandemic, providing vital information and news to communities faced with an unprecedented health crisis, it is now having to pay the cost for that public service by losing experienced talented staff, and curtailing important and valuable news and content. The government should step forward to fill this Covid-19 funding gap, rather than inflict further cuts on an already financially challenged BBC”.
16. ITV Wales has furloughed hardly any of its staff and made no cuts to its news output. Its other programmes have been cut to one current affairs show a week plus a further weekly programme sold to S4C. ITV plc’s advertising income fell by 42% in April. It cancelled its final dividend, announced a recruitment and salary freeze and suspended the employee bonus scheme. It plans to save £30 million on overheads, on top of £30 million previously announced. Capital expenditure will also be cut by £30 million. The programme budget will be cut by £100 million. The company has borrowing arrangements which enable it to take on over £800 million of additional debt.
17. There is a real danger that financial pressures across newspapers, broadcasting and new media will damage efforts to increase diversity of background, geography, language and identity and the range of perspectives that it brings to public interest journalism. This increases relevance and engagement and shines a light on stories that could otherwise be overlooked but are important to different communities. As the UK Government stated in its response to the Cairncross Review, “‘Public interest’ news and journalism should reflect the diversity of the United Kingdom … we recognise that for a number of newspapers facing very tough financial constraints it is challenging to do more. However, consistent with efforts to drive diversity across the economy, the government considers that improving the diversity of newsrooms could also have a positive impact on the sustainability of the industry by helping news publishers improve their appeal to currently underserved and under-represented audiences. Through diversity of perspectives, this could in turn lead to an increase in readership and associated revenues”.
18. NUJ’s News Recovery Plan: the present crisis has shown just how vital it is to have a news media providing accurate information, how desperate people are for trustworthy content and how essential it is that the government and authorities are held to account. In her report, Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, has set out a bold set of measures and interventions to support and protect jobs and quality journalism. She said: “This is not and cannot be about the preservation of the status quo. The emergency intervention needed now can only be the first steps towards a news reimagined. We need a triage plan of intervention and investment. That will involve action to stem the immediate damage being wrought, and longer-term measures to heal historic wounds. Our aim is to create a healthy diverse press, focussed squarely on the public good, one that can be sustained now and into the future. That’s why we want governmental commitments to a range of actions – some immediate and some when the worst of this crisis is over – that will create a news industry firmly rooted in the public interest journalism which will deepen public engagement in our democratic structures.
19. Central to funding such a News Recovery Plan is an urgent windfall tax on the tech giants whose platforms suck up editorial content, without making any contribution to its production. According to analysis by Techwatch earlier this year, the top five tech companies generated over £8.1bn from UK customers in 2018, but collectively only paid around £237m in taxes – an effective tax rate of just 2.9 per cent, meaning around £1.3bn in tax was avoided. Achieving this would be straightforward – the UK has committed to introduce a 2 per cent Digital Services Tax from April 2020 on the revenues of large businesses providing internet search engines, social media platforms and online marketplaces to UK users. Given the current crisis, that tax should be tripled to 6 per cent and the proceeds used to fund a News Recovery Plan and ensure the tech giants play a significant role in the preservation of a sector that is vital to our democracy. The Welsh government should back this windfall tech tax.
20. In response to one of the recommendations of the Cairncross Review on the sustainability of quality press, the DCMS made £2m available, to be administered by the innovation foundation Nesta to provide grants for start-ups and news models of journalism. A similar fund could be made available for Wales by the Welsh government.
21. One of the recommendations in the NUJ’s recovery plan is for vouchers to be made available for young people so they can buy subscriptions to newspapers/websites. Wales is well placed to pilot such a scheme, particularly as 16-year-olds have the vote. Media literacy is a very important aspect of the plan and introducing young people who have a stake in the democratic process, yet largely rely on Facebook and other social platforms for news and information, to more trusted sources of news would be of benefit. It would also make news organisations think more carefully about making their offering youth friendly.
22. The News Recovery Plan sets out a list of short-term measures to sustain the press and media through the Covid-19 crisis and longer-term aims to reinvigorate the industry into a reimagined future. The short-term include:
· A windfall tax of 6 per cent on the tech giants, using the Digital Services Tax, towards funding a News Recovery Plan.
· Tax credits and interest free loans to support journalist jobs, for frontline reporters covering the Covid-19 crisis and recovery.
· No public money for firms making redundancies, cutting pay, giving executive bonuses or blocking trade union organisation.
· Strategic investment in government advertising, including the hyperlocal sector, involving central and local governments and public bodies.
· Further funding by NESTA’s Future News Fund of innovative, public interest journalism and a similar scheme in Ireland
· Free vouchers for online or print subscriptions to all 18-and-19-year olds and tax credits for households with subscriptions.
1. The medium-term measures include:
· Establishment of a government-funded Journalism Foundation – as recommended in the UK’s Cairncross Review – to invest in local news and innovative journalistic projects.
· Confer “asset of community value” status on local newspapers – like community pubs – ensuring that titles are preserved for potential community ownership.
· Tax breaks, rate relief and other financial support for local social enterprises and journalistic cooperatives taking over titles from major regional operators, running them as not-for-profit enterprises.
· Employee representation of 25 per cent on executive boards in receipt of public funding.
· Independent sustainable funding of public service broadcasting that protects its universality and prevents government interference.
· Nationwide media literacy strategy to tackle disinformation and fake news.
· Reform of media ownership rules, with a strengthened public interest test.
· Training that opens up access to journalism, including apprentices for school-leavers.
· Protection for whistleblowers and monitoring the potential impact of surveillance technologies being considered in response to Covid-19 challenge and easing of lockdowns.
· Support for a global framework to protect and promote journalism and improve press freedom.
From Health Crisis to Good News: a recovery plan for the news industry by the NUJ: https://content.yudu.com/web/3pylg/0A43xvo/NewsRecoveryPlan/html/index.html?origin=reader
Or download the pdf: https://www.nuj.org.uk/documents/from-health-crisis-to-good-news/
Cyfarwyddyd gan yr NUJ ar effaith Covid-19 ar y cyfryngau yng Nghymru
Mehefin 2020
Undeb Cenedlaethol y Newyddiadurwyr yw'r llais sy'n cynrychioli newyddiaduraeth a newyddiadurwyr yn y DU ac Iwerddon. Cafodd ei sefydlu yn 1907 ac mae ganddo dros 30,000 o aelodau sy’n gweithio ym myd darlledu, papurau newydd, asiantaethau newyddion, cylchgronau, cyhoeddi llyfrau, cysylltiadau cyhoeddus, ffotograffiaeth, fideograffiaeth a'r cyfryngau digidol.
Cyflwyniad
Mae gan Gymru draddodiad newyddiadurol hir a balch. Ond mae'r argyfwng Covid-19 presennol wedi taro diwydiant sy’n dioddef o gyflyrau iechyd sylfaenol. Roedd teitlau papurau newydd Cymreig wedi cael eu hergydio'n barod, cyn i'r feirws ymddangos, gan doriadau i niferoedd y newyddiadurwyr a diffyg buddsoddiad mewn newyddiaduraeth. Mae cynnwys newyddiadurol o safon wedi cael blaenoriaeth llawer yn is na buddiannau’r cyfranddalwyr, gofynion y buddsoddwyr a mynd ar ôl elw. Pan oedd pethau'n llewyrchus, roedd y cyhoeddwyr yn pocedu elw o 20-30 y cant yn hytrach na buddsoddi yn y dyfodol. Mae uno cwmnïau wedi tolcio lluosogrwydd y cyfryngau’n ddifrifol hefyd.
Cyflymodd y dirywiad wrth i gyhoeddiadau printiedig ddechrau colli eu hysbysebu i'r rhyngrwyd. A phan aethant ati i symud newyddiaduraeth i'r byd digidol, ni wnaeth yr hysbysebu ddilyn – gan ergydio papurau newydd lleol yn arbennig. Ers hynny mae Facebook, Google a'r cewri technolegol eraill wedi defnyddio cynnwys y papurau newydd heb dalu amdano, ac yna dangos ei diolch drwy draflyncu'r holl hysbysebu. Fel yr adroddwyd yn Adolygiad Cairncross 2019, roedd nifer y newyddiadurwyr rheng flaen amser llawn yn gweithio yn y DU wedi gostwng o 23,000 yn 2007 i 17,000. Yn y cyfnod hwnnw, gostyngodd y gwariant blynyddol ar hysbysebu mewn papurau newydd o 69 y cant (£3.2 biliwn), a gostyngodd y refeniw cylchrediad blynyddol o 23 y cant (£500 miliwn). Bellach mae'r colledion o ran swyddi a cholli hysbysebu llawer yn waeth. Wrth i gynlluniau Covid-19 y llywodraeth ddwyn i ben, os na welir gweithredu brys, mae'r undeb yn ofni y bydd llif o swyddi'n diflannu a phapurau newydd yn cau.
Craffu’n fwy manwl ar yr argyfwng yn y gwahanol feysydd newyddiadurol yng Nghymru
O Argyfwng Iechyd i Newyddion Da: cynllun adfer ar gyfer y diwydiant newyddion gan yr NUJ: https://content.yudu.com/web/3pylg/0A43xvo/NewsRecoveryPlan/html/index.html?origin=reader
Neu lawrlwythwch y pdf: https://www.nuj.org.uk/documents/from-health-crisis-to-good-news/