Why ‘Big’ Media failed the communities it was built on.

As a bit of a media history buff, I love to think about the original media heroes that set out to keep their communities informed, standing up for the people that they served and providing a voice for the most vulnerable and downtrodden in cities, towns and villages all over the country. 

Those original innovators and what became their newspapers, succeeded because they served only the community, and were independent of all other forces, be that big or little government and even the advertisers that developed alongside them to provide them a business model. 

As their newspaper empires grew however, much has been made of how they became focussed on money to the detriment of their readers and the communities they served. And it can be argued that the decline of the sector was well underway by the time of the digital revolution. 

The freedom of the press has been eroded since the incomes of the Advertising departments at newspapers first supplemented and then replaced the Circulation revenues. Until now, in the ultimate expression of this phenomenon, with no physical product to present to the market, news is freely available online. Well, not freely available, now is entirely paid for by the advertising that sits uncomfortably alongside it. 

The job of the publisher is no longer to stand up for the communities they once served, to stand up for and provide a voice to the poor, the vulnerable, the weak, and disenfranchised. No longer to hold corporations and governments alike to account. 

The publisher’s model is to now attract as many impressions to their content as possible to serve to the advertisers that voraciously consume them, irrespective of where they are from or who indeed makes up those impressions. 

Many news sites are now generating audience not from their local communities with local news, stories and events, but from all over the world using the worst and lowest common denominator click bait stories. Those impressions being served to faceless ad platforms and networks that hoover attention and turn it in the cheapest returns. 

So, what now for the local communities and regions of Wales? Sadly, over the last 20 years, Wales has suffered more than most from the deficit of media. Not one single Welsh national broadcaster or publisher remains.  

The only answer is to transform the media in Wales to a truly digital operation and place it in the hands of the communities themselves. 

Not a media reliant on digital advertising, but one that is customer centric, data driven and technologically enabled. One that also has a different bottom line from the traditional players. 

A model that puts the people and the communities of Wales first. One that wants to inform, communicate and stand up or the people, just like those pioneers from 100 years or more ago. 

One that is funded for the communities, by the communities and one that frees them from the requirement to merely create impressions for the global ad companies. 

National Welsh, regional and local news, depends on it.