Aneurin Glyndwr

BBC Witchunt

Don't miss John Rentoul's superb review of Thursday night's Question Time shenanigans.

BBC Smears

by Peter Hain

AT 17.20 today the BBC smeared me for the third time and were forced to apologise for the third time.

The BBC News Channel were interviewing the extreme right winger Paul Staines author of Guido Fawkes website who has a nasty past. Staines referred live to me 'fiddling his expenses'. On being called and told this was a lie a clearly rattled producer of the programme apologised fulsomely saying 'our presenter got carried away'. Forty five minutes later said presenter gave a lame correction.

The first apology came four months ago from the Editor of BBC Daily Politics. When is the Chairman of the BBC Trust going to get a grip on standards of accuracy? Or is it now just a factory for smears?

UPDATE (21:16): Finally (four hours later), the BBC News Channel issued a full apology.

What Conference?

LOOKS like the Nat conference is destined to be as succesful in terms of media coverage as the Tory one was.

The two-day gathering, which they are billing as the launch of their European election campaign, didn't even make the top story on the BBC Wales politics page today.

Over a week since our launch and Aneurin Glyndwr continues to dominate the news agenda.

Media Watch

THE print media is in terminal decline. As people turn to on-demand online news, papers, particularly in Wales, are taking a huge hit.

It wasn't long ago journalists were sent out to patches, taught to develop relationships with people and bring the stories to the paper.

Those days are gone. The new journalism is top down, bums on seats and devoid of imagination. It is now a conveyor belt of endless press releases and botched-up surveys. So it should be no surprise that the quality of journalism has suffered and coverage of politics has followed in a similarly depressing way.

Broadcast has followed a similar path, and with the recession hitting, ITV Wales has seen huge cutbacks to the point where the Assembly is barely covered. Only the Beeb has survived relatively unscathed thanks to our paid-up television licenses.

Sadly, a few politicians still dominate any coverage that's left which brings serious concerns about the bias of certain newspapers/broadcasters.

Aneurin Glyndwr invites readers to email examples with clear evidence, and Media Watch will report these here.

Aneurin Glyndwr believes passionately in the freedom of expression, and in the freedom of the press to challenge politicians fairly and robustly.

Aneurin Glyndwr has a tin hat and a thick skin, as any interested in politics and public life must. But it will not ignore blatant press bias and unbalanced reporting.

Don't miss the post

HE may be the darling of the Welsh media but poor old Adam Price has been caught out penning naughty letters.

It's surprising Mr Price manages to partake in any  note-writing as he continues his savage campaign to publicly undermine Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn.

But the Plaid spokesmen for all and sundry repaid £1,500 to the House of Commons after sending out post that broke parliamentary rules.

He said, in his usual self-important tone,  "I accept that I broke the rules on using parliamentary postage."

Fair play to Pricey, he managed to get the story buried as MeejaWales and the Beeb were tearing it up at their respective Christmas parties last year.

Adam – afraid of a bit of publicity? Priceless.