BBC Editor fires back after Welsh language criticism

That's not an excuse it's part of the problem! One reason the Newsnight debacle was so frustrating in the first place was that the Welsh language 'wing' of the BBC was all over the Eisteddfod beavering away creating blanket coverage - but they seem to be treated like some sort of peasant fifth columnists by the rest of the BBC - what weird sort of internal structures must there be for no one in BBC London to think, "Ah we're doing a piece on Welsh, perhaps we should ask our fine colleagues in BBC Wales / Cymru for their input...? Naaa, we'll go with some hatespeech blogger and some random community journalist who happens to be from Cardiff, it'll be fine." Welsh seems to be treated like some weird little ghetto in the BBC - the 'support' for it doesn't extend into the English language medium.

When a commentator as rational, balanced and usually quite gentle and charitable as Vaughan Roderick expresses himself as strongly as this, I think we should listen.

Vaughn Rodderick, who I enjoy listenning to says -“All I would say is that there is an ignorance of Wales in England that goes back over a thousand years,” I would disagree with him on ignorance being the cause: from my experience, as an Englishman, at the unwashed end of our society, it's actually "total contempt"... That's a big difference.

Again much respect for this gentleman, but he's wrong to say it is just ignorance and even more wrong to suggest that the BBC has done more for the Welsh language, however is he not paid by the BBC. This is not the first time Newshite have produced a derogatory piece about Wales, that's not ignorance it's malice. Radio Wales controlled by the BBC is utter rubbish, again populated by BBC lapdogs like Jason Mohammed. The whole organisation is corrupt, broadcasting should be devolved so we can rid ourselves of the plus four wealding clones of Vincent Kane wannabes.

Sadly Vaughan is too integrated and invested in BBC to give a truly neutral opinion. He does make fair points....but why isnt he asking why the BBC are the flag bearers for a language they originally tried to shut down in the pre war years

I agree with his last point, as the only broadcaster of any weight in Wales we must engage and criticise, I'm surprised however that he seems to miss the point that criticism of the BBC means we want to throw the baby out with the bath water, which is clearly not the case. Having said that the BBC is still a British institution, and he must be institutionalised not to realise that alough he and his colleagues are upholding standards in Welsh broadcasting, his superiors in London will undermine the language in order to outflank any perceived dissent from the unionist conservative agenda they are pushing.

I like Vaughan Roderick and agree with most things he says, and he's usually sound in terms of his analysis. I also agree with a lot he says in this article, but I'm afraid he's become institusionally blind when it comes to the BBC. Whilst he may be right also about Newsnight's article being driven by ignorance, he ignores how numerous BBC Radio Wales items about the language have been either deliberatley provocative or outrightly hostile in tone. They do not have the excuse of ignorance I would argue.

In my opinion Vaughan represents a fireman fueling the Welsh language gravy train. A man who has never worked outside of Cardiff and spent his entire life inside the Taffia bubble that runs between Cyncoed,Fairwater and Llandaff. Such is his experience of life outside Cardiff he would probably get a nosebleed once he left Merthyr heading north. Like many at Llandaff he came direct from university to working for the BBC in Cardiff thanks to family connections. His father was Selwyn Roderick, another person who spent his entire working life at BBC Wales. In fairness later in life I used my connections to get my eldest son a job at Reuters TV in London where I was a producer for many years. However that was on merit not language. For a lot of establishment Welsh speakers that building on Llanstrisant Rd represents an easy life. For many a lifetime sinecure.A nice little goldmine with a pension. When I arrived from Wrexham in 1978 I was labeled a saesneg gog by Vaughen who worked as a researcher on my daily Radio Wales programme. His ambition was to be a presenter so he soon departed to the ill fated Cardiff Braodcasting Company. Despite spending over a decade at Llandaff I was determined that my sons, born in St Davids Hospital in Cardiff ,would never be part of this inward looking society. So I resigned in 1989 and took them on some serious global travel. Meanwhile Vaughen has risen to the heady heights of BBC Welsh Affairs Editor. Blocked on Twitter by Alun Cairns,Welsh Secretary of State. Which says a lot for his independence and role in a job that demands impartiality.

O god Mike let it rest , - I'm drowning, I'm drowning in all this gravy - anybody want to check out Bbc in Wales' commitment to Welsh language/ read the history of production/ you will be amazed, surprised and thank those who fought so hard to create a Welsh language broadcasting corporation/ lot of ignorant things said here. Sure not perfect but facts speak for themselves

It's a shame they never committed the same effort and resources to North East Wales. Radio Wales has just axed live commentry from Wrexham Racecourse the home of Welsh football. Unlike Radio Cymru there has never been a BBC Radio Wales daily programme from north of Cardiff.

I am with the Vale MP on this one. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-41279554 More powers should be handed to Welsh regions - rather than ministers controlling everything from Cardiff, says the Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns. On the 20th anniversary of the referendum that created the assembly, the UK cabinet minister said too much power had been "centralised". Wales should respond to the challenge posed by new elected mayors in Bristol, Manchester and Merseyside, he said. Manchester and Merseyside are on the doorstep of Wrexham and the coast while Cardiff is a long way south.

Dear god, who is Mike Flynn, all I can say your trolling is getting a touch tedious. Vaughan is a serious commentator, if he is blocked on Twitter by Alun Cairns it says a whole lot more about our SoS than it does Vaughan. What ever his family connections Vaughan got there by dint of his own work and his knowledge and nous of politics in Wales. He makes fair points about the BBC and all the more damming for that. There isn't a conspiracy to get Wales from England, we are regarded as insignificant and not worth investing in the time and energy to investigate us, hence the appalling Newsnight item. As for that 20 years since devolution bit, I'd not be surprised if you coundln't make the same thing from a carefully edited vox pop in England on who is the Prime Minister and which party is in power.

There is a very interesting item by ex BBC Wales jounslist Phil Parry just published online here.https://www.the-eye.wales/twit/ Major questions are being raised about a senior BBC Wales Editor who attacked the Crossrail 2 project as "UK taxpayers subsidising London's local transport system" in a late night tweet, The Eye can reveal. The tweet by the corporation’s Welsh Affairs Editor, Vaughan Roderick, comes after we showed how he used Twitter to compare the union with England to an abusive relationship in another late night tweet. This outburst came days before the closely-fought referendum on Scottish independence and as a programme about the vote presented by him was preparing to be transmitted. Corporation staff had to be reminded of internal guidelines soon afterwards. Mr Roderick has also said – again on Twitter – ‘The History Guy’ (presenter Dan Snow) used ‘national’ in an archaic British sense, and it was not a good look for BBC Wales. More in the link. https://www.the-eye.wales/twit/

Can't help but thinkin if the BBC wasn't compulsary tax funded (the licence fee being tax) and had to operate in the world of free ideas - not an agenda - unshackled from the odious unelected OfCom it would soon disappear. Possibly allowing its staff to say what they really think and allow all voices throughout Gymru a tu hwnt to have a voice. Let the market place of ideas rule not the establishment. Also, I enjoy hearing, Mike Flynn's voice and all the other ones on the site: even though some are impalatable to my taste.

No one can doubt Vaughans passion for supporting the Welsh language. He says “The truth is that the BBC has done more for the Welsh language than any other institution in Wales. “I just don’t understand this attitude. And what they do by attacking the BBC, rather than supporting those within the BBC who fight for things like Radio Cymru 2 and so on, is to make it harder for us because it appears as if they’re against it.” I am not sure where the audiance for Radio Cymru 2 will come from. After nearly 40 years the BBC Wales flagship Radio Cymru is not listened to by over 97% of the Welsh population. Market share 2.7% source https://media.info/radio/stations/bbc-radio-cymru/listening-figures

Mae anwybodaeth yn esgus wan iawn. Ni fydd BBC yn nibrisio diwylliant arall felly, neu ei drafod heb ymchwil/cyngor arbenigwyr. Anwybodaeth fwriadol yw e.

So we have Mike Flynn on a personal crusade against Vaughan, wonder why?

You wanna buy my book ???

It’s always interesting to hear the insights gained from people with first-hand experience and in regards the BBC how its organisation and culture impacts on how issues relating to Wales are covered . I have none to offer But I do wonder about what the political landscape of these islands might be now if instead of the BBC there had been Welsh, Scottish, English and Ulster Broadcasting Companies or indeed if RTE were an all-Ireland institution. I also think the creation of S4C should have been accompanied by the creation of C4W -an English language channel for Wales. This could have been a platform for the development of more home grown talent, more opportunities for Welsh based businesses to reach Welsh customers through advertising and provide better coverage of Welsh interest topics, sport, politics and the regions of Wales. With the advent of a digital multimedia world, this is all academic. Indeed, in this new world what will be the future of the BBC, scheduled TV broadcasts, regulation and journalistic standards?

As the historian John Davies put it: "The BBC was instrumental in the creation of Wales as an entity... you could argue that Wales is an artefact created by Broadcasting." http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02k73fc Of course, like any organisation, it has been full of different people with different opinions. Its central controllers have not always been terribly understanding of Wales. During the war even the government had to remind Broadcasting House not to say England when it meant Britain. Nonetheless, the BBC helped modernize people's views of Welsh, it helped bring together north and south in psychology and dialect, it introduced new vocabulary, especially in sport, and it provided both Welsh and English speakers with a Welsh-focused news service at a time when UK newspapers dominated. Its UK-wide broadcasting has forgotten some of its earlier commitment to recognising the four nations but John Davies was right. The BBC helped make modern Wales.

I think Vaughan is creating a straw man here. The very people who criticise the BBC on issues of Welshness are the very people who've made sure (historically) that some element of Welshness and of Welsh language broadcasting was there in the first place. It wasn't the BBC which created the 'Welsh nation' but the Welsh nation signing petitions, breaking the law, being awkward from the 1920s onwards, which forced the BBC to recognise a Welsh entitity The BBC had no wish, initially, to treat Wales as one. And everything since then has been a compromise built on the awkward squad, the type Vaughan alludes to, pushing the BBC. That the good things for Welsh 'given' to us by the BBC is simply what would have happened had Wales had any sort of media - this is what media does for a language community. It just so happens that it was the BBC which was the media for the media, so to say. There's always the 'cock up' theory, of course, which I think is very often the case with comments made on tv. But there is also more to it than that and people's growing unease (and yes, distrust) of the BBC. 1. Radio Cymru 2 - has been brought about partly by protest over almost a generation, since at least the Welsh Language Society's 'mae nain yn gwrando ar Radio Cymru' (grandma listens to Radio Cymru) campaign in early 1990s. Were BBC Cymru truly a national broadcaster then at least two Welsh language radio stations would have been founded in the 1960s as happened with other language communties or independent states. 2. BBC Cymru is only 'good' for the Welsh language if you accept that any form of broadcasting in a language is good (which it is). BBC is only good if we compare Welsh with Breton or maybe Irish (even though RTE are in the process of creating a full second Irish language station for young people) and RTE offers far better deal for Irish license fee payers (and employs more people in Ireland) than BBC Wales does. It's not the which is 'good' it's media in Welsh which is good. 3. Compared with the Basque ETiB, then BBC Cymru Wales is a very very poor second in terms of ambition and strategy. The ETiB offers full Basque and Spanish language channels in both tv and radio (essentially S4C and English version of S4C + 'RC' and 'RW' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EITB ) + local radio stations in both language + a second youth Basque language radio station, 'Gaztea' - since the early 1990s - yes, exactly the same time as Cymdeithas began its campaign for a similar station in Welsh. It is only now, 25 years later that the BBC, under much pressure (and yes, hard work by good people in BBC Cymru) have 'given in' to Welsh with Radio Cymru 2 and only then it's only on DAB and for a few hours a day and as a pilot. There is absolutely no strategy - it's down to guerrila warfare and ad-hoc arrangements which some good people within RC have been able to use to the advantage of Welsh (and having the awkward squad - the people who complain about BBC's attitute towards Welsh - as some kind of back up or 'threat' to be pulled out as evidence to cajoel the BBC). 4. That is, at a time of exploding radio stations, both local and now DAB, the BBC had absolutely no strategy of developing Welsh language broadcasting of widening its reach, its audience.RC is stuck in a 1950s vision of one state broadcaster for a whole nation. 5. BBC stands in the way, and is against, a Welsh Newsnight and also against having an English language Wales news programme - ironiically it already produces this service in Cardiff! It's called Newyddion 9 (which is in Welsh and produced by the BBC!). BBC is the problem here. 6. BBC is also against a Wales Question Time, even thought they are again already producing a Welsh language version, Pawb a'i Farn. There is talk of a Wales QT - yes 20 years after Devolution and 20 years of refusing to have a WQT and twenty years of BBC Wales news programmes lamenting the public don't know what the Assembly does! You couldn't make it up. So, yes, BBC has has achieved almost more than anyone else for the Welsh language. But it's not the BBC per se, it's media in Welsh. Any media in Welsh. The BBC has never had a coherent long term strategy for the Welsh language in the way that it does for English (which is implicit in everything the BBC does domestically and internationally is to promote the English language). The fate of Welsh depends solely on a lose idea of a Welsh nation within the BBC. This concept of a Wales 'national-region' has only been built on almost a century of protest and law breaking by Welsh people. This has then allowed some strong individuals within the BBC (pure luck at times as the BBC has a history of vetting 'trouble makers' - see the story of Paul Turner, who then went on to direct Oscar nominated Hedd Wyn http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_cuttings/mi5.bbc.page9_obs_18aug1985.html ) to push for more crumbs and then + political pressure by the type of people many BBC seem to despise/ridicule/patronise to strengthen the hand of the 'good people'. There are good people in the BBC, Vaughan, I think is one of them. So are the top managers in Radio Cymru at the moment. But there is also a group think which has internalised the BBC and think it's a pro Wales corporation because it doesn't oppose Wales. But if it doesn't oppose Wales or the Welsh language, party because BBC Cymru Wales doesn't ask or demand what a normal independent language community or nation would expect. It's easy to be happy when you only ask and expect crumbs.

Fel y bydde brodorion wreiddiol Ogledd America yn ddweud, "The BBC speaks with forked tongue!" Ar un llaw mae Vaughan ac eraill yng Nghaerdydd yn wneud gwaith gwych dros yr Iaith,ond at y llaw arall, mae criw Llundain yn tanseilio'r cyfan trwy ei agwedd sydd yn amrywio o diffyg diddordeb i gwrthwynebiad. Gan ei bod nhw yn gweld eu hunain yn BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation byddech chi'n meddwl bydde diddordeb 'da bobl BBC Llundain yn holl ieithoedd brodorol Ynysoedd Prydain, yn enwedig yr Iaith Gymraeg sydd yn deillio o'r Frythoneg, ond na yn Llundain mae yn cael ei drin fel iaith estron.

Dyma sut mae BBC Llundain yn ymateb i sylw yn y Iaith Gymraeg i erthygl at BBC Wales :--Dear BBC Visitor, Thank you for contributing to the BBC web site. Unfortunately we've had to remove the content below because it contravened one of our House Rules. Your comment was considered to have broken the following House Rule: "We reserve the right to fail comments which... Are written in anything other than English - Welsh and Gaelic may be used where expressly stated." For more information about the House Rule your comment broke, please visit - http://www.bbc.co.uk/social/moderation/house-rules#faqitem-3-3 You can read the House Rules in full here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/social/moderation/house-rules Take care when copying text from someone else's post into your own. If the text you have copied into your post is seen to break the House Rules, your entire post will be removed. Please note that anyone who seriously or repeatedly breaks the House Rules may have action taken against their account without further warning. Please do not reply to this email. If you wish to appeal against a moderation decision, please visit - http://www.bbc.co.uk/social/moderation/faqs/appeals Regards, Central Communities Team http://www.bbc.co.uk/social/moderation/ URL of content (now removed): http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/newscommentsmodule/F33797653?thread=8499569&post=128142950#p128142950 Subject: £1bn Swansea metro plan proposed to 'transform' region Posting: Cynllun addawol, ond bydd rhaid i bobl De- Orllwein Cymru dangos cefnogaeth.