Most newspapers publish editorials from time to time – articles that are self-evidently more subjective than the norm. But this is not a traditional newspaper. Bylines Cymru is a non-profit platform for citizen journalism through which people can tell their own stories, neither ignored nor filtered by any offshored-billionaire-owned press.
But like any newspaper, Bylines Cymru will occasionally publish editorials or articles by the editor, always to explain an editorial stance. We did so upon our launch, to explain our purpose and mission and invite submissions. We’ve clarified our position on independence, and confirmed our approach and our hopes and plans for newer readers. While none were overtly political, we and the other nine platforms in the Bylines Network openly come from a progressive, internationalist place. For Cymru, it’s about values more than politics – and this is also true of our social media posts.
Transparency and accountability
Vaughan Gething resigned as First Minister of Wales due to a plethora of problems, the simultaneous resignation of four of his cabinet members being a catalyst rather than a reason per se. One big problem was the leak of iMessages dating back to the early days of the Covid pandemic in 2020.
Last week Nation.Cymru published screencaps of those messages, a ministerial group chat. The paper had previously published, in May, a message written by Gething “in which he admitted deleting material because it would otherwise be disclosable under freedom of information legislation”. During First Minister’s Questions he said the chat “related to internal Labour group business and had nothing to do with decision-making during the Covid crisis”.
Last week’s publication by Nation.Cymru of more of the group chat revealed that Gething had not been truthful to the Senedd about its nature. And it revealed some insights about who else was involved in the chat and knew of the subversion of freedom of information laws – of transparency and accountability.
Nor was Gething truthful to the UK Covid Inquiry in his witness statement in which, as he put it to the Senedd, “I set out in some detail, honestly and fully, how messages have been retained and stored to ensure that a proper record of all choices made by me and other Ministers have been captured and provided to the inquiry.”
Vaughan Gething: I’m deleting the messages in this group. They can be captured in an FOI and so think we are all in the right place on the choice being made.
Julie James: Good point Vaughan.
Values and standards
Julie James didn’t resign as Cabinet Secretary for Housing because she was revealed to be in support of deleting government messages. She was one of the four ministers who resigned to force Gething’s resignation, along with Counsel General Mick Antoniw, Cabinet Secretary for Culture Lesley Griffiths, and Cabinet Secretary for Economy Jeremy Miles. There’s been no real public discussion of her role or the role of others – which included Griffiths and Miles – in that chat, whether her encouragement or their silence.
The Bylines Network of online newspapers of which we’re a part is “built on citizen journalism, nurturing democracy by giving a voice to local people and holding our elected representatives to account”. Usually this is achieved by writers themselves directly, who write and submit whatever they wish to be more widely heard – that is, by readers like you. It’s for this that we primarily exist.
But there are few national newspapers in Wales. While our model is very different to those of Wales Online and the seemingly tireless, fearless Nation.Cymru, we are increasingly seen as sitting alongside them; as also being a national voice, something subtly different from a platform for national voices. We’re often tagged on social media drawing our attention to the issues people are concerned about – that is, want to see written about.
There’s no team of reporters here. You’re the reporters. We took no public position on any specific political party during the general election, in part to be clear that we continue to welcome writing from across the political spectrum, within the bounds of civil discourse and journalistic standards such as accuracy.
Holding power to account
However, there are times when we may need to take a stand on behalf of writers, within the terms of our stated purpose: holding elected representatives to account. In recent days we tweeted that Julie James and others who knew and approved of – or kept quiet about – the deletion of government messages about policy formulation should resign. And that the next First Minister should be chosen via national election, not another internal party anointing (as indeed has happened).
There’s also the matter of who leaked the messages. Who kept quiet not only when it was suggested that they be deleted, but when Hannah Blythyn was blamed for the leak and suffered personal and professional consequences as a result.
We took a stance because some writers wanted it; it’s occasionally within our role; it’s ‘normal for newspapers’; and due to credible information we’ve received but can’t publish without risking the source. But above all, because of standards. It has nothing to do with party politics or partisanship. It’s still about values.
Our leaders heard untruths spoken. They saw a cover-up of messages, and mischaracterisation of them, and said nothing. It’s natural for people in Wales to start wondering what else we don’t know; what other standards were breached, unchallenged. It weakens democracy.
There’ve been serious breaches of the standards we should expect from some of our elected representatives, and no one is really talking about that. The government at fault just took it for granted that it could choose our leader again – for the third time, as the Conservatives did in Westminster – without Wales itself having a say. No one is really talking about that, either.
We should talk about these things, surely? Don’t we need to have those conversations? Perhaps you want to write about them?
