Get the biggest stories sent straight to your inbox Sign up for regular updates and breaking news from WalesOnline Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

We live in troubled political times, when quality news media is more important than ever.

With fake news, global information wars, social media algorithms, as well as increasingly extreme takes on both the causes of problems and their solutions, it seems self-evident that the more platforms to air different perspectives on news, current affairs and politics the better.

If the BBC didn’t already exist, now would surely be the time to invent it.

Sure, the days when the BBC monopolised news and political reporting, fostering an unquestioning reliance on “Auntie”, are long gone.

Commercial, digital and social media have created easily accessibly alternative platforms and, while not without their faults, they do at least facilitate plural, dissident opinions.

The BBC was founded on the Reithian principles of public service, probity and fair and equal consideration of all views. Not easy values to discharge as we have seen and the moniker “envy of the world” sounds like a pompous exaggeration these days.

But the BBC remains an authoritative, trusted, reliable and relied upon global voice. In countries without an underpinning democracy and where the ethical principles of news coverage are dubious to say the least, BBC reporting is crucial.

Nowadays all the talk is about “content” - who produces news, how, and for what platforms.

Former cabinet minister Leighton Andrews wrote a report on digital democracy which encouraged the Assembly to see itself as “as a content platform which should reflect the nation’s conversations about the issues which are of most concern to it”.

But, as extreme takes on politics and life become normalised, content means little without high-quality, confident news journalists to test and scrutinise it.

I don’t know anyone who would argue that we don’t have a fundamental democratic deficit in Wales. After 20 years of devolution, more than four in 10 people don’t know who their First Minister is and it’s not that long ago that fewer than half knew the Welsh Government was in charge of the NHS.

In the EU referendum, our political leaders almost uniformly campaigned to remain. The majority of Welsh people were unimpressed, taking their news from BBC Radio 2, the Daily Mail and Express, and mostly voted Leave.

The current Brexit omni-shambles and arguments over putting the decision back to the people in another vote must surely be predicated on us having enough reliable facts, alongside our own critical judgement, to make an informed decision.

In trying to understand how we have become so lacking in awareness and understanding of the political apparatus that controls our lives, it is hard to look beyond the emaciated Welsh media. Everything - from the way Wales voted in the EU referendum, to Labour winning 26 consecutive general elections in a run that started in 1922, to our bizarrely schizophrenic attitude to the Welsh language, to our timidity about our national identity, except on Six Nations match days - has been blamed on the absence of an independent, robust media.

There’s an obvious danger in putting all our eggs in this media solution but, evidently, without an intelligent, trustworthy platform to conduct proper debate and a mirror to reflect our lives back to us, our identity as a nation is left hopelessly reliant on the vagaries of sporting success and a few international celebrities.

BBC Wales is a national, public service broadcaster, it is not a region of England. Therefore, it should surely pursue its own distinctive strategy for the benefit of Wales and its people.

BBC Radio Wales recently announced changes to its news scheduling: a new breakfast programme to replace Good Morning Wales and a shortened drive-time programme, both with single presenters.

Good Morning Wales lost its way - and its audience - some time ago. It has become classic betwixt and between, with mostly flabby interviewing and a lack of interest in, never mind rigorous scrutiny of, those who run Wales.

It was not always thus and there’s an irony that as devolved powers have grown, the flagship news programme has become less, not more, interested in robust journalism about Wales.

Depressing, but typical of public managers, a lot of store is placed on the Radio Joint Audience Research (RAJAR) listening statistics each quarter. Apparently, Radio Wales audience figures average 2,750 people per hour, a 4.4% share of the total audience.

Both editor Colin Paterson and his boss, director of BBC Wales Rhodri Talfan Davies, have rejected the label “magazine-style” that some attached to the new breakfast show, claiming it will still broadcast serious news and current affairs.

I guess “magazine-style” can mean anything - it’s a catch-all term and interpretation is everything.

For me, this is less about terminology and presenters and far more about clarity of ambition and confidence. I read the BBC statements on the schedule changes as being driven by three things - where listeners currently listen, the ageing demographic of Radio Wales’ existing audience and what it believes this audience wants.

Well, surely there is truth in the proposition that we don’t always know what we want until alternative choices are presented?

So, here’s what I want - a new approach to radio news and politics that treats Wales not as it is, but as it might be, that pushes horizons, that makes our politicians and decision-makers fearful (in a nice way). Positive and interesting programmes, rigorously produced, with well-researched interviews led by some of our most talented journalists who don’t accept the first response, the clever, confident ones who owe no-one in power any favours.

I don’t get the sense that’s what this is all about, so forgive me for being slightly nervous about the changes. In the spirit of audience participation (on which Radio Wales is big), let me set out my concerns here. It would be good to have some answers that might help reassure us.

We are told “these programmes will be all-speech, and... continue to hold decision-makers to account”.

The problem is they haven’t always done that, so this has to be about serious strengthening and improvement through an injection of high-standard journalism and production.

To gain respect and authority at a time when it looks like the Assembly will have to stumble on without the requisite backbenchers to do its job properly, the BBC’s role in holding political feet to the fire is even more important. So is there any ambition to get back those of us who have switched to Radio 4 Today? And if not, why not?

The BBC is different, it is not funded by advertising so doesn’t have to chase the buck (or the mass audience) all the time.

Two commercial stations recently ended their Welsh breakfast programmes. BBC Wales tells us that “this means that many people who want Welsh radio in the mornings will be looking for somewhere else to turn”. That sounds like a direct appeal to those used to commercial styles of news offerings?

We are also told the programmes “won’t be afraid to look at the lighter side of Welsh news”. What assurances can you give that this isn’t code for dumbing down? After all, one person’s local or community news is another’s reductionism.

BBC director general Tony Hall often talks about his aspirations to serve the nations better. The problem is this ambition manifests itself as a new nine o’clock news in Scotland and Larry Lamb and Pitching In in Wales.

I was interested in a retort from Bangor University’s Ifan Morgan Jones to criticisms of network broadcasters who ignore Wales: “The answer is to have our own media and make it of a high enough quality and relevant enough to the lives of people in Wales that they choose it over UK media."

An Assembly committee inquiry into news journalism last year said: “Democracy needs vibrant, plural and diverse journalism... Wales is far from unique, but we believe it faces the most challenging news environment in the UK.”

It’s been said before but Wales faces an existential crisis. We are a nation and a people afraid of our own shadow.

That’s why now is the time for some serious ambition and proper leadership from our national public service broadcaster.

Post-charter renewal, the BBC is ideally placed to spearhead a brave new dawn of public information and civic engagement, starting with radio.

We’re not short of commercial and community choices (nearly 30 and many more online). What we are desperately short of is serious, challenging journalism and consistently high-quality radio programmes which make politicians nervous and the public better informed.

If this isn’t the strategic direction of travel chosen by BBC Wales (and maybe even if it is), devolving broadcasting is probably the single most significant intervention we can make to ensure that we have the tools to be the Wales we want, not the Wales we currently are.

ALSO BY LAURA: