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Final push for petition requesting an independent review of how the BBC portrays the Welsh language

17 Aug 2017 2 minute read
Evan Davis on newsnight.

 

A petition signed by over 7,500 people calling for an independent review of how the BBC portrays the Welsh language will close on Friday.

Huw Marshall created the petition after the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight posed the question “is the Welsh language a help or hindrance to the nation?”.

At midnight on Friday the petition will close and be delivered to the UK Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the BBC Unitary Board and Ofcom, he said.

“I’ve made it clear from the start this is not an attack on the BBC,” Huw Marshall told Nation.Cymru.

“But we need to find out if there is an institutional problem within the BBC with regards the Welsh language or whether it’s a perceived issue.

“By conducting an audit we can finally get to the bottom of this and hopefully ensure that appropriate editorial guidelines are put in place.”

Former MP Elfyn Llwyd also criticised what he considered to be poor reporting by Newsnight, saying that a journalist who contacted him before the programme was woefully uninformed about the subject.

“I have to explain what the Eisteddfod was,” he told Golwg 360. “He didn’t have a clue. And I don’t think he knew the difference between Plaid Cymru and Cymdeithas yr Iaith.

“It showed a deep indifference, that they would take the issue so lightly.

“I felt when I watched the programme that we were in the position the Irish were in some 30 years ago when it was OK to make fun of them if you were English.

“And now the Welsh language is a subject of fun in London as well.”


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Capitalist and Welshnash
Capitalist and Welshnash
7 years ago

Perhaps English schools require a Celtic nations awareness class?

Gwenllian Spink
Gwenllian Spink
7 years ago

Is the BBC perpetuating the speak English ‘louder’ if locals do not understand world view? It would appear following the recent Newsnight debate, that the BBC is not only desperately ignorant about Wales and the Welsh, but also language-phobic. Shame on their arrogance. ‘To have another language is to possess a second soul’, so said Charlemagne. ‘It is the ordinary words for ordinary things that in Welsh I find so pleasing. Nêf may be no better than heaven, but wybren is more pleasing than sky’. JRR Tolkien

A Gog
A Gog
7 years ago

Nothing will change, these people have an agenda to eradicate everything which isn’t modern day British. Are you Indy curious yet?

Gregory
Gregory
7 years ago

There’s a simple little thought experiment here. All you need do is substitute a different language for ‘Welsh’ into the argument and it all falls to pieces. Estonian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Basque, Dutch; name your own favorite language spoken by only one comparatively small European nation. Oh how the Danes are held back by their pitiful little language….how can those poor Finns cope with their incomprehensible babble related to the even more obscure Estonian or Hungarian? If only they all spoke English like proper people. Well, actually a lot of them do – I have many European acquaintances who speak… Read more »

A Gog
A Gog
7 years ago
Reply to  Gregory

Well said Gregory, I totally agree!

Trailorboy
Trailorboy
7 years ago
Reply to  Gregory

Newsnight seem to have the loony summer crew in at the moment. Last night they excelled themselves on their appalling handling of the events from Barcelona. Nasty interviewing by Nick Ferrari, plumbed the depths.

If I was a Catalan or Spanish, I’d be fuming. They even managed associating the Basques with the events.

There are big issues at the Beeb and particularly Newsnight. If they say they will return to this issue, then I wouldn’t be surprised if they manage to sink even lower.

Welsh Learners / Dysgwyr Cymraeg

“I’m not blaming the BBC” – Huw Marshall……huh?….well it isn’t ITV to blame matey …grow a pair

Wenna Williams
7 years ago

I think that more than being against Wales or the welsh language is complete ignorance. I was brought up in Flint and a neighbour once told mam that her son was going to Wales for his holiday. How much has changed across England?

GPB
GPB
7 years ago

Great little article on South Sea Jargon (Pigion English) on the the BBC travel section. Wonder of diversity and variety. Mentioned history and culture. They even teach the language in their schools. So different from the Newsnight item.

Wrexhamian
Wrexhamian
7 years ago

Ian Katz and his ilk have a bigotry towards, and a hatred of, Wales and the Welsh that is no different from that of the morons who contributed ant-Welsh-language ‘comments’ online to the Daily Mail in response to that paper’s article on Katz’s ‘news feature’. He is simply better at masking his bigotry and hatred behind a façade of contrived intellectual rigour. He is looking for a debate when there’s nothing to debate – the need to preserve and promote the language is self-evident, at least to me.

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