Will the Minister provide reports that, (i) outline the steps taken by the Welsh Government to support the printed press, including newspapers, during the current public health crisis, and (ii) confirming the impact of those steps up to this point?
The Welsh Government is continuing to support organisations across sectors during the coronavirus outbreak. We have launched an Economic Resilience Fund as well as funding for organisations in the creative industries, culture and sport sectors, which are feeling the immediate impact of COVID-19.
The Welsh Government’s funding for the publishing industry, including Welsh language publishing, is channelled through the Books Council of Wales. This includes funding for Golwg 360, the Welsh-language daily on-line news service and support for Welsh-medium news and current affairs publications Golwg, Y Cymro and Barn. The Creative Wales emergency funding includes £150,000 to the Books Council of Wales to lend vital support to the publishing industry during this difficult time. The Welsh Government is in close contact with the Books Council of Wales regarding the needs of the sector and the impact of current support.
In April 2019 the Welsh Government launched the Independent Community Journalism Fund to provide revenue grant funding for publications who are members of the Independent Community News Network in Wales (ICNN). The Minister for Economy and Transport has approved emergency grant funding through this Fund, and members of the Independent Community News Network in Wales have been contacted with details of the scheme and have started to receive the grant funding.
Since early March the UK Government has led on the UK wide public information campaign for COVID-19 and bought a substantial amount of media across the UK to support the campaign. Working closely with our specialist media buyers, the Welsh Government is supplementing the UK Government COVID-19 campaign by buying additional media across Wales where gaps are identified. We also work with our communication agencies to ensure that newspaper titles are included in campaign plans for all Welsh Government COVID-19 public information campaigns.
The Welsh Government continues to seek feedback to assess the effectiveness of our support interventions.