Welsh politicians have criticised Metro newspaper for failing to cover major Welsh stories distributed in its local editions.
Cardiff Council’s deputy leader Neil McEvoy called on the paper to ‘stop selling Welsh sports fans short’after it failed to carry reports on Cardiff City and Swansea City’s matches this week and on the Welsh rugby team picked for an international in Italy this coming weekend.
He said:
‘I was contacted by a commuter who read the Metro on the train from Penarth to Cardiff on Wednesday but there was no mention of either Cardiff or Swansea’s mid-week matches and not even a league table.
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‘They did, however, have reports on Manchester United and Chelsea. While I accept they are popular teams, the Metro managed to fit in decent sized articles on West Ham, Blackpool and Stoke City.
‘This would not happen in Scotland – If Celtic or Rangers played the night before the Scottish version of the Metro would have covered the matches.
‘Equally, yesterday the Welsh rugby team announced their squad for Saturday – again no news, but there was a story about Bath player moving to London Irish.”
Councillor McEvoy said he would raise the matter with Welsh Sports Minister Alun Ffred Jones and contact the editor and sports editor of the Metro to complain.
Trinity Mirror made redundant four editors in its Celtic newspaper series last September and replaced them with a single editor-in-chief; this was just one in a series of knock backs for local media in Wales.
The Welsh Media has been through a terrible time in recent months, suffering a string of downgrades and closures which has led to the region suffering from a shortfall in local reporting.
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