Webs Wonder Design

We have a local weekly newspaper in this part of west Wales called the “Tivyside Advertiser” which claims to be “The Voice of the Community for 141 years“. If you want to know who has been banned from driving, or hurt in a drunken brawl, or had a set of spanners nicked from their garage, read the Tivyside.

I have no problem with this, after all, it’s what a local paper is for - reporting local issues. In a relatively low crime area, small incidents are news. You either hear of these happenings over a pint in the local, or in a street corner conversation, or read them in the Tivyside.

Occasionally however the Tivyside displays poor editorial judgement by giving undue prominence to a story in a way which can leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

Take the Tivyside dated August 21st 2007, It’s headline reads “Kibbutz on sea”. The story is about the owner of Cardigan Island Coastal Farm Park in the county of Ceredigion, who is in a long running dispute with Ceredigion County Council over their plan to create a 95km coastal path (similar to the highly successful one in the adjacent county of Pembrokeshire) which will pass through his land. The owner lost an appeal to the The Welsh Assembly Government against the plan earlier in 2007, but he continues to fight on. He is reported as vowing to take the case as far as the UK High Court and the European Court in Strasbourg.

Click here to read the article

My problems with this story are these. Firstly, the piece shows no signs of having been researched by the Tivyside. Does the editor know anything about the Kibbutz movement and how all 250 Kibbutzim in the world are located within Israel? Has the editor spoken to Mr Rothchild of Manchester and asked him why he might choose to establish a Kibbutz in west Wales? What is Mr Rothchild’s motivation and background?

Secondly, let’s assume this background research has been carried out. The job of the editor is then to ask himself how he should report this story. Is it to be a “good news story“, a “tragedy story” or as a “scare/warning story”? (most stories I can think of fall into these categories). “Kibbutz on sea” appears to me to have been written as a scare story - warning the people of west Wales of the possible influx of a large number of Orthodox Jews. The choice of quote from the owner of Cardigan Farm Park reinforces the scare story format:

“I will definitely not sell locally where I have received very little support. A kibbutz at Gwbert would not affect me - as I would probably be in Tenerife“.

…but it will affect the rest of us who have the misfortune still be living in west Wales? Oh how we are to be punished for our lack of support…

Personally I don’t feel threatened by the possible establishment of any local community of Jews, Muslims, African or Asian people. If the editor of the Tivyside thinks we should be worried by the prospect, let him explain why in the editorial, rather than try to wind-up the readership with this desperate search for a “shock-horror” headline.

I think an apology from the editor of the Tivyside and to the Jewish community of west Wales is in order.

Postscript - September 4th 2007

The story has reached the office of the “Board of Deputies of British Jews” in London, who have written to the Tivyside thus:

“I am writing in response to your article of Tuesday, 21 August entitled “Kibbutz on Sea”.

“A Kibbutz, as many thousands of Britons who have volunteered to work in Israel over the years can attest, is a uniquely Israeli concept - a communal farm established to cultivate previously uncultivated areas. For all sorts of reasons, the term cannot in any way be applied to an existing farm in Wales!

“If your story is about the possible change of ownership of a piece of farmland, then that would seem to be a matter for the vendor and the purchaser, and the religious affiliation of the parties is not obviously relevant. If the purchaser’s intention is to farm the land, albeit that Kibbutz is a misnomer, then the story does not seem terribly newsworthy at all, unless you consider that “Farmer plans to buy Farm from Farmer” makes a good headline.”

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