Consultation Response - Media 12 - Cardiff University PDF 2 MB

Wales is unprepared for the risk of flooding from the sea and coastal erosion,
according to a report from the auditor general. Around 600,000 people in Wales live
or work in areas at risk of flooding. Estimates show costs could increase twenty fold
over the next eighty years, from seventy million pounds to nearly one and a half
billion.
BBC News at Six was less specific with the source of the story (referring to “a
report” compared to “a report from the Auditor General” on Wales Today).
Hundreds of homes along the Welsh coast might have to be abandoned because of
rising sea levels. A report out today says maintaining sea defences is just too
expensive and people might now have to move to higher ground.
BBC News at Six also downplayed the human impact of possible flooding
(“Hundreds of homes” as opposed to “600,000 people” on Wales Today).
Both programmes featured reporters on location, but the explanation for the
flooding was more detailed on Wales Today with a wider range of sources
used to inform the report (this is perhaps inevitable given the BBC News at
Six was two minutes and four seconds long while the Wales Today item was
four minutes and 32 seconds).
Whereas BBC News at Six featured two interviewees, Jeremy Colman, Auditor
General for Wales (16 seconds), and Captain Huw Lewis, an Aberaeron
resident (13 seconds), Wales Today interviewed Jeremy Colman, Auditor
General for Wales (20 seconds, a very similar interview as the BBC News at
Six report), a Welsh male (6 seconds), another Welsh male (16 seconds), and
Keith Evans, the Leader of Ceredigion Council (17 seconds).
While Jeremy Colman, the Auditor General for Wales, was interviewed on BBC
News at Six, who authored the report on flooding was not spelt out as clearly
as it was on Wales Today (the BBC News at Six reporter again labelled it “this
report”). This vagueness was reinforced by a contribution from Captain Huw
Lewis, an Aberaeron resident, who stated:
…it’s men in suits down in Cardiff, which is well protected, saying that we have to
relocate to the hills, and I don’t think the people of Aberaeron would accept that at
all. I think we’d have to fight against that, were that to be the situation.
Wales Today, by contrast, mentioned the Audit Office Report more explicitly
with the recommendations examined in greater detail. So, for example,
several members of the public were critical that not enough had been done,
complaining of a lack of leadership and long term planning. One male resident
said, “You tell me what’s expensive, they waste money on other things, why
shouldn’t it be protected here”, while the other stated “I think it’s very wrong,
to be honest.”
The political implications of the Wales Audit Report were, later on in the news
item, more broadly addressed by the reporter:
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