And Why It Matters for Wales in 2026
News consumption didn’t just “move online.” It is fractured across generations, platforms, and formats, and the institutions that produce public-interest journalism have not kept pace. That gap isn’t just an industry story. With Senedd elections due on 7 May 2026, it has become a democratic risk.
Over the past decade, how people learn what’s happening has changed more than in any other period since television began broadcasting news daily. But crucially, the change is not the same for everyone. Older generations still recognise something like the traditional news ecosystem: TV bulletins, radio programmes, newspaper websites, and scheduled current affairs shows. Younger generations live in something completely different: an endless scroll of short videos, personality-led explainers, group chats, algorithmic timelines, and fragments of context that appear or don’t, depending on how platforms treat them.
The result is a dangerous but straightforward reality: public-interest news is not reliably reaching the public.
Generations now live in different information worlds.
Older audiences (broadly 55+) remain the strongest users of broadcast news. They are still served, imperfectly but meaningfully, by a model that assumes you will sit down to watch or listen to a programme curated by editors. They are more likely to encounter structured reporting on devolved issues and the Senedd because they already read those outlets.
People in mid-life (roughly 35–54) occupy a hybrid world. They mix TV and radio with online news sites, podcasts and social media. They might see Welsh policy discussed on a broadcaster’s website, through a push notification, or as a shared clip. Their news diet is less linear, but there is still a recognisable relationship with news brands.
For younger adults and teenagers, the change is profound. Many do not “go to the news.” The news comes to them if the algorithm decides it should. TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and messaging apps dominate attention. Information is creator-led rather than brand-led. Context is brief. News is often encountered incidentally, in the middle of entertainment, sport, comedy, or lifestyle content. A growing proportion of people avoid news because they find it exhausting, repetitive, or irrelevant to their daily lives.
All generations still consume something called news. They’re just not consuming the same thing.
Wales has a particular weakness.
This generational fragmentation would challenge any democracy. In Wales, it is exacerbated by structural weaknesses repeatedly identified by inquiries, committees, and industry observers.
Local and regional newspapers have been thinned out or closed after years of consolidation and cost-cutting. Several areas now have only minimal on-the-ground reporting. Independent and community outlets exist and do valuable work, but many are fragile, under-resourced and project-funded. The BBC remains central, but it cannot on its own compensate for the scale of decline elsewhere, nor can it, or should it, single-handedly build the hyperlocal and community-level reporting ecosystem that accountability requires.
In English-language media, especially, there is still no widely reaching, financially secure network of Welsh public-interest journalism that reliably reaches people where they already are. Much of the existing provision remains built for an era of appointment viewing and homepage visits, not for a world where people live in feeds.
So even motivated citizens can struggle to get clear, regular coverage of:
– what the Senedd controls and what Westminster controls
– how policies affect their communities in practice
– who represents them and what those people actually do between elections
The consequence is not that people know nothing. It’s that they know fragments unevenly distributed across generations, geography and class.
The format mismatch is now the core problem.
Journalism in Wales still too often assumes the public will seek it out. That assumption no longer holds.
Younger voters do not type news website URLs into browsers. They rarely read long-form articles unless they are drawn in by prior exposure. They do not rely on scheduled bulletins. Their information environment is visual, short-form, conversational and personality-driven.
Yet much Welsh public-interest reporting still takes the form of:
– long written explainers on low-traffic websites
– press-release-based coverage in stretched local papers
– brief segments buried in general broadcast programmes
It is accurate, sometimes excellent, and largely unseen by the audience democracy most needs to reach next.
Why does this matter with 7 May 2026 approaching?
The 2026 Senedd election is unusually high-stakes. The electoral system will be different. The number of Members will increase. Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds are enfranchised. The policy environment is complex, and public services are under visible strain.
Democracy assumes informed consent. That requires people to:
– understand what the Senedd does
– distinguish devolved responsibilities from Westminster’s
– know who is standing to represent them
– judge performance and promises with reasonable context
That is impossible if significant parts of the electorate do not routinely encounter substantive coverage of devolved politics.
Three risks follow.
First, unequal information by generation.
Older voters encounter more explainers and more structured coverage because they remain within legacy news environments. Younger voters may encounter little about Welsh democracy unless it trends on their platform of choice, which skews turnout, attention, and ultimately representation.
Second, confusion over who is responsible for what.
Without sustained reporting, blame and credit drift. People direct anger at the wrong institution, or feel that “politics” in general has failed them without knowing who, specifically, holds the levers.
Third, vulnerability to mis- and disinformation.
Where authoritative Welsh journalism is absent on the platforms people use, rumour and partisan content fill the space. Algorithms reward outrage faster than verification. The risk is not a theatrical conspiracy theory; it is a persistent, low-level distortion.
The conclusion nobody really wants to say out loud
If Wales enters the 2026 Senedd election with the current generational news gap intact, we risk an election decided by an electorate that is unevenly informed and, in some cases, barely reached by public-interest journalism.
Some people will vote after engaging seriously with policy and record. Others will vote based on fragments, vibes, or viral clips. Others won’t vote at all because nothing ever reaches them.
That is not a failure on the part of voters. It is a failure of provision.
Repairing it requires more than nostalgia for newspapers or abstract commitments to media plurality. It needs:
– investment in independent, Wales-focused journalism
– sustainable local and community reporting
– content made in the formats and on the platforms where people already spend their time
The information habits of 2025 will not rewind. The only real choice is whether Welsh democracy adapts to them or accepts that an increasing number of people will pass through elections like 7 May 2026 barely touched by reliable information.
This is why Talking Wales is so important. And this is why Talking Wales is rethinking public-interest news.
Sharing the same information and stories in different formats to different audiences on different platforms.
How it’s funded is critical to its operations. Talking Wales has been incorporated as a community benefit society, a cooperative owned by you, its shareholders, and a company where profits must be reinvested for the benefit of the community it serves.
The more people and organisations that support Talking Wales, the more it can do, and most importantly, the more people in Wales it can reach and inform.
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