This article is a masterclass in how to do pro-Westminster and anti-Welsh bias, and its writer and editor should take partial responsibility for the deaths that will result if it weakens the current Welsh lockdown.

/1 https://twitter.com/ITVWales/status/1321138048101425154

Yes, I mean that...

There's no limiting adjective before the word 'peers' in the headline - making it appear that there was a *vote* to condemn the Welsh Govt. There was not.

/2

'Peers' is plural in the headline. Only one peer is quoted using the term 'arbitrary' in the article. Headline writers who cannot differentiate between singular and plural should be unemployed.

/3

No Labour peers are quoted. But if you were reading quickly and carelessly, you'd assume that Lord Callanan "admitting" that the Welsh govt got something wrong would mean he in some way represented Wales or Labour.

He's a Tory minister. The word should have been "claimed"

/4

There is no mention of where the "necessary" items restriction came from. This is really odd, given that it came from the Tories.

ht. @yescymru & @ifanmj btw. ITV Wales follows both these accounts, so they knew.

/5

"It comes as retailers in Wales ..."

Which retailers? Supermarkets. As you'll discover if you follow the link.

Supermarkets don't like the fact that their sales are being restricted because the Welsh govt sought to protect smaller businesses (at the suggestion of a Tory).

/6

Breaking with normal tv and newspaper practice, in *both* these article (the Peers and the Supermarket ones, both published today) ITV has failed to close with the Welsh govt's reply.

Over a clearly contentious matter.

/7

You could be forgiven, reading the article, for thinking it based on something more substantial than two softball questions choreographed by a minister and his friends in order to distract from a threat to the Tories.

You'd be mistaken. /8

"Tesco was forced to apologise for wrongly suggesting sanitary towels were 'non-essential' "

That's down to ... Tesco. Unless you live in ITV Wales land, which seems to be inside the head of a Tory peer.

...

"This forced the Welsh govt to meet with retailers..."

/9

Again, ITV demonstrating a total incapacity to differentiate between "retailers" and "supermarkets".

It's almost as if their advertisers are putting pressure on them to spread confusion about basic vocabulary.

/10

This would also explain why they have a whole article on the supermarkets' precise negotiating position on 'non-essential items'.

/11

It's lazy & bad journalism that disregards the growing sense that Wales is overwhelmingly behind its government's (long belated) decision to break with Westminster's horrifically flawed response to Covid.

/12

Shame.

Luckily, we have some real media in Wales now, as well as the state and corporate pet outlets.

Start here for daily @NationCymru

Here for working-class investigative journalism @voice_wales

Here for covid stats @LloydCymru

/13