Big announcement: A news service for Cardiff. A few months ago, Catrin Pascoe and I announced The Cymru News Network. This was the beginning of our attempts to build a wider, grassroots news service for Wales. Well, we are now able to announce our first title in The Cymru News Network, so I want to explain what we are doing, why, and where it sits in our wider plan. Our new title is called Proper Cardiff News. - We have a logo (which is inspired by the sculpture outside the city’s Central Library). - We have an office. - We have staff. If you want to sign up to get our journalism straight into your inbox you can do so at propercardiff.news We think it is crazy that the capital of Wales doesn't have much in the way of dedicated news. So this is a regular newsletter which will include (but not be limited to): - Investigations, features, reviews, deepdives and explainers. - We also want to champion the people of this city and celebrate all the good that is going on. Ultimately we want to be guided by our readers. If you have ideas, tips and leads, you can get in touch at [email protected]. To repeat, you can sign up for the newsletter here: propercardiff.news -- WHY CARDIFF? WHAT’S THE WIDER PLAN? -- I know what you are thinking, most people in Wales aren't in Cardiff so why are we starting there? I think this is a very fair question. Though Cardiff isn’t as well served as it should be when it comes to journalism, it gets a far better deal than many other parts of Wales. The simple answer is that, initially, hyper-local journalism is really hard to make work financially. We don't get licence fee money and we haven't had any public funds from the Welsh Government or public bodies. Cardiff is simply the easiest to monetise. It has the most people concentrated in one place. But this Cardiff newsletter is just the first of what we hope will be many titles. Our aim is to launch titles across different parts of Wales in the coming months and years. They will be locally focused, with local offices and locally based reporters. If we can build this across Wales, we will have a pan-Wales news service built from the bottom up. We hope this will help bring Welsh communities together when social media is trying to pull them apart and counter misinformation. It will also create a pathway for young reporters so that talented journalists can build strong careers in Wales. A few disclaimers: - These news outlets are not overtly political. They are about championing and fighting for the people in the areas they serve. - This is separate from my newsletter. That is my main focus. Proper Cardiff News and future titles have their own dedicated editors. You can follow Proper Cardiff News on a range of social media and sign up at propercardiff.news Will this be really hard? Yes Will we give it our all to make it work? Yes We think it's time Wales started telling its own story. Diolch