Western Mail & Echo

While the problems that have increasingly beset the newspaper industry since the internet killed the notion readers should pay for their information have been illustrated by the South Wales Echo, the Western Mail is cut from slightly classier cloth. Though part of the same parent group, perhaps that comes from its distinguished former broadsheet origins and a reputation for supplying a decent, sizeable weekend read. But despite taking a borderline less tabloid approach to issues of a Welsh slant, its importance on the country’s media landscape has seemingly faded as circulation falls and past redundancies drain the journalistic talent pool. Things can’t be all bad for the group, as their Media Wales building, in the shadow of the Millennium Stadium, is relatively new and, from the outside at least, plush and modern. What goes on inside, however, will determine whether the Western Mail continues to publish on the same scale in years to come.

Distributed across the whole of Wales (although with limited circulation in North Wales), the Western Mail is as far as I know Wales’s only national daily tabloid newspaper.
It’s largely in English rather than Welsh, with lots of ‘home’ news, features and opinion columns.
It’s owned by the UK’s largest newspaper company, Trinity Mirror and has been published since 1869. It used to be in broadsheet format, but switched in 2004 to a compact.
Both the newspaper and its corresponding website offer good coverage of things going on in Wales, and it’s very popular amongst business people looking for a new job (check the Jobs pages every Thursday) or who just want to keep on top of news within their industry and from their competitors. Weekend papers — as is the case with London-​based national newspapers — contain far more sports coverage and arts and lifestyle features such as travel, fashion and events.

Owned by Trinity Mirror Ltd, this is ‘the national newspaper of Wales’, a daily tabloid newspaper published by Media Wales Ltd in Cardiff. The newspaper is more reliant on features than news these days and the majority of the content is written in English. Still it is a good place to get basic coverage of what is happening in Wales.
The weekend papers have more arts and sports coverage. Look out for Peter Finch’s column The Insider about all things literary. Tuesday is Ladies Day. WM, currently edited by the ever-​stylish Clare Rees, dishes out fashion updates, interviews and life style tips. It talks ‘WM sense’. Thursday is the day for job hunting.
Wales Online (
) is their website with more local news and celebrity gossip as well as multimedia items. It has a better directory of job ads here too, easier to search through for the right thing for you.

Back when I about 16 I did a couple of weeks work experience and the Western Mail and it great to get an inside look at whats goes on there.
So I guess the Western Mail is the Welsh equivalent of a tabloid paper. It covers all the national news as well as Welsh stories and gossip so its a good combination really.
Everyday it has a different section for education, style, whats on and the very important jobs section on Thursday’s! If your into any of the local rugby teams then this is probably the only paper that has a lot of rugby coverage.