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The village of Nelson made national headlines over the weekend after it was reported by the Telegraph that its name has been placed on a council list of “problematic” place names with links to the slave trade.
Cue social media outrage at suggestions that Nelson should be changing its name or that ‘wokeness’ was somehow out of control.
The Daily Mail and the Times followed the story up as did Nation.Cymru – albeit with their own angle suggesting the area revert to its Welsh name of Ffos y Gerddinen.
As a journalist I can see how this story was constructed.
The article implied that Caerphilly County Borough Council decided upon itself to create this list – and the Telegraph got two Conservative politicians to criticise the Labour-run local authority.
While the council did create a list of place names with possible links to the slave trade, it was actually for submission to a national audit announced by the First Minister in June last year. This was in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
The results of this were published in November last year – 11 months ago. It was widely covered by the media at the time.
The audit stated that Horatio Nelson privately opposed the abolition of the slave trade, although he made no public declaration of his stance.
Newspapers and websites write for their audiences. The notion of an entire village cited as a “problematic” place in the context of the UK’s culture wars (whatever they actually are) was simply a great story for the Telegraph and other right-wing outlets.
What the Telegraph published wasn’t inaccurate (apart from describing Churchill Park as a park), but it was framed in such a way as to create controversy and outrage.
At the time of the audit’s publication in November last year, First Minister Mark Drakeford said: “This is not about rewriting our past or naming and shaming. It is about learning from the events of the past.
“It is an opportunity for us to establish a mature relationship with our history and find a heritage which can be shared by us all.”
How can anyone argue with this aim? Unless you want to stir things up with the so-called culture wars.
The Telegraph article is a classic example of journalism generating a lot of heat but not much light.
I was torn over whether to spend time on this story today. I didn’t want to write a story along the lines of “Claims that Nelson will be renamed have been denied” etc, as it’s obvious.
Of course, the council and its leadership have moved to say Nelson will not be renamed – and they had to because of the reaction online.
The speed at which information (or misinformation) is spread these days is frightening – the Telegraph article has already been referenced on Nelson’s Wikipedia entry. So rather than just write a click-bait article with the obvious denials, I wanted to explain how this stuff can happen. It’s what I think journalism should be about.
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