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UK media is failing to report properly on devolved issues in Wales<\/a>, leaving voters ill-informed about May\u2019s Senedd elections, a report has found.<\/p>\n A Cardiff University study of more than 3,000 news items<\/a> found repeated patterns in coverage across different broadcasters and platforms, including not signposting whether an issue was relevant to England or England and Wales only, widespread references to \u201cthe government\u201d rather than \u201cthe UK government\u201d, and the use of \u201cyou\u201d and \u201cyour\u201d in contexts that apply only to people living in England.<\/p>\n Prof Stephen Cushion, the lead researcher, said that news reporting that did not differentiate between the UK\u2019s devolved governments neglected audiences\u2019 constitutional needs.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you say \u2018the government is building more houses, setting targets, changing the way people get doctors\u2019 appointments\u2019 \u2013 those are different systems and a lot of that is invisible in UK-wide news,\u201d he said. \u201cA good example is the junior [resident] doctors\u2019 strikes, or a very popular TikTok explainer about V-levels<\/a>, talking about \u2018how your education is changing\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cThe survey accompanying the research found there is still a lot of confusion<\/a> in Wales about which policy areas are devolved. Stuff being reported in England is seen by viewers as being at a UK level, and it impacts how people vote.\u201d<\/p>\n Almost three-quarters (73%) of social media posts by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky News did not clarify whether the story was relevant to England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, the study found, along with 57% of TV news<\/a> items and 35% of online articles.<\/p>\n Media inaccuracy has contributed to widespread uncertainty in Wales about political issues, according to the report: 26 years since devolution began, one-third of respondents still did not know that health and education were devolved to the Welsh government.<\/p>\n Only 1% correctly identified whether Cardiff Bay or Westminster had responsibility for eight policy areas, and just 7% of people knew that May\u2019s vote would be held under a new closed list system, according to the representative poll of 1,544 people, conducted by YouGov alongside Cardiff University\u2019s news item analysis.<\/p>\n Similar polling<\/a> in Scotland from 2021 revealed higher levels of understanding of devolved powers and decision-making than in Wales, which Cushion attributed to Scotland\u2019s healthier media environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n UK\u2011wide outlets remain the primary news source for many in Wales, the report found: 46% of respondents relied on UK news most often, compared with 10% who mainly relied on Wales-produced news.<\/p>\n This divided along political lines: 60% of Reform voters said they mostly used UK news sources, a higher proportion than those who voted for other parties. One-third of Plaid Cymru voters said they relied mainly on UK news, while 46% said they used UK and Wales-wide sources equally, and 18% relied mainly on Wales-specific sources.<\/p>\n Cushion said: \u201cIt could be the case that people are casting their vote on issues that affect England, because campaign events in England, and involving the Nigel Farage v Keir Starmer dynamic in particular, get more coverage \u2026 But if you live in Wales, these elections have nothing to do with that.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a huge communication issue here, and that matters for democratic accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n