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Arwyr lleol

(That's Welsh for local heroes)

Liverpool John Moores University

The papurau bro (Welsh language local newspapers) break all the rules in helping to keep the Welsh language alive - but is their revolution running out of steam? From a small seed sown in Cardiff in 1973, some 56 publications still exist, which implies they've earned their place in contemporary Wales. Yet they break every rule of design, of news values and competition. They rarely seek advertising and few have paid staff to produce the goods. They are furiously independent and regard the advent of "new" - for which read "relatively old" - technology with a perhaps not altogether healthy degree of scepticism... Yet the papers are being dragged slowly into the 21st century - some now have their own web presence. But even if, together, they form the largest single readership of anything published in the Welsh language, their future is not guaranteed. Research shows that 60 per cent of papers fear for their future. Their continued antipathy towards anything commercial and anything that might constitute a "scoop", plus that unbending independence, could spell doom for something that has been nothing short of a phenomenon.

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