The webinar provided an opportunity to discuss some of the challenges and benefits associated with regional broadcasting of local, national and international news items on a daily basis.

The main points of discussion touched on the themes of how a regional BBC radio station gathers and presents political news and the way decisions are made about the national, or local orientation, in its coverage of political news. Allied to this was a discussion of the BBC’s aims and how they are interpreted locally when covering political news via a regional radio news programme. It also considered some of the economic constraints which have to be worked with by such a radio station.

A strong commitment to providing a public service came through in the webinar and the desire to remain up to date with political news was also evident. A particularly interesting feature of the work of this regional radio station is its use of not only local news reporters but also the ways in which it tap into London parliament-based reporters too: with the result that the regional take on national and international news items is fully contextualised.

Additional areas of discussion in the webinar related to some of the challenges surrounding presenting political news in a neutral and non-biased manner, and how some of those attempts to preserve neutrality are challenged, to some extent, by having to incorporate the use of social media on a fairly frequent basis during any one day’s political new cycle. Considerable efforts to verify news stories, regardless of their source, are made and it was recognised that social media news sources present particular challenges because of the limited time frame available for all reporters to work within.

Questions from the webinar audience were varied, but the main areas of interest from the webinar audience concerned the use of social media in the news cycle and how the regional radio station is dealing with some of the political and economic challenges faced by it in light of pressure being brought to bear on the BBC in general.

There was a general sense from the webinar interviewees that the work is very rewarding to do because it gives local people a voice in national and local news coverage and such responses from the listening public, which form a large part of such coverage, help to form a sense of what the impact and interpretation of news items is regionally. As such, the interviewees saw themselves as serving democracy at a grass roots level in their region. The need to accommodate as many diverse voices and opinions as possible when it comes to covering political issues was also considered. This can sometimes be particularly challenging, as in the case of post 2019 general election political news coverage by BBC Radio Cumbria, since after the election result there were no Labour MPs to consult on political affairs, which meant that for future discussions on political topics on this radio station other Labour Party office holders (such as Councillors) had to be consulted in order to continue to secure balanced political commentary.

Certainly, the idea that came across from the webinar was that covering national and local news is a fast-paced concern which is both demanding and interesting to manage. The radio station is well equipped technologically to cope with this pace and staff working in it are individually and collectively linked into the necessary sources of information to help them keep on top of news items as they break. Also, some of the details which were revealed in the webinar discussion concerning the ways in which the coverage of news on a BBC regional radio station is highly regulated were very interesting to discover and it was evident that considerable efforts are made by this regional radio station to adhere to such regulations, regardless of the pressure to produce news quickly. Furthermore, the founding principles of the BBC are still very much still in evidence here.

It was also apparent in the webinar discussions that looming in the background are some concerns surrounding future budgetary constraints for national and local news coverage, which are result from a freeze in funding for such coverage, and from the fact that there are increasing numbers of commercial radio stations which provide additional offerings when it comes to the presentation of news. The political news reporter and program presenter in the webinar commented that currently they don't feel any resultant pressure when broadcasting but they noted that managers working at BBC Radio Cumbria have to be aware of the macro-economic context in which they are operating. Quite whether any resultant 'squeeze' on resources will be felt by reporters and news journalists, and with what editorial results, in the future remains to be seen.