How negative was the UK press about Jeremy Corbyn, the new Labour Leader, who believes in post-war socialist/liberal policies and is genuinely anti-war?
The Media Reform Coalition analysed nearly 500 pieces across eight national newspapers, including The Sun, The Times, Guardian and Daily Mail, and found 60% of their articles were ‘negative’, meaning they were openly hostile or expressed animosity or ridicule.
Out of the 494 articles across the papers during Corbyn’s first seven days at leader, 60% (296 articles) were negative, with only 13% positive stories (65 articles) and 27% taking a “neutral” stance (133 articles), the report says.
If you’ve read the UK press, you know this understates the situation, if anything. Ridicule hardly covers the general slant of the press.
And yet, Corbyn is the least unpopular of the UK’s leaders. He has negative ratings, yes, but they are the least negative.
The actively hostile press in Greece could not stop Syriza, nor could they stop the population from voting NO in the austerity referendum. Of course, Syriza decided to continue with austerity anyway, but the media failed.
In the US we have the media openly calling Trump a fascist, and that hasn’t slowed him down a bit. (I’m anti-Trump, as it happens, lest anyone think I approve of him.) To be sure, they keep giving him massive amounts of oxygen, by reporting on everything he says, because he knows how to be newsworthy, but their ridicule has not slowed him down.
One suspects, indeed, that it has made him stronger. Those who support Trump distrust the media. That the media is against Trump is a positive to them. This certainly isn’t an insane metric; for decades, the media has pushed mainstream candidates who have not improved Trump supporters’ lives one bit, after all.
Regardless, the ideological mechanism of control through the press is failing. In France, LePen rises. In Britain, Corbyn. In the US, Trump and, to a lesser extent, Sanders (who is bad on Imperialism, but good on many domestic issues). This trend continues elsewhere, such as in Spain and Portugal.
This isn’t entirely a good thing, as I presume is evident. It is just a thing, good or bad. The establishment is losing control.
It is, however, an opportunity. If you’re someone whose ideas were considered non-mainstream, you finally have your chance. Whether those ideas are good or bad, well, that’s another matter.
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