Media coverage of the recent general election has been biased in favour of the Conservatives and against Labour to an alarming degree.
The press, with the exceptions of the Mirror, Guardian, Independent and Morning Star has been uniformly hostile to Labour. More worrying in this election has been the outright hostility of broadcast media, with public service standard bearer, the BBC, at the forefront of the offensive.
Many would argue that most of the print media would be hostile, given they are owned by Conservative supporting Brexiteers, however, more is expected of the licence fee funded BBC.
Perhaps the scale of the Conservative success with the media can measured by the very simple fact that this was a party that went into an election with one message – “Get Brexit done.” The great irony being that this was a objective that the same party had singularly failed to do for the preceding three years.
The Conservatives operated a scare story approach throughout much of the campaign, which amounted to throwing as much paint at the wall in the hope that some would stick. Early on this happened with both Labour’s spending plans and immigration.
The inflated claims about Labour’s spending plans costing trillions were initially arrived at by adding together any policy that had come up at a conference with cost implications. This was prior to publication of the manifesto. The claim was rebuffed by Labour but the overall narrative that Labour can’t be trusted with the economy was reinforced.
The first chapter in this story began under David Cameron, who pushed the claim that the 2008 financial crisis was the fault of Labour, not the banks.
This narrative that Labour cannot be trusted with your money came back again and again. Labour’s manifesto was carefully costed – something that was regularly dismissed by journalists. Meanwhile, the Conservatives claim to cut taxes and put more into public services – a contradiction that does not stand up to any scrutiny – went virtually unchallenged.
Perhaps, the most glaring examples of media bias came in terms of the coverage of Boris Johnson. His media handlers kept him clear of anything that could cause trouble, such as the Andrew Neil interview. This was much touted not least by Neil himself.
At one point the supine BBC, said they would not let Johnson onto the Andrew Marr show unless he did the Neil interview. Then there was the London Bridge terrorist incident, which persuaded the BBC’s chiefs to relent. Johnson then took the opportunity to use the incident to attack Labour, blaming its policies in 2010 for the early release of the attacker. Marr blustered but made little impact.
Another example of BBC bias was the changing of a recording which showed a Question Time audience laughing when Johnson was asked about telling the truth, to one where there was polite applause.
The list goes on. The reason this happened is no doubt bound up with the nature of the media and those who control news avenues. There is the fact that many particular in positions of control are public school and Oxbridge educated. But there is also a general brainwashing that feeds into this. There seems to have been a line running that the worst possible thing that could result from the election was a Jeremy Corbyn led Labour government. A line that everything had to be done to stop such an eventuality, even supporting Johnson. Better a Tory administration led by Johnson than a Labour government seeking to put the country on lines already prevalent in many advanced European countries.
The special negative media treatment of Jeremy Corbyn over the past four years clearly resonated on door steps throughout the land. The assault on Corbyn from the day he was elected in 2015 has been relentless. It is amazing that he has survived such personal vilification. He has variously been called a spy, an IRA sympathiser, anti-semetic and someone who does not watch Queen’s broadcast to the nation on Christmas Day.
Criticism from within the party has not helped. The negative comments of shadow health spokesperson John Ashworth about Corbyn, recorded by a Conservative friend, and released three days before the election, were damaging. Once again, these received top billing across media outlets.
The vilification of Corbyn has helped create a bunker mentality among those involved in the Labour communications operation. It has been reactive rather than pro-active in making the case for a Labour government. There could have been far more emphasis put on the support from many economists for Labour’s economic plan. The media frame that referred every element of economic policy to the think tank the Institute of Public Policy Research for approval or disapproval should have been challenged – there are many other bodies with very different views.
Labour should not have been so much on the back foot as the Conservatives deliberately attacked every element of their policies often as a tactic to deflect from the inadequacy of their own offering.
Social media is another battleground in the media war, where Labour needs to concentrate more effort. It can be constraining but does also provide often unploughed avenues to reach new voters.
That said, it will always be difficult for Labour leaders and the party to win the media battle. Every Labour leader experiences varying levels of vilification, though in Corbyn’s case it certainly reached new heights. Tony Blair was the leader, who managed to best cope with the onslaught.
The 2019 general election should go down as one when the media should hang its head in shame. It played a major role in the election of a man, Boris Johnson, who hides in a fridge to avoid scrutiny. The vilification of Jeremy Corbyn for the four and a half years that he has led the party was probably the major contribution in this shameful effort. Moving forward it must not be allowed to happen again. The very essence of a free press now hangs by a thread in this country, with most media outlets seemingly signed up as parrots of Tory lines
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