The ‘lame-stream’ media are starting to realise their bias is sparking hatred

Last Updated: June 2, 2016By
Laura Kuenssberg: Under her editorship, trust in the BBC's political reporting has fallen to an all-time low.

Laura Kuenssberg: Under her editorship, trust in the BBC’s political reporting has fallen to an all-time low.

Andrew Sparrow and Claire Phipps have realised the tide of public opinion is turning against mainstream media outlets like ITV and BBC News – and even their own newspaper, The Guardian.

In their coverage of Jeremy Corbyn’s speech today, they mention his Q&A with reporters at the end…

…Which takes us on to the way the journalists were treated at the event, the booing after ITV’s Chris Ship asked a question about the claim that Corbyn’s campaigning has been half-hearted and the hissing at the very mention of the name Laura Kuenssberg. This has happened before, and not just at Labour events, and compared to the hazards some reporters face in the course of their work, it is trivial. But it is also indicative of a growing tendency to demonise the media which ought to be worrying if people are still reliant on them (us) to inform the public.

Let’s look at what happened (all from the Graun‘s live reports):

Q: [From ITV’s Chris Ship] If Labour voters are key to winning the referendum, why do only half of them know the Labour party supports Remain. And can you say hand on heart you have campaigned as hard as you can for Remain?

Corbyn says it is partly down to the media, and how they report the Labour party.

This gets a loud cheer from the Labour activists in the audience.

He says he has done a great deal of campaigning. There are no no-go areas for his campaign, he says. He says come the vote no one will be in any doubt what Labour’s views are.

Corbyn is banging his drum loudly about media misrepresentation of Labour. See this report, for example.

Moving on to Ms Kuenssberg:

What else would she expect? Her news reports have been pilloried for gross bias towards the Conservative Party. Is it really coincidence that there were apparently no left-wing commentators in her hour-long analysis of the EU referendum, broadcast by the BBC earlier this week?

It seems clear that the mainstream media, riddled with right-wing influence, is not carrying out its function to an acceptable standard.

But are the social media ready to take over?

This Writer doesn’t think so – and the answer is down to money.

The mainstream media have it and the social media do not.

This means sites like Vox Political cannot cover anything like as much national and international news, simply in the realm of politics, let alone anything else.

And there is so much that deserves better coverage.

Local news reporting is a disaster area at the moment. Mainstream media moguls have been cutting costs for years, as the Internet has eaten into their profits, meaning most local reporters have no time for investigative work and eke out their living recycling press releases.

There is no social media alternative because it would have to be funded by advertising and the returns simply aren’t enough while people think the mainstream is the most cost-effective.

(It isn’t; print press adverts are charged at rates that have no bearing on the results they earn, while social media – Internet – advertising is charged according to the number of people who see the advert, and the number who click-through to the advertiser’s site.)

The tide is turning, though.

In response to inquiries, I intend to launch self-hosted advertising on Vox Political, meaning people will be able to place advertisements directly with the site, rather than going through a third-party organisation like Google AdSense. If you want to be part of that, get in touch via the Comment column and mark your words “Advertising Inquiry”.

It won’t be enough to allow me to expand the site – at least, not initially. But it will help.

And it’s a step towards ending the mainstream stranglehold on public information.

Source: EU referendum live: Corbyn says Labour would veto TTIP trade deal | Politics | The Guardian

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14 Comments

  1. John June 2, 2016 at 12:45 pm - Reply

    I’ve mentioned on here before that I no longer watch BBC News (rarely watch the actual channel), and I’m beginning to slip away from ITV. I now only watch C4 for news (although can’t say I entirely trust them), but better than nothing. The coverage by the BBC of the suspected Tory election fraud, has been nothing short of abysmal, but they’ve had plenty of attacks for Corbyn and Labour (courtesy of Kuenssberg). I’ve also come across plenty of twitter comments about BBC bias. If my circumstances allowed me to, I’d dump the TV Licence.
    I shall await other peoples comments on this!

    • John Thatcher June 2, 2016 at 1:20 pm - Reply

      That about sums up my position too John

    • Rachel Howard June 2, 2016 at 5:23 pm - Reply

      I gave up my TV last year, after a year of not even switching it on I decided it was time to give it away. I would never pay for a TV licence ever again. Money doesn’t grow on trees.

  2. Brian June 2, 2016 at 1:33 pm - Reply

    If you could opt out on the licence fee from BBC news propaganda it would prove it’s news worthlessness. The ratings would drop overnight to 150, about the number of Tory MP’s that would subscribe.

  3. Matthew C Spratt June 2, 2016 at 1:39 pm - Reply

    Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are worth more money than every newspaper in the world put together. Saying social media don’t have money is a bit misguided. Social media has more money than traditional news has ever had, and likely will ever have.

    • Mike Sivier June 2, 2016 at 1:48 pm - Reply

      I look forward to the day Google opens a local news site in your area.

  4. Rusty June 2, 2016 at 2:25 pm - Reply

    The tory party has infatuated the bbc for many years! The news editor originally worked for the sun, this really mirrors what’s been happening with bernie Sanders campaign. BBC can’t be trusted anymore, if they want to be the tory party’s mouthpiece then the license fee should go! If it’s paid for by the people then it should be truly unbiased.

  5. hayfords June 2, 2016 at 2:37 pm - Reply

    What was interesting about the booing and hissing today was that it started before she asked a question. As soon as she said her name it began. I find her editorial coverage excellent. I see no bias at all. I know the left thinks the BBC is biased towards the right but the right thinks exactly the opposite. I think her reporting is pretty much down the centre.

  6. mohandeer June 2, 2016 at 4:51 pm - Reply

    The lame street media are “starting” to realise? The Guardian has been coming under massive criticism for a few years now and it is building and the BBC has lost so much of it’s support. I don’t read any mainstream media or watch the news and rely totally on the social media. It keeps me much better informed than the biased and propagandist MSM. Al Jazeera went the same way based in Doha who were allowed a slot on primetime US, then all the staff walked out because it started saying what the US wanted it to say.
    I hope you can start something up, perhaps in collaboration with Joe Halewood, Kitty Sue, Beast Rabbin, Richard Murphy, Vanessa Beeley, Vaska(Off Guardian) then we really would have an alternative media to reckon with. Many of the commenter’s are extremely well informed and also make for often alternate but very interesting reading. The readership could end up overtaking some of the MSM. A sort of Consortium media news site.
    Regardless of how you go forward, I hope you do, though I don’t always agree with you on everything, I like to hear your opinion and wish more people had it in their mail box. Good Luck!

  7. Jackie Cairns June 2, 2016 at 5:20 pm - Reply

    Channel 4 all the way for me. Jon Snow you can’t beat him for REAL news, Not just leaks about the Labour party all the time. Even the EU refferendum has become the Cameron v Boris show, No ones any wiser by time they have finished. Johnson said we earn 5 times more than Antartica, eh???? The economy will collapse if we leave.Eh??? It’s nearly collapsing now with the clown in charge of it. Were the hell do they pluck the rubbish from? Keep it up Jon. and Vox politics.Your doing a sterling Job

    • Rusty June 2, 2016 at 11:44 pm - Reply

      I do recommend going underground on RT, I find it balances what the other news media says,

  8. Thomas June 2, 2016 at 11:30 pm - Reply

    The mainstream media is ruled by a very few people. Social media on the other hand has the opposite problem, as nearly everyone can stay stuff, a lot of it cannot be trusted or is racist. There is nothing in between.

    • Mike Sivier June 3, 2016 at 9:54 am - Reply

      The social media are governed by the same laws that govern the mainstream media, so anything likely to stir up hatred against people because of their race, religion etc is illegal and may be reported to the police.
      Accuracy issues may be a matter for libel lawyers.
      Matters of opinion (that are based on fact and do not stir up racial (etc) hatred) are acceptable, and with so many social media sites it seems likely there’ll be at least one catering for everybody’s tastes.

  9. John June 3, 2016 at 7:52 am - Reply

    In addition to my previous comment, the BBC are so blatantly biased, that every time the news comes on, I don’t know why they don’t just have a banner across the bottom of the screen that reads “We support the Tories!” or something similar. And while we’re at it, Kuenssberg could wear a top emblazoned with “I love the Tories, I hate Labour!” across the front :)

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