Those journalists who should have been behind Corbyn from the start – who could have been among his few allies as he battled the corporate media for nearly two years as Labour leader – are now starting to eat humble pie. Polls suggest that Corbyn may be gradually turning the election around, to the point where the latest poll, published in the Times, indicates that Britain could be heading for a hung parliament.
Trust Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian to ask the most pertinent question of the coming British general election and then fail to offer the one answer staring him in the face.
After examining the manifesto commitments of the Conservative and Labour parties, he asks: “British voters look like they’re rejecting Santa and embracing Scrooge. Why?”
In bygone years, defenders of the Guardian’s supposed ‘progressive’ credentials would typically cite the presence of Seumas Milne, Owen Jones and George Monbiot. The newspaper’s cupboard is looking decidedly threadbare now. After a year’s leave of absence, Milne left the paper permanently in January to continue leading Jeremy Corbyn’s media team.
The title of the editorial said it all:
The Guardian view on George W Bush: a welcome return.
Jay Dyer
21st Century Wire
In this JaysAnalysis exclusive, ten year veteran paparazzo Charles Pycraft and “Ollie the Conspiracy Realist” join me to spill the beans on how mass media manipulation and celebrity culture creation really works.
Here is a great overview by Ed Jones of why corporate media are the arch-exponents of “fake news”. The media are overwhelming owned and controlled by billionaires and gargantuan corporations, who depend on the support of other corporations for ad revenue, and employ journalists from a narrow, privileged class whose careers depend on maintaining access to elite sources.
In the wake of Brexit and Trump, “mainstream” media have done the formerly unthinkable by focusing on media bias. The intensity of focus has been such that the Oxford Dictionaries have announced that ‘post-truth’ is their ‘Word of the Year 2016’.
‘Post-truth’ refers to ‘circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.
National newspapers were ‘unimpressed by Jeremy Corbyn’s victory’ in the Labour leadership election, Roy Greenslade noted in the Guardian, surprising no-one. Corbyn secured almost 62% of the 506,000 votes cast, up from the 59% share he won in 2015, ‘with virtually no press backing whatsoever’.
It will be no surprise to readers of this blog that I believe Tony Blair should be put on trial for crimes against humanity for assisting George Bush in attacking Iraq in 2003. The Chilcot inquiry, however compromised its members were by their establishment ties and however cautious they were in their use of language, have very belatedly reached the same conclusion.
A political beacon is about to be extinguished unless he breaks with the doomed Labour Party and sets up on his own.
