Now the truth’s out, the media is hoping you’ve forgotten about last August’s wall-to-wall anti-Jeremy Corbyn front pages. Newly leaked CCTV footage shows the infamous Traingate saga was nothing more than a billionaire trying to discredit the Labour leader for personal gain.
The smear made the front pages of most our major outlets. But now, it appears that none of those outlets have reported on the new evidence.
Traingate?
Forced to sit on the floor during a journey with Virgin Trains, the Corbyn campaign filmed an impromptu video. In the video, Corbyn used the jam-packed train as one example of why the railways should be taken into public ownership.
Subsequently, Virgin Trains released CCTV footage from the same journey. The corporate giant said the clips showed there were free seats on the train. So Virgin Trains claimed Corbyn was lying to carry out a PR stunt.
But on 23 August 2017, Double Down News released additional CCTV footage proving that those seats were not free.
https://twitter.com/n_blondel/status/900313718009065473
Media response
Back in August 2016, the entire mainstream media represented the Virgin Trains allegations with wall-to-wall front pages:
At the time, the media coverage suggested Corbyn was twisting the truth to carry out a savvy PR stunt. But the new footage shows that Corbyn was honest in his intentions. Now the truth is out, anyone would expect the mainstream media to at least report on the new footage. Especially after the across-the-board front pages. But the opposite has happened. At the time of writing, The New Statesman seems to be the only mainstream media outlet to even acknowledge the new footage.
‘Attack dog’
Whether it’s The Guardian or The Telegraph, the corporate media’s anti-Corbyn slant is well documented.
In 2016, a report by the London School of Economics and Political Science analysed the media response to Corbyn. According to the findings, the press had turned into an “attackdog” against the Labour leader. A shocking 75% of press coverage misrepresented him.
Another academic study by the Media Reform Coalition (MRC) found that the BBC gave double the airtime to Corbyn’s opponents than it gave to his allies during the mass cabinet resignations back in June 2016.
The media bias can also be found in its language. Before the general election, political commentators often referred to Corbyn’s many supporters as a “cult”. In response to the incumbent winning the leadership election, The Independent wrote:
the Labour Party now resembles a cult of personality.
This functions to convert something good (Corbyn and his policies have a lot of supporters) to something bad (they are hapless followers of a personality).
But the historic 2017 election result then proved all the pundits wrong. Today, though, most of the media is still unwilling to even report on the new Traingate footage. Even after the wall-to-wall front pages denouncing Corbyn last August. This proves we need a new media that actually represents people in the UK.
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Featured image via screengrab
