Independent: Our report found that 75% of press coverage misrepresents Jeremy Corbyn – we can't ignore media bias anymore

Jo Swinson is doing ok - on now.

That's what I said . Soundbites on the News, the whole thing on BBC News Channel or BBC Parliament.

Watch the Parliament channel -the news you might see later will have been filtered.

If anyone is interested in hearing Corbyn speaking, he is leading a debate later today on the role of the rule of law in parliament (or similar), as part of the emergency Brexit debate. You will be able to catch it on BBC News Channel , or BBC Parliament, or there may be soundbites from it on the News.

It is the second item on the agenda, so there is no definite start time, but it will be worth watching - obviously there will be input from both sides of the House.

As I've always said, Corbyn isn't perfect as a leader (he lacks the all-encompassing and often misplaced confidence of the Eton set) but who is? I think he's a decent person and far more sincere and trustworthy than many of our current MPs.

The OP isn't a "load of left wing propaganda" but an extract from an academic report based on the closely analysed contents of various media outlets. It's not the first report to find that, in general, the media is very biased in its portrayal of Corbyn and his supporters.. Most people who are broadly in support of Corbyn's policies will recognise that many news reports are very selective in their coverage.

Words and tone are very important. It is noted that Corbyn and his supporters are frequently referred to using words that create an immoderate image - "hard left" "hard core", etc, etc. (I do not recall mainstream politicians on the right ever being referred to in this way). Yet many of the policies Corbyn espouses and views he expresses are increasingly shared by large numbers of the population. For instance, disillusionment with the involvement of private providers in public services such as the railways, health, etc, a growing concern regarding the serious damage being done to the population's health, productivity and morale as a result of draconian austerity policies. etc, etc.

I am glad to see that some people are a little more sceptical of media reporting and don't swallow hook, line and sinker everything they say.

Hetty58, couldn't agree more. He's very eloquent. But he doesn't get televised/reported and so people believe the Murdoch shit.

People instantly appear silly when they resort to insults. Friends and family voted differently for various reasons. We can discuss it and agree to disagree.

No problem Pantglas . I have never understood what people think name calling can achieve - by all means put forward a point of view but allow that some people may disagree

Apologies Beckett . I’ve just read it again (properly!) and you were simply commenting weren’t you.

I also have friends and family that support different rugby, football teams, h@ve different faiths, political affiliations and we all manage to state our case without resorting to the name calling and ridicule prevalent on the Brexit threads.

If you listen to a Corbyn speech you'll be impressed. The popular media tend to distort everything so I tend to (increasingly) find it's not worth bothering with them.

Pantglas1 Yes I do and we are able to discuss things without resorting to name calling - I don't understand your post -my post was supporting yours

I think it is insidious the way that the down market press uses entertainment and titillation as bait to entice their readers whilst presenting a very biased version of the news to indoctrinate them with political views, ensuring that they are likely to think and vote as directed.

Good post Doodledog.

Beckett - do you not have friends who hold different views?

I can't sleep, so am thinking aloud, but I think my thoughts are relevant to the thread - at least the last couple of posts. In these Brexit-obsessed days, I am seeing a lot of people using right/left wing as either an insult, or a description of someone's politics that seems to me completely inaccurate.

'I consider myself to be left/right wing. You disagree with me, so you must be right/left wing'.

It's nonsense a lot of the time, as many, if not most, disagreements aren't based around such a simplistic dichotomy, and there is a lot of cognitive dissonance surrounding people's perceptions of themselves compared with a more objective point of view, eg left wingers fiddling taxes, or right wingers claiming benefits.

IMO (although there will be other definitions, I'm sure, and mine is very basic) Left wing means believing in collectivity, sharing resources such as healthcare and education, with state intervention to protect the weak. At the extreme, all profits belong to the state.

Right wing means individual responsibility, looking after your own, insurance-based (or paid for at the point of use) services. At the extreme, if you can't pay, you starve, or are euthanised. They are basically economic definitions.

But there is also the libertarian/autoritarian axis with libertarian broadly meaning 'most laws should not interfere with individual choice', and autoritarian meaning 'laws are based on right and wrong, and people should obey or be punished' someone can be left wing and authoritarian or right wing and libertarian which complicates things, as these are basically attitudinal definitions. Both sets of definitions need to be taken into account when describing someone's politics.

Probably at one time, people were more easily defined in economic terms than they are now, as they either laboured or profited, in Marxist terms. Nowadays, with better education leading to a different labour market and the availability of much more information, it is less straightforward (hence the Brexit divide cutting right across class lines), and attitude comes into play.

I think that left and right are becoming less useful as definitions of people's outlook; but I'm not sure what should replace them. Any ideas?

If anyone is in any doubt about where they fit on the left/right libertarian/authoritarian axes, there is an interesting test here.

www.politicalcompass.org/test

You even get a certificate to print out with your allegiances and who shared them

GagaJo

"A vote for JC is a vote for the poor, the vulnerable, the under class. I'm not one of them.
BUT I work with them everyday at school and it is soul destroying, seeing all the social deprivation, caused by the bankers and their Tory supporters and excusers."

You are not one of them.......do they support Corbyn?

If you think I am a far right voter then you have extremely poor perception.

Englishrose
Yes I like this man.
As far as the IRA goes many of us recognised that the events in N,Ireland could not be blamed entirely on one body but were the results of years of oppresion and mistreatment, and we believed in a united Ireland.(and still do). The arrangements for the parliament visit were made before the bombing. Are you suggesting that MPs should never meet anyone who has served a prison sentence or does it depend on the crime?
Corbyn has throughout his life believed that the only way to resolve terrorist issues is to talk and he has been proved right in so many cases.
I know people who have lived and worked in Iran are they all traitors?
There is much to admire in Castro's Cuba, including the huge rise in literacy and the medical care being offered and spread to other countries. Only media bias stops us being informed about this.
Corbyn has worked and spoken for peace and I admire this.

I do call him Johnson

Ella good post.

I find this all very difficult.
I will admit to being a Blairite. I did, and still do, have a lot of respect for Tony Blair. I do not agree with everything he did, but I do believe that HE believed what he was doing was right.
As opposed to the politions today. I think they are all, with very few exceptions, paying lip service. Boris Johnson is a joke. End of story.
Unfortuneately, public perception is that there is no reasonable alternative. The British press have a lot to answer for. Although I do NOT agree with a lot of Jeremy Corberns uttererences, he has been deliberately badly portrayed by the press and is a far more reasonable and decent leader of the Labour Party than is presented to the general public.

I would prefer him, earnestness and all to an out and out fibber....

Charismatic he is not. But he is most certainly more trustworthy than Johnson.

And on that subject, can we all start calling the PM 'Johnson' and stop calling him Boris? No other leader has been afforded such a affectionate address.

Glad to see actual debate SUPPORTING JC and Labour. I'd started to despair thinking I was in a far right den on here!

A vote for JC is a vote for the poor, the vulnerable, the under class. I'm not one of them. BUT I work with them everyday at school and it is soul destroying, seeing all the social deprivation, caused by the bankers and their Tory supporters and excusers.

MaiseD

yes that's right I am a total idiot and ignorant of how the Govt works!

You are being very rude to me Why?

I have never voted Tory and never will.
Corbyn is weak and lazy too probably. he could have worked up more opposition with diff groups of people and got in the way but no too much trouble.

It is the perfect cop out to say what could Labour do they were not in power.....and that is because they have lost their supporters.
for many reasons, and I am not going to write out a list I don't have the energy.
I know people who were avid Labour and now cannot be supporters.
One of the reasons has been the anti-semitism and Corbyn's lack of concern and actions.

I am not happy being insulted on this thread.....I guess it's just that Corbynites don't like their leader being criticised!
My brain is not as good as it used to be but I can have an opinion without being called ignorant and other remarks made .

The Labour party have failed and their failure has allowed the Tories to ride roughshod over the poor weak and vulnerable.
Blair was never really a Labour was he? He tricked us all. and many of the messes we are in are down to him and Brown.

Trisher I have never voted Tory........in case you think I have.

Corbyn's brother, Piers, has come out against Jeremy C. Plus he is a scientist and refutes the whole concept of global warming.

The media have covered extensively Jeremy Corbyn’s Sky News interview in which he was pressed over his meetings with members of the IRA. The stories range from “Corbyn’s kick in the teeth for IRA victims: Labour leader refuses five times to unequivocally condemn IRA”, in the Daily Mail, to the more caveated “Corbyn pressed over IRA comments”, on BBC News online.

Yet, for many reasons, Corbyn is uniquely unsuitable to be prime minister. This is someone who accepted money from Iran to present on the government-affiliated channel Press TV and who invited Linda Quigley and Gerry MacLochlainn, both convicted of activity connected to the Irish Republican Army, to Parliament just two weeks after the IRA had killed five people and almost assassinated the British prime minister in the 1984 Brighton bombing.

Then, there is his long-held contempt for NATO and his admiration of far-left revolutionaries such as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez (reflected in the advisors and political allies closest to him, who include a self-identified Marxist, a decades-long member of the British Communist Party, and a defender of Joseph Stalin). Over the course of his 35-year-long career, he has taken every opportunity to prove his disdain for the West and his admiration for the people that seek to destroy us.

You like this man ?????

Some people seem to think Johnson is charismatic. I assume it was a joke, but some posters even on Gransnet said they wanted Johnson's babies. Why on earth would somebody write that, if they didn't at least approve of him?

I don't think he is but I've always thought that I was in a minority.

Johnson charismatic?