IMAGINE if this worked the other way round. The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg is trying to ask a question of David Cameron and her words are drowned out by a bunch of posh-boy yobbos shouting. What would we think of that?
Not a lot, I would say. Yet this is what happened yesterday – with the only difference being that Labour supporters at a pro-Europe speech by Jeremy Corbyn started booing and hissing when Kuenssberg was invited to ask a question. The Labour leader reportedly had to shush the crowd before the Beeb’s political editor could speak.
Why did this happen? Many Corbyn supporters are obsessed with bias and believe that Kuenssberg has it in for their man. A little like followers of a religion, they react with holy anger whenever they feel their sainted hero is being treated unfairly.
There are a number of possible explanations. The first is that the criticism is true (I don’t believe it myself, by the way); the second is the role of social media; the third is the strong support Corbyn enjoys from new supporters who came from outside of the old-style Labour party.
Add those three strands together and you get a big knot of a conspiracy theory.
So is Kuenssberg biased? Well, this is partly a matter of taste and interpretation. I’d say some of the criticism was a misunderstanding of how a political journalist works, perhaps how any reporter works. By its nature the job involves asking sometimes confrontational questions of political leaders. Kuenssberg took on the role when Corbyn was newish to his role, and so he was a big political story. And whenever she asked anything considered ‘unfriendly’ by the Corbynistas, they reacted angrily, and then took to social media to complain.
Social media platforms sometimes act as an echo chamber for the like-minded: people gather in a dispersed mob, moan and shout, and then assume they must be right in their beliefs because everyone around them is making the same point.
Then you add to that left-wing websites such as The Canary, where many of the complaints about the BBC originate. This site says of the latest row: “The mainstream media has closed ranks to protect the BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, but the public aren’t falling for it.”
And by ‘the public’ they mean all those people who think the same as they do. Nothing wrong with that as such; nothing wrong with such websites adding to the political variety of life. Except that they are as biased as everyone else, and more openly so than the BBC ever is; biased in the way that, say, the Daily Mail or the Telegraph are, but from the other perspective.
Interestingly, the phrase ‘mainstream media’ is used pejoratively to embrace just about everyone else apart from websites such as The Canary. The Guardian and the Observer, newspapers of choice to many an old leftie, are often swept up in the general contempt felt by this alternative media. And in my world, if those two newspapers aren’t to be trusted, then who is?
In the end all this hating of Laura Kuenssberg and the BBC is an unhelpful distraction for Jeremy Corbyn and Labour. Instead of complaining all the time, Labour needs to make better efforts to use television and other media to put across its messages. It’s a game that has to be played in this country, and standing on the touchline saying “It’s not fair” won’t get you very far.
And imagine if the Kuenssberg-haters got their way: a BBC political editor would have been removed by pressure from a political party or its supporters. What a frightening precedent that would set.
Incidentally, another possible explanation for all this is that David Cameron mostly favours stage-managed occasions at which he is asked no difficult questions. And that’s why it was good to see him pushed on the defensive yesterday on Sky News during the first major TV event of the EU referendum campaign.
If the BBC is failing somewhere in its political coverage, the problem lies in not asking enough questions of the prime minister, I’d say.
I think we”ll have to continue agreeing to disagree on this one, Julian.
The lame-stream media was against Corbyn from the start… in particular, the so-called left-leaning or would-be ‘liberal’ outlets such as the Guardian; and the BBC, which displays such consistent pro-establishment bias and self-censorship, and has done for years. The coverage by both outlets of the Labour leadership campaign was remarkably awful and patronising / condescending, and it is my contention that they (by which I mean most of their most strongly established commentators) still find it hard to accept the fact that a LOT of people see things very differently to the way they do; and that other points of view can exist outside the ‘comfy middle’ (especially now that “other media outlets are available” – very good ones, for those determined enough to seek them out).
It brings to mind a quote from one of my favourite authors, Noam Chomsky: ““The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum…” That is what we have seen in the UK until very recently (and are seeing now within the referendum debate, to a great degree); but the fact that the terms of the debate have grdaully shifted – and indeed started to stray outside that strictly limited spectrum – is clearly very worrying to many, but a fantastic testament to what went on last summer and to Corbyn & John McDonnell’s very different style of politics.
By the way, if you’ve never watched Chomsky’s interview with Andrew Marr (from many moons ago), just Google it – an absolute treat in a toe-curlingly embarrassing, master-vs-eager-but-clueless pupil kind of way 🙂
Happy Friday!
Thanks Steve, interesting thoughts even while we agree to disagree… thanks for still reading…
Hello Julian
I went searching for your email address online so that I could send you mine. No luck. Then I realised if I left a comment on your blog I could accomplish my mission. I picked this ‘old’ one because the study published by Media Reform Coalition in association with Birbeck College at end of the last week meant it was topical again. It follows hot on the heels of the report from the LSE on newspaper coverage in the weeks following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as the leader of the Labour Party last September. Is it reasonable to conclude from this that ‘Labour making better efforts to use television and media to put across it’s messages’ wouldn’t really make that much difference? Which might explain some resorting to booing and hissing. if that’ s not the way to go then is it a case of “old lefties of the U.K. (sic) unite you have nothing to lose but the Guardian, the Observer and BBC news.”?
Phil
Good point, Philip. Just came across this rather excellent article / ‘letter’ to Guardian journos. May this once-great paper rest in peace…
http://www.55factory.net/55cultures/the-guardian-running-out-of-supporters-and-money