Your analysis of Corbyn`s "momentous defeat" rightly mentioned "lack of leadership over Brexit" and problems with the leader himself (Corbyn was not the leader to address Labour`s decline. It can`t make the mistake again,15.12.19). In such a wide-ranging analysis, surely all factors have to be considered, and that means media bias has to be included.? It is a fact that Labour`s leadership team endured endless criticism from the media as soon as Corbyn took over from Miliband, whose own election defeat in 2015 can be attributed in part to media bias. Pages and pages in the press have been devoted to character assassination of Corbyn, with not only the right-wing newspapers to blame. Writers like your sister paper`s Freedland and Behr, as well as your own Rawnsley and Cohen, have all taken part in a media exercise to demonise Corbyn`s character and history. It is totally disingenuous to ignore the role of the media in persuading, for example, such people as the voters interviewed in Sedgefield that Corbyn lacked patriotism (In Blair`s old seat, the regulars agree: "Corbyn doesn`t understand us here", 15.12.19)!
The BBC`s changing of video footage to avoid embarrassing Johnson, its omission of favourable items for Labour, like the Friends of the Earth`s green manifestos` analysis, from the main news outlets, and the palpable difference between the interviewing styles used by presenters, especially on the Today programme, for Labour and Tory politicians, are just some examples of yet more anti-Labour bias. Emily Maitliss`s verbal assault on Barry Gardiner on Newsnight was so obviously not "impartial", it leads one to wonder whether an Andrew Neil interview with Johnson was ever on the cards!
The Labour party and Corbyn were undoubtedly the major losers in the election, but the integrity of all aspects of the media, with very few exceptions, ran them a close second!
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