The Free Press?

ISSUE 11 – NOV/DEC 2020 THE FREE PRESS? A MONTHLY JOURNAL AND TEACHING TOOL EXPOSING PROPAGANDA IN THE MASS MEDIA A news resource which is not: Owned by billionaires The Campaign Beholden to advertisers Staffed by the elite Against Unlike other journals we Corbyn declare our interests: Continues! No profit motive (and Laura Kuenssberg is No cronyism involved…) An interest in exposing media bias by applying the Our January edition documented the incredible campaign on BBC news that Starmer “had no choice” propaganda model to delegitimise Jeremy Corbyn, a long time anti-racist but to deny Corbyn the party whip. campaigner, by associating him with anti-Semitism. 2. Corbyn correctly suspended for stating Blairites and the corporate media transparently had a the plain truth…say people who What is the propaganda political motive for doing so: Corbyn’s elevation within apparently stand for freedom of speech model? Labour marginalised “New Labour” figures and his left- and the pursuit of truth wing policies posed a threat to the advertisers and owners Journalists like Kuenssberg make lofty The vast majority of “headline of the corporate press. claims about what they stand for. Robert news” providers in the UK are The campaign ultimately succeeded - Corbyn was replaced Peston, ITV’s political editor, has described as Labour leader by Keir Starmer in the spring – but has journalism as “weighing the evidence and profit-driven corporations, not ended. saying on the balance of probabilities … this affiliated to even larger Indeed, it arguably reached its absurdist peak this month is the truth.” Kuenessberg has said that she corporations, who make most when Corbyn was suspended from the party for stating the would “die in a ditch for the impartiality of of their money from selling truth: the anti-Semitism problem in Labour was overstated the BBC”. advertising space to other by his political enemies. Strange, then, that neither Kuenssberg, Peston or, so far as we can tell, any corporate businesses. We take a look at the latest round of breath-taking double standards applied to Corbyn, without challenge, in the journalist queried the fact that Corbyn was The propaganda model echo chamber of the corporate media. suspended from the Labour Party for stating that “the scale of the (AS) problem was predicts that such media will 1. Demanding an impartial complaints process…until dramatically overstated for political generate a view of the world the party leadership must “intervene” to remove reasons.” Corbyn that is overwhelmingly There are, after all, objective ways to test The EHRC report on anti-Semitism in Labour was the favourable to the interests of whether Corbyn’s claim is correct. An trigger for November’s Orwellian events. The report was academic study by Glasgow University big business and marginalises, universally considered “damning” by the press and used as professor Greg Philo found that “on average yet another stick to beat Corbyn with. ignores or attacks opposing the public believes that 34% of Labour views. This despite the fact that, as Richard Sanders and Peter members have been reported for anti- Oborne of Middle East Eye report, “in many of the Semitism” when the true figure was less than A wealth of evidence supports examples it cites it is clear (Corbyn’s) office was 0.1%. interfering, not to prevent investigations for antisemitism, the model. Head to www.the- The public thought the problem was 340 but to speed them up”. free-press.co.uk for an times worse than it was but there were NO One of the recommendations of the EHRC report was that overview. political or media overstatements? Labour set up an independent committee to stop this kind Even Angela Raynor, Keir Starmer’s of interference. Wondering why you’ve never deputy, admitted that what Corbyn said heard of the propaganda On the same day Keir Starmer stated that Labour would “might be true”. adhere to the report recommendations he suspended model? So there we have it: the corporate press, Corbyn for his reaction - “precisely the political passionate defenders of free speech and the interference condemned by the EHRC” Jewish Voice for truth, not in the least concerned about a Perhaps you’ve been getting Labour observed. your news from…the news. former party leader being suspended for Corporate journalists weren’t only blind to such making a truthful statement… hypocrisy, they applauded it: Laura Kuenssberg implied (Article continues over page…) This journal has been designed with double-sided printing in mind. Reproduction of the journal is not only permitted but encouraged. The corporate media will not voluntarily become more representative. Public understanding of the role and function of the media is vital to the creation of a functioning, representative democracy. How does the propaganda model ISSUE 11 – NOV/DEC 2020 (Article continued from previous page…) As ever, the corporate media, have colluded work in practice? 3. Corbyn’s mild attempts to clamp down on internal in this. Jewish groups critical of Corbyn are dissent show his “intolerance”…say people who given vastly more airtime and column inches Critics of the propaganda model applaud and encourage Starmer’s draconian clamp than sources like Raine, Noam Chomsky, claim that it is a “conspiracy down on left-wingers Norman Finkelstein and Jewish Voice for theory.” Compare and contrast these headlines: Labour who speak in his defence. “Jeremy Corbyn’s Intolerance Makes Him Unfit to Lead” The late David Graeber, a celebrated Jewish This, perhaps purposefully, misses – Rachel Sylvester, The Times, July 2018 anthropologist and writer, detailed on the point of the propaganda Twitter how “in Aug 2019 I tried repeatedly “Keir Starmer Should Finish the Purge of Corbynism” - to get a piece in the Guardian suggesting model. Rachel Sylvester, The Times, July 2020 anti-Corbyn saboteurs in the LP [Labour This pattern recurs again and again in corporate media Party] were fanning the flames & doing so A conspiracy will not happen of its coverage. The same commentators who were furious when was itself #antisemitism. Editor told me own accord. People must gather in Corbyn threatened to push back against Blairites who explicitly I would NOT be allowed to rooms and have meetings to undermined him (so extravagantly they may have lost him criticise Corbyn’s critics motives”. the 2017 election, according to the Labour Leaks report) instigate a conspiracy. No wonder Andrew Feinstein, a former MP now cheerlead as Starmer goes out of his way to clamp in Nelson Mandela’s ANC party, has spoken down on the left. The beauty of modern media of people who have “given themselves the Starmer has gone so far as to ban Labour branches from propaganda is that it simply right to decide who is and who is not “the even discussing Jeremy Corbyn. That’s repression, that’s right kind of Jew.”” follows from the institutional Stalinistic, but have you read about it in the media? These people could also be referred to as structure of large media If Jeremy Corbyn tried to ban discussion of Tony Blair “corporate journalists”. companies. you’d have read about it on the front pages. Conclusion 4. The voice of significant Jewish groups and Double standards are a key indicator of Consider someone at the bottom individuals must be heard…unless they’re supporting media bias. If press outlets can be shown to of this structure: a young journalist rather than criticising Corbyn systematically apply different standards to at Rupert Murdoch’s Sun Blairites and the press have been desperate for the public one politician or group than they do to newspaper: Will this journalist to hear the “voice of the Jewish community” on anti- another then it indicates that the media are Semitism. not “free” or “balanced”. have to be told, in a conspiratorial Strangely, they seem to consider this a unified voice. manner, not to pursue stories Corbyn’s case is worth revisiting as it is “I know that this has been another painful day for the perhaps the most blatant example of double about unrest in the News Jewish community” Keir Starmer said when he took the standards, applied across the whole International boardroom and decision to deny Jeremy Corbyn the whip. corporate media, to a figure who poses a challenge to the corporate/establishment corporate malpractice by one of Barnaby Raine, a young Jewish academic, highlighted that consensus. the paper’s leading advertisers? a tweet from The Board of Deputies of British Jews - “The Jewish community does not accept this pathetic non- Do we have a corporate press or a free press? Not likely. Do you try to earn job apology from Jeremy Corbyn” - also implied that the Jeremy Corbyn is the litmus test - and there’s acid all over the papers. security by going against the values Jewish community is an entity that speaks with a single voice. of the institution that employs HOMEWORK! you? Type “Jeremy Corbyn Apartheid” into a search engine and read Of course, like us, journalists are about his anti-racist activism in the 1980s unlikely to reflect on the Type “Margaret Hodge Apartheid” into a search engine and read institutional parameters that about her relationship with South Africa in the 1980s. confine them. Far easier to tstst subconsciously adopt these values Type “Hodge Corbyn Anti-Semitism” into a search engine and read and believe that you believe them. some mainstream media articles. You’ll find plenty – Hodge has been Corbyn’s fiercest critic and a go-to source for the media If 90-95% of mainstream journalism positions are filled by Are you happy with the picture these articles provide? Does it seem people who share the same to you a fair picture, taking into account Hodge’s past profiteering framework of values, know which from racism and Corbyn’s committed resistance? stories to pursue and which to “It’s difficult to get You may wish to widen the picture even more and consider that ignore, what can be said and can’t Hodge is a multi-millionaire and disagrees with Corbyn on many a man to be said, that makes for a robust policy issues.

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