It’s only lunchtime but the Guardian may have already reached ‘peak Guardian’ for the day. The paper has published an article penned by Chris Elliott chronicling an in-house investigation into their coverage of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership bid.
They decided to do this after a number of Corbynistas complained that the left-wing paper had shown bias against Corbyn, with one reader going so far as to claim that their reporting of his leadership bid was worse than the paper’s coverage of the Vietnam war:
‘I’ve been a regular reader of the Guardian (Manchester Guardian as was) since 1958. Despite the low point reached in the 60s when you supported the US war in Vietnam for a while, I still continued with it. But your sustained, arrogant, specious and just false reporting of Corbyn’s candidacy is too much. I am not a member or even supporter of the Labour party but your scurrilous coverage has convinced me that your paper no longer lives up to the label. I shall no longer … buy it nor view it online. Goodbye.’
This criticism led the paper to launch an inquiry which included reader polling:
‘Among those expressing an opinion, 76% of readers believe that our coverage of the contest so far has been “fair and balanced”. However, 24% of readers disagree, and among Corbyn supporters this figure increases to 36%.’
Their research shows that the under-24s and the over-45s tend to be the biggest Corbyn supporters:
‘The research shows a clear pivot point, with those aged 45-plus significantly more likely to be left of centre than those aged below 45. However, readers aged 18-24 are more likely to be left of centre than those aged 25-44. So while most of the support for Corbyn would come from older readers, there is some evidence of a resurgence among the really young.’
Their conclusion? In the beginning of the leadership campaign a number of articles — which included one with the now-amended headline ‘Jeremy Corbyn warns ‘naughty people’ to leave Labour party alone’ — suggested the paper wasn’t taking him seriously. However they claim this has since been remedied with a balance of comment pieces about the man who is now predicted in the polls to be the next Labour leader:
‘But in the early days of Corbyn’s charge, the readers rightly got a sniff that on occasions we weren’t taking him seriously enough. That has changed, and there is still much coverage to go before the ballot closes on 10 September. I can’t find any evidence that the negative pieces outnumber the positive pieces by as much as “five to one”, although that view is strongly held by some. Anyway, tallies of positive and negative pieces are a dangerous measure, as the Guardian should not be a fanzine for any side.’
While the Guardian should not be a ‘fanzine’, Steerpike suspects Corbyn supporters have little to worry about: last month, Mr S reported that Corbyn’s trip to the paper’s offices triggered a level of fan-mania which hasn’t been witnessed since Benedict Cumberbatch visited. Jez they can!
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