Ridiculous premise for your argument and you know it. There has been huge public concern over the portrayal of Corbyn by the BBC backed up by academic study.

You don't need to support the man to recognise and acknowledge this. Pretty much exposes your, er, bias.

These "studies" don't prove bias. They report the criticism v support for Corbyn, which is a totally different thing.

So for example, when Trump's muslim ban comes sunder universal condemnation, should the BBC find a tiny minority of people who support the ban and given them equal airtime to those who condemn it in the name of "fairness"?

Clearly the answer is no.

Putting “studies” in inverted commas doesn't discredit the conclusions of independent and respected bodies.

Nice attempt to clutch at straws for building a straw man.
How exactly does one decide what proportions to present support vs criticism airtime? There is also the language used, for example 'moderates' and 'hard left'.

To compare with the US Muslim ban is just ridiculous. 'tiny minority' lol. Even die hard Corbyn haters accept he has a lot of good, popular, ideas which go down well with people when given the chance to explain and get through the media blackout and constant negativity.

You ask for citation and evidence and then ignore it when it's presented to you. Grow up and eat some humble pie ffs.

The studies were asked for, but, sorry those studies contain serious flaws (which is common) and are not just some absolute representation of an objective reality.

There is no control group.

To know if the BBC is being more biased than normal against Corbyn you have to compare against the reporting of another politician, and given the media has a natural tendency to be negative and critical this needs to be demonstrated.

Also, its politics, maybe Corbyn sucks at presenting his message,maybe a lot of his negative media is due to members of his own party briefing against him. Bottom line is if he is receiving more negative press he has to accept some responsibility for it.

Ultimately its an unwinnable argument for a Corbyn supporter.

If the media is biased against him, then realpolitik makes him a poor choice of leader, as any incumbent media bias is not changing any time soon, and that is the best case for those supporting him.

Or he is just **** at managing the media.

Its actually a mix of both, the media (apart from the normal suspects who are of course biased against him) is probably a tad negative about him, but he is also **** in every way at surmounting this problem and indeed seems to leverage the negativity instead of overcoming it.

Ultimately if even the BBC wants to hit you with the ****ty stick you have no chance of electoral victory. That might be an unpalatable truth, but its a truth non the less, and I dont want to fight that truth on principle if the actual outcome is more years of hard core Tory rule when we could have a nicy comfy centrist left party instead.

An absolute representation of objective reality is impossible in any field especially politics. Any study into anything is up for debate and challenge, more so when dealing with political views. Any report presented here will be dismissed. Compare this with opinion polls and other yard sticks which show an unfavourable attitude towards Corbyn, despite also containing many flaws. Apparently these are to be believed as accurate representations without question. Now I don't automatically disbelieve such reports, but I would argue there is a myriad of factors rather than simply 'Corbyn bad, out, new leader'. The situation is obv a lot more complex. For one thing such a mindset is destined for failure and further disappointment, 'if we only had a new leader without the baggage' etc..

Of course it's about politics. The point is that some seem to think the media, specifically the BBC, is immune from political affiliation. Which, as I think you have just about accepted, is not true.

Could he have a better media strategy? Yes, absolutely. There are many things that could be done better, disciplining Peter Mandelson is another.
But this is isn't generally a debate among friends. This is a fierce political battle about the reversal or continuation of New Labour, and ultimately about the direction of the global economic system and how this is interpreted or adopted in UK policy. The middle ground is looking pretty thin right now.

I'm not ignoring it - you either haven't read the report and are just focused on the clickbait headlines, or you have read it and don't understand it.

As OAFK pointed out, there are problems with the study. Why didn't they compare the negative press Corbyn gets to Theresa May, Tim Farron or Donald Trump? maybe they all get more critical than supportive airtime? However, we don't know, as for reasons unknown (i.e they suspected it would undermine their "findings") they decided not to report this.

In conclusion, and I'm taking a bit of a punt here, but I suspect the criticism Corbyn gets is for other reasons than "BBC bias".

It seems there's two strands in the report. One arguing that overall coverage of Corbyn is predominantly critical. The other arguing that TV early evening news coverage is unusually critical even for the media, with the BBC being significantly worse. I think the report does a fairly poor job of distinguishing these two points.

The first is certainly open to the criticism of the data not being compared to the treatment of other leaders in similar 'crises', or even in more normal times. The second could certainly benefit from that too, but does seem to suggest on its own that early evening news may be biased. The contention of the report is that those bulletins are the most important in terms of reach of any news outlet in the UK, and that the BBC in particular has a obligation for impartiality.

Its fairly narrow focus isn't a great thing to conclude too widely on the basis of. Further that that second argument uses the existence of other, more seemingly balanced, news outlets to draw a contrasting point might undermine the extra conclusion - that Corbyn just can't get his message out at all. Nonetheless I think it ends up being something worthy of consideration.

Speaking as someone whose general, not particularly critical opinion was that the BBC is about as good as you're going to get, so whining about it is pointless, it was somewhat destabilising.

[Am talking about the research report here if that's not clear]

^ of course you can do better than the BBC, that's what the internet is for. But as you point out, the early evening news tends to be the most influential.

I pay my 12 quid a month same as everybody else so I expect a degree of fair balance which is not the case, the debate is over the extent of bias so let's not beat around the bush.

If it wasn't clear I meant as a national mass media, for particular interests and / or depth I obviously agree you can easily do better. This whole debate seemed about mass media and what impression and perspective averagely (i.e. not very) discerning media consumers would be given.

Not certain what you mean by the beating around the bush comment, but I certainly agree that the extent (and character) of bias is important and would be the determination of whether the BBC is failing - not simply that bias exists, which could be a fairly trivial statement on its own.

FWIW whilst that report means I'll make more of an effort to seek out sources on Corbyn, it didn't convince me the BBC is failing as a whole, but that the early evening bulletins would probably do well to check their editorial policies. Doesn't mean it isn't, though, and I'm not a good judge of that overall as I don't consume much BBC stuff these days (no longer live in the UK).

This reminds me of the campaign by the Nats up here pointing to supposed clear BBC bias against independence. They even had a report by an 'academic' that showed there were more pro union news stories than pro independence ones. Obviously the idea that there may be more positive reasons for being in the Union didn't matter to them, they just believed that the stories should strictly be split 50/50. The 'academic' who wrote the report showing this bias can be found on twitter these days telling wavering indy supporters that there should be no criticism of any SNP policies, no matter their impact, as it may harm the independece cause.

As a bit of a tag line to all this the SNP's grievance machine has been demanding a seperate Scottish news at 6'o clock, despite their being one half an hour later. The BBC has partially caved in and is giving them a seperate Scottish channel which will have a Scottish only news at 9:00 pm. Still the SNP aren't happy though as their ultimate aim is to take away the option of watching the news on BBC1 where English based journalists are outwith their reach. It's all rather sinister.

Ridiculous why? You're responding to a claim that Newsnight tends left. Well, it probably does. Ian Katz, the editor, is ex-Guardian and can hardly be characterised as conservative. (He's a jerk, obviously -- he's an Amanda Knox groupie, so QED -- but he's not a conservative.)

There has been no such public concern because Corbyn is extremely unpopular -- the least popular party leader in the history of British opinion polling. He's useless. And the two studies you've cited, the LSE one and the Birkbeck one, are self-published and therefore don't count as academic studies, even though they may be the work of academics who happen to be Corbynistas.

Nothing is ever going to be superior to seeking out the primary sources and assessing them yourself.

I don't recall any one on the left whining pathetically about bias when David Dimbleby, former Bullingdon club member, was put in charge of Question Time.
I don't recall any one on the left complaining about Jeremy Paxman, a self-described one-nation tory, heading newsnight for decades.
I don't recall any one on the left complaining when Nick Robinson, former head of the young conservatives, was appointed political editor.
I don't recall any one on the left complaining about the former conservative minister, Chris Patten, being appointed chair of the BBC.
I don't recall any one on the left complaining about the editor of the conservative Spectator, Andrew Neil, becoming host of two daily politics programmes on the BBC.

Would you like me to go on? I could, at some length.

To summarize: they are pretty much all Tories. So far we've had a total of one Blairite named by multiple posters as evidence of "left-wing bias".

Against that we have a number of meticulous academic studies proving right-wing bias at the BBC and no counter-evidence al all from academia.

All we have in this thread is essentially a bunch of people saying "I don't like Corbyn so the BBC is right to slag him off", in violation of all the available data and evidence.

So - more broken promises in the budget.
**** on the self employed

No help for those "just about managing"

I meant the premise is ridiculous, he was just grabbing an unsubstantiated claim out of nowhere to show me up, or at least that's how I interpreted. If anyone actually claims Newsnight is left leaning they've probably never watched it. Btw the Guardian is leading the charge in Corbyn bashing for all its 'left wing' credentials.

His counter to the budget today I wouldn't call useless. Thank God we have someone telling it like it is - a pack of lies from the Tories, exposed. Speaking of BBC bias, they repeated word for word without challenge Hammond's claim that £1 billion will be going into social care, without mentioning the £5b which has been taken out. Whereas McDonnell gets grilled not only by the snake Kuessenberg (already challenged over her unprofessional conduct), as well as some other randomer, AND Hugh Edwards ffs, since when has this oaf quoted figures to try to undermine his guests? Obviously McDonnell was having none of it.

Yes I see what you mean, 'mass' consumption of politics is heavily influenced by the evening news rather than actively seeking alternative news online. I would say channel 4 over the BBC if I had to choose though there's not much in it. The problem is also not just what is said, but what is omitted.

Anyone who thinks Newsnight is not left leaning would have to be so deluded that they would only accept it was left leaning if it lead with the headline, Marx; how he was 110% correct on everything.

Also are we going to actually dispute what way the Guardian leans. Just because they dont gobble on Corbyn knob in every article does not suddenly make them not left leaning.

If anything, the fact that even the guardian is hostile to Corbyn on many occasions should have the alarm bells ringing.

But no, you will nail your colours to his election losing arse what ever happens.

And for all the talk of bias, you do realise that if I had the power to pick the next Prime Minister I would pick Corbyn.

However I dont, and I have the detachment and the intellect to understand that he is a gargantuan liability to the best compromise we can hope for in the actual real world of Daily Mail readers get the vote.

You relate to Corbyn the same way someone relates to there football team, its pure homerism fan boi irrationality.

There's been another sham of a budget today but people would rather beat on Corbyn?
Odd

Momentum of discussion, if you want to mention something concrete about the budget go ahead, problem with budge now is we know most of it in advance anyway.

How about

He actually said that with a straight face.
And breaking election pledge on NI

Yea, but that is pretty standard politician gonna politician.

You dont actually seem to have much to say about the budget.

I dont think anyone has, it was very tinkery without any real big changes.

Was a bit tory gonna tory meh.

Sorry I'll let you get back to slagging Corbyn.

The Guardian supported the Liberal Democrats in 2010, apparently Gordon Brown, the most right-wing Labour chancellor ever, was not right-wing enough for them.

What you fail to understand is that we have been hearing the same crap from "modernizers" in the Labour party for over three decades. Mostly it did not work in terms of winning elections. Labour lost under Kinnock, Brown, Milliband. It only worked electiorally under Blair.

No one on the Left wants another Blair. The man was no better or worse than a Tory.

There is absolutely nothing to be gained for the left in supporting another modernizer whether they win or not. All we got was platitudes and tory-lite policies.

I didn't vote for Corbyn in either elections. I do however support him over another snivelling, compromising sell-out careerist looking to get on.

You sound to me like a Liberal Democrat. You believe in nothing except power for its own sake. Go and join them and campaign for nothing, and let the Labour party stand for something again.

Budget:

Tons of cash for free schools and Grammars but according to the national audit office it's an 8% average cut in real terms until 2020 for the average school (not to mention the 300m + which was clawed back from the Academies programme, where did the cash go?) bearing in mind rising costs through inflation, higher pensions and NI, apprenticeship levy. So it's mass job cuts for school staff, bigger class sizes etc..

Nothing to tackle social care and NHS crises.

So, there's cash flying around, money to be made, services available... for those that can afford it.