{"id":2564,"date":"2017-05-10T15:20:15","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T13:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=2564"},"modified":"2017-05-10T20:18:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-10T18:18:00","slug":"media-cant-hide-that-theyre-in-bed-with-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2017-05-10\/media-cant-hide-that-theyre-in-bed-with-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Media can&#8217;t hide that they&#8217;re in bed with May"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is the first British general election in decades in which there is anything approaching a real political choice. For that reason, even the most liberal elements within the corporate media are jettisoning the pretence of neutrality and objectivity. The stakes are simply too high.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, their bias\u00a0has become\u00a0so overt that even a veteran BBC and Channel 4 reporter like Michael Crick is becoming exasperated and letting vent on Twitter.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">What shocks me is reporters collaborate with May press team by agreeing to reveal their questions to them in advance <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/p7LMEBXy7e\">pic.twitter.com\/p7LMEBXy7e<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MichaelLCrick\/status\/861917773370470401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 9, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Theresa May in York right now, addressing Tory candidates, councillors &amp; activists, not local York voters <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oliUbgdkhk\">pic.twitter.com\/oliUbgdkhk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MichaelLCrick\/status\/861911457587449857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 9, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Crick&#8217;s outrage has been\u00a0triggered by the media&#8217;s complicity in allowing British prime minister\u00a0Theresa May to stage-manage her\u00a0election campaign. The media are submitting questions for vetting (without admitting the fact\u00a0to viewers), and failing to report that\u00a0in most cases only hardcore Tory party supporters, not members of the public, are being allowed near\u00a0her.<\/p>\n<p>One should not\u00a0be surprised that the Conservatives want to rig the campaign trail to make\u00a0their candidate look good. The problem is that the corporate media are conspiring to help them do it.<\/p>\n<p>Why would the media be so willing\u00a0to mollycoddle May and keep her from embarrassing herself? Doesn&#8217;t the media feed off the high and mighty being brought low\u00a0by gaffes and\u00a0pratfalls?<\/p>\n<p>That might be\u00a0true\u00a0if nothing was really at stake, as has been the case in\u00a0the last few decades of elections. But if May loses, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn\u00a0will\u00a0be in power instead. The elites are so sure they are firmly in control of everything that\u00a0they\u00a0are determined to\u00a0make sure\u00a0that doesn&#8217;t\u00a0happen.<\/p>\n<p>May, it is\u00a0clear, is a weak\u00a0public performer. That is why she has refused to debate Corbyn, and why BBC interviewers are giving her softball questions. She is even\u00a0pampered\u00a0with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/election-2017-39865991\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">an interview<\/a> on the BBC with her banker husband, Philip, posing as though they are royalty.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast to May, the\u00a0Labour leader makes a good impression when he is able to speak about policies rather than being battered by not just hostile, but openly disparaging, questions\u00a0from BBC interviewers like Laura Kuenssberg.<\/p>\n<p>During the independence referendum\u00a0campaign in 2014, many Scots started to understand\u00a0that they lived in an ostensible democracy only. The media, and most notably the BBC, worked so strenuously to deny\u00a0them any\u00a0information that might encourage\u00a0them to\u00a0make the &#8220;wrong&#8221;\u00a0choice that the mask\u00a0of neutrality\u00a0slipped off. In a sign of the desperation, as\u00a0the vote looked to be nail-bitingly close, even the Queen was roped in to bolster the case for staying in the union.<\/p>\n<p>As the UK media all but declare\u00a0fealty\u00a0to May, this may prove to be an\u00a0Indyref moment for the rest of Britain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the first British general election in decades in which there is anything approaching a real political choice. For that reason, even the most liberal elements within the corporate media are jettisoning the pretence of neutrality and objectivity. The stakes are simply too high. In fact, their bias\u00a0has become\u00a0so overt that even a veteran [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[59,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-2564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-jeremy-corbyn","8":"tag-media-criticism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}