Corbyn’s plan to revolutionise the mainstream media

Jeremy Corbyn is hitting the comeback trail. The former Labour leader made the keynote speech at this week’s Media Democracy Festival organised by the Media Reform Coalition. He began by citing his own journalistic credentials. ‘I produced 500 columns for the Morning Star.’ Then he turned to India where 250 million strikers are protesting against the removal of state support for farmers. The strike involves ‘one in thirty of the entire population of the world,’ enthused Corbyn, which makes it the largest industrial dispute in history. But coverage in the UK has been minimal, ‘which says a lot about the priorities and the news values of much of our media outlets in this country, that they don’t think it’s worth reporting’. 

Part of the problem is the uneven distribution of power. ‘Media ownership — and there’s no better word I can think of than this — is congealing in fewer and fewer hands,’ he said.