Labour Leadership race: Media bias reflected in rally coverage?

OffG Editor

This weekend both Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith have been touring the north of England. Smith has been speaking in Liverpool, whilst Corbyn gave talks in Hull and Leeds.
What no one seems to be talking about is the differing sizes of these rallies. Rather like their respective campaign launches – where Corbyn filled a 2000 seat theatre to capacity whilst Smith spoke to around a tenth of that number – the challenger seems to be struggling to even get people to turn up to hear him speak, let alone vote for him.
At a sunny outdoor event in Liverpool, the promise of free ice-cream scared up only 200-300 people (and some people have reported it was less than half of that). Meanwhile, Corbyn held a rally of over 1000 people in York, spoke to 3000 people in Hull (the largest political gathering in the city for 20 years), and then 2000 more in Leeds a theatre, as well as going outside to speak to the queue of 1000 people who could not get seats.
None of this is news of course, that Corbyn has far more popular support than Smith is widely known, what’s interesting is that none of the MSM are mentioning it. You have to ask yourself, if Corbyn were attracting crowds less than 1/10th the size of Smith’s…would that not make a headline in The Times, The Guardian or The Telegraph? If Smith had filled a theatre to capacity and then got out to speak to the waiting queues…don’t you think the BBC would mention it?
It’s interesting that none of the of mainstream media have reprinted or recorded any Corbyn’s speeches at these rallies, or reported on them at all except for brief mentions well after the fact. Recent studies at both London School of Economics and Birkbeck College, London have found very strong anti-Corbyn bias in the media.

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