BBC treats Diane Abbott and other Corbyn allies with contempt. We need to reform the media now We cannot continue with a situation where the 40 per cent who voted for Corbyn at the last election are treated as some malign phenomenon

In order to properly combat the bias within the BBC and the wider media, we need to properly understand where it originates.

If anything is to come from the disgraceful treatment of Diane Abbott on Question Time, the response must be centred on the real issue within the established mainstream press, which is cultural and not conspiratorial.

As a socialist, my critique of the media is a structural one and not a personal one. The fact that many in the press take critique as a personal attack proves how important the issue of culture really is.

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Representation is getting worse, not better

Though there are notable exceptions, it is completely and utterly undeniable that being privately educated, going to Oxford or Cambridge university, being white, being male and not being working class means you are most likely to get on within the media industry.

The latest Sutton Trust report into the backgrounds of the country’s professional elite found that over half of the country’s leading 100 journalists were privately educated and that 80 per cent of leading editors went to either a private school or a grammar school. The Social Mobility Commission also found that the media was more dominated by the privately educated today than it was in the 1980s. That means that representation is getting worse, rather than better.

City University research found that 94 per cent of the industry is white. Alan Milburn, the formal social mobility tsar, found that although 60 per cent of the population are from a working class background, just 11 per cent of journalists are.

Institutionalised centrism

This isn’t conspiracy: it is fact. It is on this basis that we should approach the question of bias and the underrepresentation of dissenting views within the media. We must accept that it isn’t the case that a group of people have got together and conspired to damage the left. In many ways, it is worse than that. What is actually going on is the result of decades of institutionalised centrism.

Read more BBC say reports of jokes about Diane Abbott before Question Time are ‘inaccurate and misleading

The media is an institution like all others and institutions develop an ideology of their own. The pool from which it selects means that radical and dissenting voices are few and far between because sticking to the line and sharing in the established culture reaps more reward than rebelling.

That isn’t a personal criticism, it’s just a part of life. We all know, in our respective industries and lives, that you’re more likely to get on somewhere if you either already agree with the party line or you make yourself agreeable to it.

A deeper and embedded problem

Though some media outlets publish dissenting voices, they are often featured less regularly and not as prominently. Supporters of Corbyn, such as myself, are still introduced on the BBC as nothing other than ‘fans’ when May’s ardent cheerleaders are afforded their proper titles despite backing the absolute clusterfuck which is this Government. Much of this isn’t conscious, which proves that there is a deeper and embedded problem.

‘Corbyn, members of the shadow cabinet, and his supporters are treated with contempt’

We cannot continue with a situation where the 40 per cent who voted for Corbyn at the last election are treated as some malign phenomena that is undeserving of representation. Abbott was absolutely right in her response to challenge the fact that Corbyn, members of the shadow cabinet, and his supporters are treated with contempt.

We need to democratise the media and challenge the entrenched norms which have developed as a result of a toxic culture that only views centrist (whether centre-right or left) opinions as valid. That is no easy task, but it is one that the media must also embark upon itself if it is to be relevant and trusted. It is also something from which everyone gains. So let’s get on with it.