Here is how it is done – how fake news is created by The Guardian to smear people who won’t fellate them, people like Jeremy Corbyn.
First of all you seize on a small news snippet – doesn’t matter how trivial, banal or even true it is. Then you report on the manufactured outrage of Corbyn’s opponents about the small (or untrue) happening – a Blairite MP, a propaganda source of the Israeli government, an unnamed ‘senior Labour figure’ etc.
Then you bring in a few of The Guardian’s venal and salaried opinionators to carry water in service to the smear. They add obediently manufactured angst about the ‘bitter row’ that has apparently engulfed the entire Labour movement.
Next up The Guardian feasts on its own reportage, talking up these media fartings as if they were real news and scratching together every tiny scrap of collaborative media coverage to support more faux news articles, rolling live blogs and lurid headlines.
After a few days of this laughably obvious churnalism The Guardian will pompously offer its views on the fake news story it has manufactured in an editorial. Surprisingly enough it will adopt a tone of sombre condemnation of Corbyn’s failings and all round infamy, implying rather strongly that he should clear off as Labour leader to be replaced by a more ‘realistic’ or ‘centrist’ type – these being code words for the kind of corporate friendly careerist that they find more amenable.
The final step is that The Guardian will build a theme – a smear that it returns to again and again. This will be framed as a long standing issue or problem that Corbyn has.
This morning The Guardian has returned to its favourite anti-Corbyn smear – the ridiculous assertion that he is an anti-semite.
This was the trigger for the latest round of this theme. Corbyn made a mistake in not recognising the anti-semitic content of a mural in 2012 on Facebook – something for which he immediately apologised about as soon as it was brought to his attention. This banal incident was given splash coverage from The Guardian and since this is one of their themed smears it had the usual opening line:
“Jeremy Corbyn was embroiled in a fresh antisemitism row on Friday…”
As always, what is missing is the context. This ongoing ‘row’ always seems to concern people who are Corbyn’s implacable political opponents . Those most frightfully upset about anti-semitism in the Labour Party always seem to be right wing Labour MP’s, propaganda fronts of the Israeli government and the corporate media itself. Take away the quotes and headlines of these actors and there really is no ‘row’ or story at all – the lack of content being disguised by the lurid hysteria of the ‘coverage’.
Within 24 hours The Guardian has gone full tilt in reporting the mock horror of Corbyn’s bitter opponents about Corbyn’s latest perfidy – coming up with this pearl of a headline The Sun would have been proud of:
The accusation is placed in quotes to provide the thinnest of fig leaves for the accusation. Note the close up picture of a tired and unshaven Corbyn – this is the image The Guardian wants you to have of him.
Now where is the Guardian opinionator to give substance to this latest smear? Here he is!
And the hysterical live blog given #1 splash red outlined prominence on The Guardian website? Here it is!
You can expect the sombre editorial to appear shortly.
Why does The Guardian do this:? Simple – it hates and fears democracy. Oh how the corporate media remembers fondly the ‘good old days’ when politics was an entirely closed shop and debate was policed by flagship media behemoths like The Guardian.
Corbyn is a real threat to the influence and power of faux progressive propaganda sheets like The Guardian. He has this idea of democratising the Labour movement so that ordinary voters actually have a say in how it is run and what its policies are. This is how The Guardian smeared that idea just a few days ago:
Note how The Guardian inverts the truth in order to hawk its own agenda. Hugely expanding the base of Labour’s membership and seeking to give them a say in how the party is run is bizarrely transformed into a propaganda hit in which (twice elected) Corbyn has somehow seized total control over Labour and turned it into a ‘party of one’. Subtle it ain’t.
The Guardian is determined to squash the outbreak of participatory democracy in the Labour movement at all costs. What remains of its reputation is now dragged through the mud on a daily basis.
But here is the real kicker – they want YOU to pay for it! The Guardian isn’t getting enough revenue from its corporate sponsors to sustain this ‘fearless journalism’ so you have to chip in to make up the difference.
How stupid does The Guardian think we are? Do they seriously imagine we are going to sponsor the attempts of the old westminster politico / media cliques to exclude us from politics?
NOT FUCKING LIKELY
The Jewish Socialist Association have also issued a statement on Labour’s bogus antisemitism problem. http://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/statement-on-labours-problem-with-antisemitism-from-the-jewish-socialists-g
BBC News at Ten (26/3/18) covered the demonstration outside parliament – the leading Labour MPs supposedly outraged over the ‘anti-semitism’ in Labour were West Streeting, Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman. They are the Labour MPs who claim they want ‘Stronger opposition to the Tories’, yet, behind the scenes, vote completely in line with the Tories for the biggest corporate takeover deal ever, that includes permanently having the NHS open on the global market. CETA. See who else in ‘Labour’ voted for the corporate takeover, here : https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2017-02-08/division/8688DFBA-3EC1-4132-ADEB-BBAEABCE01BA/ComprehensiveEconomicTradeAgreement(CETA)BetweenTheEUAndCanada?outputType=Party
Hi,
Thanks for this article. Very helpful.
I am amazed and saddened by this whole manufactured slur on Corbyn, the Labour Party and me as a left wing member. I am very nearly 70 and I’m seeing things clearer now than I have ever done.
I was getting sucked in by the Guardian. Not anymore.
Shocking continuation of their continuous attacks on Corbyn/Labour and the members.
Now we are being threatened by RW MPs that even questioning this stuff should lead to expulsion. What – censorship of dissent?
Blair has re-emerged when he should be in jail.
Keep up the good work!
Pura Vida.
Your anger and disdain is well placed,as I have said on FB where I have posted the article,Viner and co have plumbed new depths on this and the “Salisbury Incident”
I was just thinking of writing up a very similar report to this. The treachery of the Guardian is legend but they really do deserve a bankruptcy hearing, first morally, then financially.
In any event Sodium Haze have done a far better job than my amateur attempts and it gives me very great pleasure to promote the living daylights out of this story.
Our absence from active participation this last few months has seen us lose track of some areas and we apologies wholeheartedly for allowing our support to sites like Sodium Haze to slip.
We are working on addressing that right now
Time also to turn your attention to The Independent who are doing a similar job.Drip drip drip of anti Corbyn smears.They’re now pushing the idea of ‘a new centre party’.Didn’t we have that with Blair,then Clegg and the coalition and even further back the SDP…..look how successful that proved to be.Centre parties,just another phrase for ‘status quo’