An excellent piece today on FB from Attila The Stockbroker, which I’m C&P-ing below.

”Had a long and fascinating conversation with Ed Miliband last night about press and media bias against the Labour Party and his experience of it, which obviously took a hell of a lot out of him at the time. The disgusting, yes, antisemitic slurs against his father, the endless seeking out of unfavourable photo shots, just one chapter in an endless campaign of vilification and abuse against the Left. Foot's donkey jacket, Kinnock's bald head, the sneers, the personal taunts...

The contemptible individuals who write this stuff are a disgrace to the journalistic profession: they are the brown-nosing hirelings of billionaires and should have no place in a civilised society. The only Labour leader since my adulthood to have escaped the disgusting demolition of the right wing press is Blair, and he flew to Australia and prostrated himself before Rupert Murdoch to achieve it. That is not a democratic process, and in terms of the media, this country is not a democracy.

Everything is skewed in favour of the Tories since, obviously, rich media barons want to protect their wealth, and the most disgusting and hypocritical aspect of all this is that these proprietors feel entitled to be as biased as they like while vilifying public service broadcasters whom they accuse of favouring the Left.

It shouldn't matter whether a media outlet is privately or publicly owned: they are all supposed to be providing a public service and should be accountable as such. And no outlets should be owned by wealthy individuals, but should be shareholders' co-operatives like the newspaper I am proud to write for.

Across the board, and especially at election times, there needs to be a media watchdog with the teeth of a thousand Siberian tigers enforcing impartiality, fairness and the eradication of what is so laughably called 'fake news.' That doesn't mean that outlets should not be biased towards one side of the other. It does mean that, by law, there should be equal media representation of the ideas of Right and Left.”