They’re great stories: two outsiders in party contests who have taken the lead in polls against all expectations. They’re both candidates who appeal to the party heartlands while commentators and politicians warn they won’t be popular with the wider electorate.
But is the coverage of Jeremy Corbyn and Donald Trump in their respective leadership bids so disproportionate to the other candidates that it’s partly responsible for their lead in polls?
Well, Google Trends shows that its users are just as interested as media coverage suggests: they have been searching for a lot more information about Corbyn and Trump than about their rivals.
Trends doesn’t allow comparison of enough terms to include all the Republican candidates at once, but certainly some of the better known ones find themselves in the shade compared to Trump.
The spike is around the televised candidates debate which attracted a record 24 million viewers, compared to three million for the equivalent ahead of the last presidential election. Donald Trump commented: “They call me the ratings machine.”
The US media has started to question its fascination with Trump, with Gabriel Arana in the Huffington Post complaining about a circular argument in which ratings are used to justify coverage, creating interest that leads to higher ratings:
“Journalism's role as a public service has largely persisted because those in positions of power - news executives and producers - have sought to balance the quest for ratings with the duty to inform the public about matters of substance. But with the networks’ 24-hour Trump binge, that sense of duty seems to be in short supply.”
In the UK, the debate about coverage of Jeremy Corbyn is more about quality than quantity: has the media been biased against him? Roy Greenslade used his Guardian column last week to record signs of more sympathetic coverage: “At last, Jeremy Corbyn attracts some national newspaper sympathy.” Even the Telegraph, he notes, has been making more positive noises.
Personally, I wonder if that’s just an example of how the media pendulum can’t stop swinging: once everyone has had enough of ‘Labour would be mad to elect Corbyn’, there's a market for ‘Corbyn isn’t so bad after all’.
If you want a hype-free roundup of the Labour leadership candidates, look no further than the BBC’s guide to the candidates. They all get equal space and Corbyn is covered with admirable restraint: “Mr Corbyn, who is promising to protect public services and increase taxes on the wealthy, was seen as a rank outsider, but support for his candidacy has risen significantly.”
Good luck to Corbyn and Trump and all the other candidates - whoever they may be.
