Of course, but they went for him immediately and after a few months his popularity and trustworthiness polling was way higher than the media's. He should have known by then that they didn't give a single shit about fairness or truth and turned against them, calling them out on their bullshit, basically doing an articulate, evidence based version of what Trump did. Instead his constant cow towing and playing nice empowered them and ultimately destroyed him.

They would have called him Trumpian and authoritarian and a Stalinist purging the party anyway, and we know this because they still did despite him playing ball and rolling over and giving ground. Boris Johnson purged 20+ MPs and the media basically shrugged for a week and then forgot about it. The coverage was never about Corbyn's actions.

I feel for him. He was facing a terrible challenge and a powerful, united enemy. But he never really took on that challenge. He tried to play nice, ignore it, and hope naively that people wouldn't pay attention and it destroyed the best chance the left has had electorally in half a century.