Report claims BBC has a bias towards left-wing think tanks
THE BBC has been accused of bias in its online reporting in a report out today that shows it is far more likely to cover reports from left-wing think tanks.
A quantitative analysis of the BBC News website between 1 June 2010 and 31 May 2013 also found many left-of-centre think tanks are described as independent but right-wing opinions are often given a “health warning”.
As a result the BBC should look at “the level of coverage given to voices from across the political spectrum”, according to Oliver Latham, who produced the report for the Centre for Policy Studies, a right-wing think tank.
His analysis suggests the BBC’s coverage of think tanks is more closely aligned to The Guardian than The Daily Telegraph.
A BBC spokesman insisted its coverage its fair: “[The CPS does not] provide concrete evidence to back up their claims or publish the full methodology used – although they do point to references to searches on Wikipedia.”