Russian news may be biased – but so is much western media

As tensions continue to rise between the West and Russia, increasing attention is being paid in Western media to what are frequently described as the ‘propaganda’ activities of Russia. Regarding the recent setting up of Sputnik News in Edinburgh,The Sun headlines “Putin’s glamorous propaganda girls who front a new UK-based news agency ‘that aims to destabilise Britain’” whilst the Mail describes how ‘Vladimir Putin is waging a propaganda war on the UK’.

In 2016 The Times, a study by an MPhil student at the University of Oxford, Monica Richter, is reported to confirm that people who watch Russia Today are more likely to hold anti-Western views. The tone of the The Times articleis clear: Russia Today uses unqualified and ‘obscure’ experts, is frequently sanctioned by Ofcom for bias and failure to remain impartial and, worst of all, actually seems to be ‘turning viewers against the West’. Perhaps…