Robert Peston says claims of bias are 'utter rubbish'

Twitter row: Robert Peston refuted accusations of bias in his phone-hacking coverage
12 April 2012

BBC business editor Robert Peston today denied being a News International "patsy" after Labour MPs claimed some of his reports were apparently favourable to the company.

The row erupted when two former News of the World executives accused James Murdoch of giving misleading evidence to MPs. Peston, a friend and Muswell Hill neighbour of News Corp executive Will Lewis, instead reported last night that Matt Nixson, features editor of the Sun, had been dismissed over allegations of serious misconduct when he was at the NoW.

Labour MP Tom Watson tweeted: "Why Sun story now Peston? More spin to deflect Myler/Crone statement?" Peston replied: "Tom, that is an outrageous and untrue allegation." Watson then tweeted: "Stop being a patsy."

When Peston's Nixson story led the phone-hacking coverage on the News at Ten, former Labour minister Denis MacShane tweeted: "Robert P should no longer be reporting on this." Labour MP Chris Bryant said: "The BBC may as well get Will Lewis on each time and be done with it."

Peston told the Standard today that any allegation of bias was "complete and utter rubbish".

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in