Not linking to a company described in a news article can be annoying but it's not always some casino mentality code they have against outlinking to maximize internal pageviews -- in many cases it's also journalism trying to hold onto some standards of not just being a shill for the interview subject.

Not linking to a company described requires a very conscious effort. It's obvious that when you want to tell people "hey, look at X", you want to point people towards X somehow. If you don't do this, then it means you have some ulterior motive for not doing that.

On Wikipedia they call it citing sources. Journalism would certainly do very well to practice that.

The BBC somehow survives now that it's actually linking to papers referenced, entities discussed in the article, etc.

Well being state funded probably helps in that regard

I'd think that would work against the claim being asserted - that external links affect neutrality - given how closely people watch the BBC for any possible bias and berate it for assumed bias (with or without cause).

That and losing money doesn't look entertaining through a window