Think Tanks Tanking

Katherine Mangu-Ward | April 2, 2008

The 25 most media-prominent think tanks were cited 17 percent less in 2007 than they were the year before, FAIR’s annual survey of think tank citations found. The decline was felt across the board among centrist, conservative and progressive think tanks.

Researchers were somewhat baffled by this finding, but I can speak for my small part in the phenomenon: The difficulty of trying to find just the right quickie descriptor (right-of-center? progressive? wingnut? moonbat?) combined with the fact that many think tankers also have a university affiliation makes it desirable to just drop any mention of the tank tank altogether wherever possible.

Academics like Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo have used media citations of think tanks to take a stab at quantifying media bias. Their study makes me (and likely other journalists as well) much more aware of when and how to cite think tanks, and more likely to use a workaround where possible. It's worth noting though, that I'm a backstabber--I still find sources through think tanks, I just don't cite them as such if I can help it. Lack of citations may not indicate the the influence of think tanks is actually, well, tanking.

Via Jacob Grier

Comments

|4.2.08 @ 4:47PM|#

Could it have to do with campaigning being so large an 07 media topic? I don't often see think tanks commenting on candidates (unless I'm just missing it)

Mark|4.2.08 @ 4:49PM|#

Maybe this has something to do with cost cutting in the news media. Think tanks are usually secondary sources - experts giving perspective about the event at the center of the story.

If there are fewer reporters out there writing about the news, it would make sense that they have less time to interview experts at think tanks to add depth to their stories.

|4.2.08 @ 4:50PM|#

...or related to that, that the media was more interested in the candidates opinions of other major topics than those of the think tanks they might normally ask

The Wine Commonsewer|4.2.08 @ 8:53PM|#

Hell, you guys don't even cite Reason Foundation.

BakedPenguin|4.3.08 @ 12:06AM|#

I was going to point out that Katherine didn't have a think tank citation in her article either, but TWC beat me to it, sort of.

deron|4.3.08 @ 12:18AM|#

Could it just be that think tanks simply aren't as sexy as they were?

|4.3.08 @ 12:26AM|#

Blogs r better

|4.3.08 @ 10:59AM|#

Katherine, Getting ideas from a think tank author's research without citing to him/her is a form a plagiarism. Its far worse than not giving a "hat tip" to a blogger, which you appropriately do.