The Right-Wing Op-Ed Insurgency

by Samuel P. Jacobs
The Daily Beast
Aug. 1, 2009 8:08pm

Liberal bias? A Daily Beast investigation crunches the numbers and shows how conservative think tanks have quietly achieved domination over the opinion pages of America’s biggest papers.

For all the noise about liberal bias in newsrooms, you’d think the country’s big three papers had contracted George Soros, Ralph Nader, and Gloria Steinem as their exclusive opinionators.

But a Daily Beast review of the archives of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post tells a much different story: Conservative think tanks are pummeling their liberal peers in the race for the most prominent placement on op-ed pages. During the past year, 77 percent of pieces authored by think-tank affiliates came from conservative outfits, 18 percent came from centrist groups, and a tiny 5 percent came from the left wing.

With The Wall Street Journal carrying a heavier load of think-tank contributions than the Times and Post combined, conservative wonks are given a significant leg-up, according Alex Jones, former Times media reporter and current head of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

“The Journal is certainly a big target,” says AEI President Arthur Brooks. “We love it.”

“There are more conservative think tanks, first of all,” Jones said, “and they are very aggressive and very effective. The Wall Street Journal op-ed page has been extremely accommodating. That’s the character and nature of the page.”

Which think tank takes up the most opinion-page real estate?

The American Enterprise Institute crushes the competition, liberal and conservative, in racking up bylines, scoring 99 of the total 217 pieces published by major think tanks from the third week of July 2008 to July 21, 2009, as shown by a review of the archives of the Times, Post, and Journal.

Of course, you’re four times as likely to find an AEI piece in the right-leaning pages of the Journal than in the more liberal pages of the Times and Post put together. In fact, 79 AEI-bylined op-eds appeared in the Journal during the period surveyed. Considering that the Journal publishes only six days a week, that’s one AEI appearance every four days. Bush hawks like John Yoo, John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, who nest at the D.C. institute and are frequent contributors, help pad the stats. A recent offering from Yoo, the former Bush Justice Department official: “ Why We Endorsed Warrantless Wiretaps." Last month, Bolton, Bush’s former representative at the United Nations, floated this thought balloon in the Journal: “ What Would Happen if Israel Strikes Iran?”

But it’s important to note that the AEI crowd is not completely confined to the Journal. They also find themselves in the opinion section of the Washington Post more times—16 during the last year—than any other think tank.

“It’s been something AEI has been really pleased about,” AEI President Arthur Brooks told The Daily Beast. Brooks said he thought the AEI’s reputation helped secure so many pieces: “Everybody knows the AEI guys write really good op-eds.”

Stressing that he likes scholars to speak to audiences that aren’t completely like-minded, Brooks nevertheless recognizes the special relationship between the Journal and his institute. “The Journal is certainly a big target,” he said. “We love it.” Continue reading story here.