Now Unionized: Center for American Progress

The liberal think tank Center for American Progress (CAP), which has deep ties to Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration, has unionized with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE).

Here is more from Huffington Post:

Workers at the influential liberal think tank unionized with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the union told The Huffington Post. Leadership at CAP voluntarily recognized the staffers' request, enabling them to avoid a secret-ballot election. Management will now bargain with the union.

"It reflects our progressive values," Alyssa Peterson, a CAP staffer who works on poverty issues, said of the decision to unionize. "We saw it as a natural extension of our institutional support for collective bargaining."

The move comes just four months after the staff of ThinkProgress, CAP's popular, left-leaning news site, announced that they were unionizing. That campaign was part of a wave of six successful union drives at digital media outlets over the past year, including The Huffington Post. 

CAP staffers had talked for years about organizing into a union, though discussions began in earnest in May, according to Peterson.

Neera Tanden, CAP's current president, reportedly said that the think tank's management remained neutral about the decision, and Huffington Post notes it would have been scandalous if pro-union CAP had not.

IFPTE already represents other think tanks such as the union-backed Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

WSJ Reminds Writers How to Cite Political Leanings of Think Tanks

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has just sent out a reminder to its writers on how to address various style and substance issues, including how to address the political leanings of think tanks.  Here is more:

"A reminder in this political season that we should be careful to classify the political leanings of the think tanks we mention in articles.  As noted in 2009, the designations 'liberal,' 'conservative,' and 'libertarian' are appropriate.  'Progressive' isn't.  If there is any doubt about what to call a think tank, double check with the Washington bureau."

In 2009, WSJ said it should "endeavor to classify the political leanings" of the think tanks its mentions in articles, to give readers a "reliable signpost."  The newspaper noted that the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a liberal think tank, had recently been called "progressive" in a recent article.  WSJ said the word progressive is "a label some groups prefer because, after all, who doesn't like to be considered progressive?"  Here is more of what the WSJ said at that time:

It isn’t always easy to nail down the slant, if any, of individual think tanks. The conservative, liberal and libertarian designations as listed on Wikipedia are fairly reliable, but not infallible. The site also lists “centrist” groups, which we don’t consider a meaningful label, especially because some of those called centrist on the list are openly affiliated with political parties. Nonpartisan, if accurate, is better than “centrist.”  If other labeling is elusive, we can at least try to describe the think tank’s financing when it is appropriate: union-funded, or lawyer-funded,etc...

Think Tank watch is currently in the process of making a chart of dozens of think tanks and their political orientation compared to other think tanks.

In the meantime, one decent grouping of think tanks by political ideology can be found in this study by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).  But, according to WSJ standards, many of the ideological groupings would not pass editorial muster.  For example, Brookings is listed as "centrist" when in reality, it is left-leaning.  And the Cato Institute is listed as "center-right" when a more accurate description is libertarian.

By the way, WSJ is not the only media outlet that is thinking about think tank ideology.  For example, in 2011, NPR said it often does a lousy job in identifying the background of think tanks.  And inevitably, some think tanks, such as the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), fight to have their ideology as obfuscated as possible.

Here is an article from 2011 entitled "Calculating The Ideologies of Powerful Think Tanks."  Among other things, it contains a list of the 20 most cited think tanks and where they stand on the political spectrum.  Here is another list of think tanks by ideology, including Canadian think tanks.

Another interesting question: Is there media bias against certain types of think tanks?