The Brookings Institution has fired back at the New York Times with a 7,000-word, annotated retort after the paper published a series of articles about the influence and funding of corporations on think tanks.
Brookings contends the Times reporters, who spent more than seven months on the story with cooperation from Brookings, "had clearly made up their minds about conflicts of interest between think thanks and the corporate world before they sought our views and responses."
The response is reminiscent of the National Football League's thorough response to a Times article in March about concussions in pro football.
Brookings said the paper focused on a few "anomalous missteps as examples of standard practice."
The think tank accused the reporters of working "to bend their story to support a misguided accusation" that think tanks promote corporate and commercial interests rather than working toward the public good.
Brookings contends think tanks, as well as educational and arts institutions, face a "donar relations" environment that has become "increasingly complicated in an era of largely restricted grant-making."
The think tank also takes issue with the Times' observation that stakeholders have "agendas," where Brookings refers to that fact as "interests"
The 15-point response to the Times is signed by Brookings president Strobe Talbott.
Politico's Isaac Arnsdorf called the Times' pieces a "bombshell," adding: "Yes, people had heard of certain episodes or organizations, but the Times revealed a much more widespread, systematic phenomenon. Think tanks will, and some already have, take pains to make arrangements less explicitly tit-for-tat (more like a campaign contributions), but the damage is done."
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