Follow us on social

NYT leaps forward in disclosure of potential conflicts

NYT leaps forward in disclosure of potential conflicts

The paper of record told readers of a foreign influence story that a source's employer receives funding from Saudi Arabia and the UAE

Reporting | Media

News media, pundits and, indeed, Responsible Statecraft itself, may give the impression that opaque funding and refusal to disclose potential conflicts of interest are pervasive in Washington’s policy circles. But that’s not always the case.

On Wednesday, the New York Times highlighted the funding of a source quoted in an article about new allegations made by the Justice Department against Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), taking the unusual step of weaving the funding disclosure into the article as an example of how Washington’s think tanks are awash in foreign cash.

The Times reported that “prosecutors accused Mr. Menendez of using his influence and connections — a byproduct of his powerful position as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — to help a New Jersey developer get financial backing from an investment fund run by a Qatari royal family member in exchange for lucrative bribes,” and interviewed Hussein Ibish, a widely respected expert on Middle East politics.

Times journalists Vivian Nereim and Tariq Panja, wrote:

"Gulf countries like Qatar view cultivating relationships with politicians like Mr. Menendez as a sort of 'cynical statecraft,' said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. Like many Washington think tanks, his research organization has received funding from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — a sign of the depth of Gulf influence in the United States."

Both Ibish and his employer as well as the Times deserve credit for this disclosure.

First, Arab Gulf States Institute discloses its corporate sponsors and, at its inception in 2015, disclosed that it was primarily funded from Saudi and UAE donors.

Second, the Times decided that the funding of their source was an important piece of context to pass along to readers. Indeed, they even took it as an opportunity to highlight the widespread role of foreign governments in funding DC policy shops.

Last year, Responsible Statecraft highlighted the Times’ refusal to alert readers to the Arab Gulf States institute’s funding sources when publishing an op-ed by Ibish and in 2020, when Ibish was quoted as a critic of a new initiative — Democracy in the Arab World Now — to promote human rights and democracy in the Arab world.

The Times’ decision to highlight these facts this week falls closely in line with guidance given by Margaret Sullivan, the Times’ public editor from 2012 to 2016.

“These days, with lobbyists coming under more public criticism, some like to use a ‘surrogate’ — like a supposedly neutral person from a think tank — to promote an idea that they can then email-blast out or have their client endorse in a press release,” wrote Sullivan in 2014. “The Times can’t let itself be used in that way.”

“For its readers to evaluate ideas, they need to know where they’re coming from — and who might be paying for them,” she added.

Nereim and Panja appear to be heeding Sullivan’s advice.


Editorial credit: Osugi / Shutterstock.com

Reporting | Media
POGO
Top image credit: Project on Government Oversight

The non-empires strike back

Military Industrial Complex

The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.

keep readingShow less
Trump Netanyahu
Top image credit: noamgalai / Shutterstock.com

Trump appears all in for Netanyahu's political survival

Middle East

On March 25, Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s government passed its long-delayed 2025 budget. Had the vote failed, it would have automatically triggered snap elections — an outcome Netanyahu appears politically incapable of surviving.

While Israel cited stalled hostage negotiations and ongoing security threats as reasons for ending the U.S.-backed ceasefire in Gaza, Netanyahu’s decision to resume large-scale military operations just days before the vote also appeared aimed at shoring up support from far-right coalition partners such as Itamar Ben Gvir. The budget, framed explicitly by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as a “war budget,” includes record levels of defense spending and a dramatic increase in funding for Israeli public diplomacy, a nod to the government’s attempt to counteract ongoing international condemnation of Israel’s military actions in Gaza.

keep readingShow less
JFK wanted to splinter CIA ‘into a thousand pieces.’ Why didn't he?
Top photo credit: Unredacted memo by Arthur Schlesinger (JFK files) and President John F. Kennedy, 1962 (public domain/Donald Cooksey)

JFK wanted to splinter CIA ‘into a thousand pieces.’ Why didn't he?

Washington Politics

When the final, declassified records from the John F. Kennedy assassination files were posted on the National Archives’ website last week, the first document researchers and reporters searched for was White House adviser Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s June 1961 memorandum to the president titled “CIA Reorganization.”

ABC News led its initial coverage on the release of the JFK papers with that document, quoting Schlesinger’s now unredacted, dramatic, statistics that showed that the "CIA today has nearly as many people under official cover overseas as [the] State [Department].” The New York Times also featured that document with a headline “A Kennedy aide worried that the C.I.A. threatened the State Department’s power.”

keep readingShow less

Trump transition

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.