Since its founding in 1985, The National Interest has tried to live up to its ideal as a space for “informed analysis and frank but reasoned discussion about international affairs.” A winner of RealClearWorld’s Best World Opinion Sites of 2013, the outlet has long been considered a leading light of policy realism in American approaches to international affairs, with a nearly four-decade run as a centerpiece in policy discussions about national security. It has published many noteworthy pieces, including American political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s famous 1989 essay “The End of History?”.
The journal’s long and venerable history makes condemning it for possible bias strange. Yet a careful investigation reveals that The National Interest has long been considered a particularly conservative outlet, ever since its heading by prominent neoconservative commentator Irving Kristol and the acquisition of the outlet by the Center for the National Interest, a DC-based think tank formerly known as the Nixon Center in 2001. The Center itself has courted several conservative notables, including Richard Burt, the national security advisor for both John McCain and Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns, and David Keene, former Opinion Editor for the Washington Times and the former head of the National Rifle Association and the American Conservative Union, which organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Considering these elements, we will examine some of The National Interest’s contemporary publications to see if they are genuinely as reliable a source as they claim to be.
Does Reliability Matter?
Reliability, in general, refers to how trustworthy or accurate information, or in this case, a news source is. If we consider this definition, it quickly becomes clear why reliability is important in media sources. If we can’t trust the things we read then there isn’t much of a point in continuing to consume content from that source, after all. So how exactly can we gauge the reliability of a news source anyways?
There are several potential measures of reliability to look out for when trying to determine whether a media source is reliable or not. Red flags for an unreliable article can include the presence of wild unsubstantiated claims, facts dependent on other unreliable sources, heavy use of opinionated language, and more. Some indicators of a reliable news source, on the other hand, include things like:
- Absence of subjective/opinionated language in articles
- Credible sources cited (e.g., neutral sources, .gov, .edu websites)
- Facts and statistics backed by multiple relevant outside sources
- Use of primary sources when possible (e.g., interviews, quotes)
- Information that remains consistent across news sources
So How Does The National Interest Fare in its Reliability?
Biasly’s political reliability index objectively assesses the veracity and trustworthiness of news organizations. The National Interest’s overall Reliability Score has been rated as Good by Biasly. This rating is derived from a weighted average of two distinct scores: the Fact Analysis and the Source Analysis Score. A disclaimer: The Fact Analysis score is more heavily weighted when computing an article’s average reliability. These ratings are provided and justified in the following paragraphs:
The National Interest’s Fact Analysis Score is ‘Excellent,’ suggesting that readers can mostly trust The National Interest’s online content based on its facts. The Fact Analysis score focuses more on the accuracy of claims, facts, and sources presented in the article and any hints of selection and omission bias, which we will discuss further in the article.
The National Interest’s Source Analysis Score is ‘Fair,’ which suggests readers can trust some sources, links, and quotes from the news source. This score, based on A.I., focuses on assessing the quality of sources and quotes used, including their number, lengths, uniqueness, and diversity.
However, since these scores are based on percentages and averages, individual articles could be more or less trustworthy depending on the context, author, and other factors. Our findings show that Buzzfeed’s reliability is mostly but not all factual because they have retracted several stories in the past or had pieces that were not factual.
Let us analyze the supporting data for Buzzfeed’s rankings and discuss what to watch out for while searching for trustworthy news sources.
The National Interest Accuracy and Reliability
News sources have frequently had their credibility impacted due to unsubtle ideological leanings, and The National Interest is no exception. Multiple critics have described them as a forum for conservative policy analysts and have been known to publish pieces that have a solid conservative slant. We can assess the validity of this judgment ourselves by evaluating their articles for selection and omission bias.
Selection bias is when stories and facts are selected or deselected, often on ideological grounds, to create a narrative in support of the new sources’ ideology. Omission bias, on the other hand, is when different opinions and political views regarding a situation are left out so that the reader is only exposed to the ideological perspective supported by the author. It’s important to keep in mind these two types of biases when trying to assess an article’s level of accuracy.
Biasly’s percentage-based score for accuracy is defined through a combination of two factors: the validity of the internal and external sources being utilized and how well assertions made in an article are bolstered with supporting evidence. Even though The National Interest has some marked conservative tendencies, it is still a dependable source with a ‘Good’ reliability score. This reliability is seen even when the National Interest is matched up against similar journals, such as Foreign Affairs, which received only a ‘Fair’ reliability score in comparison and received worse reliability scores on a consistent basis, as seen in the articles “Why NATO Needs Ukraine” (Somewhat Liberal), “Kissinger’s Contradictions” (Medium Liberal), and “Don’t Give Up On a Better Russia” (Medium Conservative). This demonstrates that bias varies regardless of reliability score and emphasizes the importance of constantly verifying the reliability of your sources.
The first article we will review is “$3.5 Trillion: Senate Democrats Move to Reimagine the US Economy” by Matt Weidinger. The author attacks the Biden administration’s creation of, and Senate Democrats’ support for, a spending hike attached as a rider to the $1 trillion “Build Back Better” infrastructure bill, and specifically a proposed fortification of the Child Tax Credit. This article is rated Somewhat Conservative and plays to type, regarding government spending as bad by default and omitting any sources that would defend the expenditure. What’s more, the sources he does cite are twisted to support his position, as when he claims that:
“…for the first time since this program began in the 1990s, those amounts are payable even to parents who are “unwilling to work” as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) famously put it in 2019. That will revive welfare checks for millions of nonworking households, effectively overturning successful pro-work welfare reforms”.
Not only do these messages betray the author’s conservative stance, but Weidinger barely tries to balance his reporting—three of the four sources in the quote above are from articles that he himself wrote. Weidinger could have provided a more balanced look at the bill by including quotes and sources from some of the bill’s defenders. Therefore, this article can be considered only somewhat reliable.
Other elements affect the reliability of news sources, including the context in which an article was written or an author’s publication history. Therefore, it is essential to remember that each article will have differing levels of bias and credibility. Our findings show that the pieces in The National Interest tend to be relatively reliable, but this does not mean that the reader can take such reliability for granted- one must always be alert for any possible signs of unreliability, no matter what one might be reading.
We will analyze the supporting data that led to The National Interest’s ratings and outline the factors contributing to a trustworthy news source.
Analysis of Reliability in The National Interest Online News Articles
Despite the dangers involved in the subjectivity of opinion pieces, they can still be a valuable resource for the conscientious reader. The opinion pieces in the National Interest require special attention as many are not directly labeled as such on their website, which makes it unnecessarily difficult to distinguish their opinion pieces from standard, objective reporting and places their reliability under scrutiny.
They sometimes publish articles which run in other outlets but do not make this detail particularly clear to the reader, which can lead one to assume that The National Interest has stronger biases than it in fact does. As an example, see
Quality of Sources and Facts Used
Despite the reputation of The National Interest as a conservative outlet, they can be good at using a wide variety of sources across the political spectrum, even in opinion articles that otherwise have a particular slant. For example, consider “Joe Biden Has a Problem at the Department of Labor” by Fred Lucas. Though only three quotes are used in the article, and more reputable articles generally have more quotes, all three quotes are of significant length.
The author’s eight sources for the article were as follows:
- ABC7 News California (Center Leaning)
- The National Interest (Center Leaning)
- The Washington Examiner (Conservative Leaning)
- The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board (Liberal Leaning)
- Richard Burr, R-NC (Conservative Leaning)
- The National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group
- NBC Boston (Center Leaning)
- The Boston Globe (Liberal Leaning)
Even though this article is rated as ‘Very Conservative’ by Biasly, it uses a wide variety of credible sources from across the political spectrum. They keep the amount of speculation and personal opinions from their sources to a minimum, focusing mainly on verifiable facts, such as the fact that the California Employment Development Department was defrauded by as much as $31 billion. The article doubtlessly has a conservative slant, and the tone of the article shows as much, although the author seems more inclined to condemn both parties. Referring to the potential nomination of former Boston mayor Marty Walsh as head of the US Department of Labor, the author comments acidly:
“Perhaps Republicans saw no need to bring up a conviction that had been tossed. They also ignored the more recent news stories that emerged after the nomination. Since 2013, Walsh’s campaign paid about $1.2 million to his girlfriend’s employer, LB Strategies, a political consulting firm in Boston…
“This didn’t run afoul of campaign finance laws but has a bad odor. Helping out friends, or perhaps significant others is an old trait for politicians. So, this might have been a glasshouse no senator in the confirmation hearing wanted to toss stones from.”
The tone of the article does reserve some particular disdain for left-leaning sources, though, claiming that:
“Even the usually left-leaning editorial board of the Los Angeles Times asserted Su’s nomination ‘comes with heavy baggage that is sure to weigh her down during the confirmation hearings.’”
Selection and Omission Bias
Another example of selection and omission bias from The National Interest is “Border Crisis Is No Accident. It’s Biden Making Good on Campaign Promises.” by Tim Murtaugh. Here, the author runs through a laundry list of conservative talking points about immigration and the border, even more or less directly accusing the Biden administration of using the situation at the border for political gain:
“If you were going to envision immigration policy that was exactly wrong, what Biden is doing would be it… The fact is that Biden campaigned for president promising an array of enticements for people to break our laws to enter this country. He promised amnesty for those already here, taxpayer-provided health care, work permits, support for sanctuary cities, and a cessation of deportations.”
Yet a closer look at some of the sources Murtaugh draws from reveals his selective framing. The Axios report, which he cites as evidence, claims that:
“About 50,000 migrants who crossed the southern border illegally have now been released in the United States without a court date… Although they are told to report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office instead, just 13% have shown up so far”.
However, he omits that the article states that there is still time for the migrants to show up, so the figure may not turn out as badly as he portrays:
“16,000 (migrants) have not shown up and passed the 60-day reporting window they were given…Another roughly 27,000 migrants who crossed and were released during the same time frame have yet to turn up but remain within the 60-day window for reporting. One DHS official emphasized that nearly 70% of migrants are within the 60-day window or have reported to ICE.”
The author’s lack of a balanced perspective and his willingness to manipulate his sources demonstrate issues with selection and omission that cause reliability problems in this article. The sourcing in this article shows a consistent desire to violate the principles that would allow for a reliable article and objective reporting. Although this is not a consistent trend in the National Interest’s opinion articles, it does demonstrate that the interested reader needs to be careful when reading the outlet’s opinion article—as we have demonstrated, bias varies between individual pieces.
In the article we discussed earlier, “Joe Biden Has a Problem at the Department of Labor,” while the sourcing is relatively balanced when it comes to political ideology, sources and quotes are used that are made to paint individuals in a particular light. While the author does frequently place disclaimers in their article before making assertions, his tone and phrasing betray his feelings, as in the following reference to the nomination of Marty Walsh:
“To be clear, in neither the legal case of his aides nor his campaign spending was Walsh even accused of breaking any law. A slapdash appointment of the city’s police commissioner caused a political headache over vetting, but there was no crime. But all speak to how he leads- either a city or a federal Cabinet agency.”
The implication is clear; not only does the article omit any sources that would defend Walsh’s record or explain why he was nominated to head the Biden administration’s Department of Labor, but the author chooses to insinuate that Walsh’s leadership is faulty in all senses, even during his time as the mayor of Boston. Despite the article’s balanced sourcing, the author skillfully manipulates his material to portray the subjects of his article as the feckless beneficiaries of political corruption and moral turpitude. The author reduces the article’s reliability by omitting sources that paint a brighter overall picture of Walsh’s record.
By nature, opinion pieces frequently have factuality, sourcing, and selection/omission bias issues. Because authors are primarily concerned with getting their point across, they may exclude information that contradicts their position to form a narrative that will sway the reader’s opinion in a particular direction. The articles in this section are interesting cases because they demonstrate the wide variety of views that The National Interest hosts, which speaks favorably of its coverage.
So Is The National Interest Reliable?
Despite The National Interest’s reputation as a Center-Right outlet, we find that the outlet largely succeeds in presenting a wide variety of balanced reporting, particularly when it comes to its focus on foreign affairs. However, their opinion pieces exhibit varying levels of reliability. This is why it is always important to remember that different articles are subject to differing levels of bias and subjectivity. As you gain experience in evaluating the reliability and veracity of media sources, it will be easier to identify issues with sourcing, selection and omission bias, and factuality. Remember to use Biasly’s News Bias and Reliability Checker to aid in your search for the most dependable news.