I caught mention of this when it showed up in the blogosphere some months ago, and now it sees print in The Weekly Standard.
The method used is kind of cunning. First, make a list of think tanks that are cited favorably by lawmakers. Use the ADA scores of the lawmakers to determine an average ADA score for the think tanks. Then, note which think tanks are cited approvingly in the news stories of the media outlets.
There are problems with the study, of course. (Aren't there always?) The main problem has to do with how solid the link is between the ADA rating of a congress-critter and the think tank he cites. It seems intuitively obvious that a person would cite a source that conforms with his own leaning, but there might be exceptions.
At the very least, the correlation will be less than perfect. The subsequent correlation between the think tank and a news organization is also less than perfect, and this compounds the fuzziness of the link.
Once again, the popular reports never give the confidence intervals or error analyses. Oh well, I've printed out the report, and will see what I can find.
A link to the study can be found here.
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