美国国家公共电台 NPR Who Controls Think Tanks? Shift In Funding Highlights Changes In The Industry

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These are pretty rough times for one of Washington, D.C.'s hometown industries - think tanks. These are where scholars get paid to study issues and offer advice. But now one of them is dealing 1 with a controversy 2 over the influence of a big funder, and those who think about think tanks say there's probably more turmoil 3 coming. Here's NPR's Peter Overby.

PETER OVERBY, BYLINE 4: Washington has about 400 think tanks. The New America Foundation has been working since 1999 on public policies for the digital age. Now it's at the center of the latest money controversy. Here's the short version. New America had a program that studied monopolies and how to fight them. Last month, New America management closed it down. The program director said it was because he criticized Google as monopolistic. Google and its longtime CEO Eric Schmidt are among New America's biggest funders. New America denies the accusation 5 and says the program director didn't work well with colleagues. A spokesman said if any funders suggested firing a foundation staffer, they would be categorically refused. Now the anti-monopoly program has become its own think tank. Its board chair is law professor and activist 6 Zephyr 7 Teachout.

ZEPHYR TEACHOUT: Just common sense tells you that having these big companies in this space is going to have an influence, and it's not a good influence.

OVERBY: Washington got its first think tanks a century ago. For a long time, they presented themselves as universities without students. But that's history now, said sociologist 8 Thomas Medvetz, author of the book "Think Tanks In America." Speaking via Skype, Medvetz said think tank experts need skills not commonly used on college campuses.

THOMAS MEDVETZ: Skills that one would use in a PR firm, for example, or a lobbying firm, as an aide on Capitol Hill, as a scholar or a journalist.

OVERBY: Another seismic 9 shift involves the funding for think tanks. Once they lived on broad grants from foundations and reticent 10 millionaires. Now funders are often wealthy businesspeople, philanthrocapitalists, notably 11, many from the tech industry. Their giving is usually targeted to a program, an expert or even a single project. Political scientist Daniel Drezner wrote the book "The Ideas Industry."

DANIEL DREZNER: You're seeing, interestingly enough, traditional foundations as well as sort of the new generation of philanthrocapitalists being very much obsessed 12 with impact, which is to say they want to know exactly what they are getting for their - their dollars' worth.

OVERBY: This targeted giving has forced think tanks to change the way they operate. Arthur Brooks 13 is president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. He talked about his job in 2015.

ARTHUR BROOKS: A hundred-and-fifty speeches a year, which is what modern think tank presidents need to do because we spend 75 percent of our time raising funds.

OVERBY: There's every expectation the time and money pressures will keep increasing. James McGann is director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

JAMES MCGANN: These trends create a much different environment than think tanks operated in 15 years, 10 years, certainly 20 years ago.

OVERBY: Peter Overby, NPR News, Washington.