Talk:The Heritage Foundation

Political Bias / Insider Contributors

This Wikipedia page needs far more scrutiny by additional Wikipedia editors. It has been written by Heritage Foundation staff and insiders and is a "puff piece." There is little that challenges this organization by pointing out controversy, little that points out the organization's opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, opposition to Marriage Equality, opposition to protest under First Amendments provisions.

For instance, one of the topics that should be addressed is a 2022 report that says "cultural Marxismm" poses a “far more serious and existential threat to the United States than did Soviet communism.” The far right has used this term to discredit 2024 protestors re the Israel war against Hamas.

Another topic certainly should be an in-depth examination of Project 2025, which would give the president far more power to fire civil servants and give jobs to people who are loyal to the president's (conservative) ideology. Check out this New York Times article (December 2023) about an ongoing application process for government jobs that requires applicants to take a conservative position on immigration, on U.S. membership in the United Nations.

(https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/01/us/politics/project2025-heritage-foundation-administration-application-questionnaire.html)

Given that the Heritage Organization is in the spotlight because Project 2025 is said to be part of the 2024 Republican National Convention platform, this page should be updated immediately. The Heritage Foundation should not be allowed to use Wikipedia as a public relations platform.

To Wikipedia Editors already engaged in editing this page: thank you.

Art-Nature2024

Art-Nature2024 (talk) 14:10, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

"Please understand that I do not like THF, and I want to rally everyone I can to malign them," lol. Dickenseditor (talk) 04:14, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

lead edit

Hipal I contend the wording of this edit is absolutely absurd, especially for the lead, but also pretty much anywhere in the article. just comically bad.

what do others think?

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=The_Heritage_Foundation&diff=prev&oldid=1249999057 soibangla (talk) 23:31, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Fix the wording, find an appropriate location for it in the article. --Hipal (talk) 23:39, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

The wording was unacceptably bad, and removing it was appropriate. Grayfell (talk) 23:41, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

How about summarizing instead? TheThis article content identifies multiple, related criticisms. --Hipal (talk) 18:40, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

When you say "the article content identifies multiple, related criticisms" are you referring to the article in the New York Times that is given as the source for the relatively new sentence in the introduction that says "The New York Times reported The Heritage Foundation spread some false information about the 2024 election". Or does "the article" refer to this Wikipedia article? Novellasyes (talk) 22:48, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I meant this article. I've redacted my comment to avoid further confusion.

Looking over the NYTimes article, I don't see why identifying them is necessary, and think Wikipedia's voice is fine to use. --Hipal (talk) 01:50, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

To be clear: there is exactly, thus far ONE person at the NYT who suggests as much (certainly not a mandate or consensus), and that individual is an avowed Kamala supporter. Pretending her voice speaks for the NYT (which publishes multiple editorials from a variety of perspectives) is absurd. And pretending as if there's a wave of people who believe that THF spread false election information is also absurd. SO, no, it does not speak for the voice of WP and also it does not need to be in the article at all w/o context (which, to the OP's point, makes it absurd). Dickenseditor (talk) 04:12, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that opposing a vicious, dictatorial pathological liar as president disqualifies anybody from being a reliable source. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:48, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

The sections about various presidential administrations

From an encyclopedic standpoint, the sections on various POTUS administrations seem lacking. For example, the section on The Heritage Foundation#Biden administration, is just a somewhat random list of activities and events that some WP editor saw a news story about, and then added to that section, usually just in a one or two sentence paragraph, such as this one-sentence paragraph, "In March 2023, the Heritage Foundation established a cooperative relationship with the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based state-funded think tank founded in 2013." The nine paragraphs in this section are not thematically related (with one exception). It's hard for me to believe that these nine episodes in the life of the Heritage Foundation during the Biden administration are the nine most important or significant things about Heritage during those four years, partly because as they appear in the article, they just seem very random. I could say the same about the other sections in this article about Heritage as it appeared during various POTUS administrations. Novellasyes (talk) 23:00, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

What improvement are you suggesting? --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:23, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't want to do the halfway-between-minor-and-major-surgery I think these sections need without consensus so thanks for asking. Here are the guidelines I would use to restructure these. (1) I would lean on the wisdom in WP:ONESOURCE which would mean that unless a report on something Heritage did during a particular administration achieved widespread, persistent notice in WP:RS, it probably doesn't really count as a notable fact about Heritage in that administration so I'd remove it. (2) I would preferentially go for content that falls into the buckets of leadership changes, apparent changes in focus (they stopped doing a certain thing they used to do or started something new), and programs or projects that drew the most widespread, persistent notice. Since apparently a certain portion of Heritage beliefs as expressed in their mandate get through during Republican administrations, I think that should be a standard part of the POTUS sections; (3) I would like there to be some type of uniformity in these POTUS sections so that a reader can see that they can reliably expect information in each of the sections about leadership changes that occurred during the administration, etc as per proposal 2. Beyond that, the fact that this article is structured to report out what Heritage did in the context of specific POTUS administrations (rather than, say, by decade), the implicit promise of arranging things by administration is that there is something unique about Heritage, per specific administration. If there isn't, it should just be sectioned out by decade or other timeline feature. So I would look for facts and themes about Heritage, to go in the POTUS sections, that relate to its focus as per a specific administration. Novellasyes (talk) 14:28, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

I got that 1) you want to delete something but I don't know what, and 2) you want to change something but are vague about it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:46, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt. I've worked on making the changes to that section that get at what I had in mind. Novellasyes (talk) 19:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Establishing consensus on whether to label (and where, if so) The Heritage Foundation as being / having aspects of the far-right

Hey everyone! I'm not super sure how to set this into motion, but I read that any potentially controversial change should be addressed on the talk page first. I was doing some very shallow reading into the "Cultural Marxism" conspiracy theory and found an article about it from Heritage that promoted the theory. The Wikipedia page about it classifies it as a far-right, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, but labels Heritage as simply "Conservative." I also found an article from the NYT, which says that the President of Heritage wants to "institutionaliz[e] Trumpism," which another Wikipedia article says has "has been referred to as an American political variant of the far-right."

I'm fully aware that we determine what's on Wikipedia based on outside sources, and not what other Wikipedia articles say. If someone with better knowledge on what flies in regards to sourcing and how I could justify this change could step in, that would be great. I would also love to hear the thoughts of anyone who disagrees. A minor addition mentioning their spreading of the Cultural Marxism theory might be more appropriate than a blanket labeling them as far-right. Netipse (talk) 07:26, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

These sound like tenuous connections but could you please put in links both to the off-site articles you are talking about and the on-site articles.Novellasyes (talk) 18:40, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Agree w/ Novellasyes. This is tenuous (at best), overly relies on Wikipedia, and, generally, smells biased. You sound like you're making a good-faith argument (so thank you), but, based on this evidence, there's no reason to label it "far right." Dickenseditor (talk) 16:23, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

@Dickenseditor With, seriously, all due respect, both of you are extremely new and no one would expect you to fully understand how we work. Note that the NYT is attributed and we are not claiming that as fact, so it's ok so far as I can see. Doug Weller talk 16:52, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you; I take you at your word you're just making good-faith comments. (For context: Not new to editing in general, (worked professionally on several books and newspapers for decades now, so, experience-wise, probably in the top echelon of real editorial experience)). In general, one "NYT" article by someone who endorsed Trump's opponent (assuming you're referencing the one attempted to be cited in the introduction) does not generally a consensus make. Dickenseditor (talk) 16:56, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

To your point earlier, sure, you could add in (though generally not in the introduction) the fact that someone (who endorsed THF's purported desired candidate's opponent) tried to malign the organization, but then, one could also add in all the other news organizations who love THF. it's not an introduction-worthy sort of detail. Cheers mate. Dickenseditor (talk) 17:02, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

We can’t say “tried to malign” as that is an interpretation. I appreciate that you’ve done a lot of editing elsewhere, but that generally means you have a lot to learn about editing here as it is very different due to our policies and guidelines. Doug Weller talk 19:18, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Policies and guidelines happy to hear about, and thanks for sending some of those over, Doug! On the other hand, dissent is a necessity here, and expertise from a variety of areas should be a positive, not a negative. Basic point, though, is that introductions, per Wiki guidelines, are for general points the reader needs to know. Hand-picking information is exactly the opposite of what the Intro is for. Cheers. Dickenseditor (talk) 19:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

That’s right. By the way we need to change the section heading as the edit in question does not label in Wikivoice, it reports what the NYT says. That belongs somewhere, the question is where. Doug Weller talk 19:26, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Hmm... appreciate the point. Generally, don't think the actual Article needs to say anywhere, "far-right," because of 1 simple article, w/o some more evidence from the general literature.

OP: Can we get those articles/that article? Dickenseditor (talk) 19:29, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

It is sourced and we don't say it ourselves. You're welcome to find other reliable sources that discuss their position. Doug Weller talk 11:28, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Again, posting the NYT article, in general, goes against WP's policy on Fringe Theories. An opinion shared by one editorial writer, is by definition, a fringe theory, unless expressed by the broader community. Dickenseditor (talk) 17:41, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

That is not what "fringe" means. I think you know that. I am at a loss to understand what is going on with your repeated editing of the same 139 bytes in and out of the article but that, and the sealioning more generally, needs to stop. --DanielRigal (talk) 18:04, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Honest question --- what exactly would be more fringe than 1/everyone else suggesting something? Dickenseditor (talk) 03:01, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think you've established that literally everyone else in the universe disagrees with the NYT piece. In general, if you want to establish that something is WP:FRINGE, you need to point to evidence of a clear consensus among mainstream views that directly contradicts it (note that "conservative" and "far-right" do not directly contradict.) When we only have one source for something, you might raise WP:DUE issues, but you can't reasonably argue that it's WP:FRINGE based on that alone, since fringe-ness isn't just about how common a position is but whether and to what extent it goes against the mainstream view. That said, even though you didn't phrase your objection as DUE, here's some additional sources to answer that. Honestly I could find many more sources but that's probably enough to suggest that we probably shouldn't even be attributing the descriptor of the Heritage Foundation as being a far-right think tank, we should be stating it in the article voice as uncontested fact, at least unless you can come up with some sources directly contradicting these; my reading is that it's not merely the mainstream opinion but simple uncontroversial fact to the point where academic sources frequently use it as their main descriptor for the organization. --Aquillion (talk) 06:07, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

You've mentioned a lot of other sources--- I'm not saying you're wrong, I just haven't seen those; if there are a ton of them from reliable and non-biased sources (and not just as many pointing toward the opposite), then you'd be right to add them and the sentence somewhere in the article.

But in general about the fringe point (again, this is under the assumption there's only one source, because that's the only one that's been presented), there's no onus to provide alternative viewpoints. That would be slightly absurd: Often times, a viewpoint is so fringe, that no one has considered it's converse. While this is obviously not in that category of absurdity (it's not absurd to suggest they're far-right, just as it wouldn't be absurd to suggest AOC is far-left), the point holds that individuals rarely write articles to counter another singular view: Ie., it would be odd if someone at an opposing newspaper, say "WSJ", had written an article that said anything to the effect of, "THF is 'not' far-right." Dickenseditor (talk) 12:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

It would be absurd to suggest that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is far-left, read its definition. She's a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Doug Weller talk 14:09, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

• I mean, ideology is particularly important to a political think tank because its main purpose is that people pay it to push politics in a particular direction; this is shown by the level of coverage for this aspect. And as far as finding sources that contradict it go.. if you look at the quotes from the sources I linked, several of them list the ideology of think tanks with phrasings like "...the centre-right AEI; and the far-right Heritage Foundation." or "the moderately left Brookings Institution, the centrist Center for Strategic and International Studies, conservative AEI (which I was just leaving), and the far-right Heritage Foundation..." This would obviously be an argument against calling anything in that list except the Heritage Foundation far-right, since they're contrasting them with it and often calling them things that contradict it; obviously neither of them think AEI is far-right, say, since they're discussing far right orgs in a way that clearly excludes AEI, and in the former example are describing it in a way that overtly contradicts it being far-right. If you have sources listing the Heritage Foundation in that way - calling it centrist or center-right or moderately right in that way, or which have a list like that that contrasts it with a far-right org in a way that excludes it - then that would be enough to show the designation is controversial. And if it really is controversial, then I'd expect them to exist. Though even then, I think it's hard to overcome the sources that overtly say it is widely viewed as far-right. --Aquillion (talk) 14:25, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  Dickenseditor has been blocked for a month. Doug Weller talk 17:31, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

In assessing the best WP:Label for a group like Heritage, I'm not sure how what the typical procedure is for picking between different labels that have been applied to the group by different journalists, RS, etc. It's not hard to go on the New York Times or the Washington Post or Politico and find dozens of articles on each of those sites that use the label "conservative" and do not use the label "far right" or even right-wing. I'd be happy to stick in a bunch of links if that is necessary, or you could just take my word for it, or do the searches on those website and see the many articles that use the "conservative" label. Going to Google Scholar, and searching on the Heritage Foundation, I also find dozens of scholarly articles that label it as conservative and do not label it as right-wing or far-right. When some RS call an organization like Heritage one thing, and other RS call it by a different label, what's the usual process for adjudicating under those circumstances? An organization that has been around for decades, like Heritage, may also gradually move into a somewhat or slightly (or more than slightly) different ideological lane than it started out in and that case could perhaps gradually be made about Heritage and its move toward "national conservatism" but I think it remains to be seen what that's really all about and to what extent Heritage is seen by RSes as really stepping hard into those shoes.Novellasyes (talk) 19:49, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

References

Oversight project

There are quite a few reliable source references describing activities of Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project. HF describes it as HF's "investigative and oversight arm." The director Mike Howell often appears in press reports. In the 2022 initial press release the HF president is quoted:

The Heritage Foundation is going on offense to expose the Biden regime and its enablers on Capitol Hill, in the administrative state, and at the state and local level across the nation. Our new Oversight Project will be dedicated to investigating and exposing the Biden administration, policymakers, and anyone else engaged in the destructive work of implementing radical leftist policy.

In this Wikipedia article, it is named only in a section on voter fraud, citing news reports of its deceptive tactics and videos. But the Oversight project is in the news for more than that.

I think Oversight project could get treatment in the Activities section, probably under the heading Other initiatives. -- M.boli (talk) 19:10, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Several weeks later: added a subsection Oversight Project under Other initiatives.

Oddly, this edit removed a quote from the HF leader about the purpose of the project. (That edit then glommed the date of the founding into the next paragraph as a short appositive, but I split that out.)

The edit summary was wp:SOAP. But normal narrative coherence dictates if we write that in 2022 HF started this project we say what was the point of the project. As is done for other projects in this article.

Since we don't have any description of the purpose of the Oversight Project other than what HF provides, I propose we restore it. To avoid the SOAP complaint, I might qualify the description so we won't accidentally give it credence in wiki-voice.

Similar in spirit to the phrase in its view in this article's introduction to "Index of Dependence", viz: Beginning in 2002, the Heritage Foundation began publishing "Index of Dependence", an annual report ... that, in its view, constrain private sector or local government

Like that. -- M.boli (talk) 21:52, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Biden administration section rewrite

I think the section could use some tightening, but the recent attempt at rewriting it [1] seems problematic.

The first edit in the rewrite [2] is difficult to review, combining rearrangement and editing. The POV seems changed inexplicably, and the presentation has lost contact and impact. Please work in smaller edits so others can assist in the rewrite.

The second edit [3] removes content referenced by The Dispatch . I share the concern that this may be UNDUE. At the same time, shouldn't the main points of the reference be DUE, trading scholarship for partisanship?

The third edit [4] removes content referenced by the Hungarian Conservative. This appears to be a warmed-over press release. I agree that it should be removed.

The fourth edit [5] expands on content referenced by the Washington Post. It seems that a better summary is needed, but I'm always concerned about using quotations in situations like this. --Hipal (talk) 22:40, 14 December 2024 (UTC)