Interest group

An interest group is an organization that seeks to represent its members' interests, usually by seeking to influence political and/or public policy outcomes.

In the United States, an interest group is an organization (usually non-profit) that publishes information presented as expert analysis. Such groups may also be called think tanks or simply non-profits. Interest groups vary widely in the independence (and therefore reliability) of their work. Many are funded by wealthy private individuals who wish to promulgate their opinions to the public, and employees of these organizations work to reinforce the agenda of the funder. Many are little more than public relations fronts for a particular ideology or interest group, while others have a reputation for balance. Several reports put the Brookings Institution as among the most neutral and most frequently cited think tank. , and closest to the ideological center of similar organizations.

Because think tanks and interest groups generally make their publications available for free, many non-independent ones treat their output as if it is reliable news. Members of the public often do not understand the difference between objective think tanks and those which are pushing specific political agendas. Research laboratories, regardless of sponsorship, are usually not considered think tanks, which focus on publication of analyses. The output of these groups may even be branded as allegedly independent press, while not actually being independent from the agenda of the owners.

In order to evaluate how to regard information produced by a think tank, interest group, or non-profit group, it is necessary to find out who funds the group, and what the groups missions or goals are. If the owners, managers and funders are not known, and if there is no clear publicly available statement of mission or goal of the group (that seems accurate in terms of what they actually do), then (as with groups calling themselves press of "media"), the output of a group must be considered as possibly or even probably not reliable, and subject to everything from political axe-grinding to actual promulgation of conspiracy theories.