Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs' AllSides Bias Ratingâ„¢ is 'center'. While this is an initial rating as of May 2017, it is clear that centrality is the essence of this news source. It's first publication in 1922 stated, "Its articles will not represent any consensus of beliefs. What is demanded of them is that they shall be competent and well informed, representing honest opinions seriously held and convincingly expressed." In addition to its own message, this "multiplatform media organization with a print magazine, a website, a mobile site, various apps and social media feeds, [and] event business," was founded by a similarly focused organization: the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR mission states: "The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries." Centrality is therefore not just a product, but the whole essence of Foreign Affairs.
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In April 2013, when I was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, I accompanied former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young to a meeting with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Then Secretary of State John Kerry had dispatched us to Harare to convince Mugabe to allow free and fair elections later that summer. For years, Zimbabwean elections had been marred by violence, voter intimidation, and manipulation of the legal system by the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). If Mugabe and his cronies refrained from such tactics in the upcoming ballot, we told the Zimbabwean president, the United States was prepared to ease sanctions that had been in place since 2001 and fully normalize relations with his country. Mugabe and Young were well acquainted from the heady days following Zimbabwe’s independence from the United Kingdom. It was said that Young was the only man left on earth to whom Mugabe would listen with a friendly and willing ear.