The purpose of stories like this seems to be to lay a groundwork of "facts" that, when worded a certain way in a headline, give the appearance of an underlying

The purpose of stories like this seems to be to lay a groundwork of "facts" that, when worded a certain way in a headline, give the appearance of an underlying bed of evidence which slants toward leftist issues at best, and flat-out campaigns for them at worst. NPR is why people say, straight-faced, things like "reality has a liberal slant".