  Recent studies have shown that both 21cm HI absorption and soft X-ray
absorption serve as excellent tracers of the dense and dusty gas near the
active nucleus of young radio galaxies, offering new insight into the physical
nature of the circumnuclear medium. To date, a correlation between the column
densities derived using these absorption processes has been observed within
Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) and Gigahertz-Peaked Spectrum (GPS) radio sources.
While it is possible that this correlation exists within the broader radio
population, many samples of radio galaxies make this difficult to test due to
selection effects. This paper explores the possibility of a correlation in the
broader radio population by analysing a historic sample of 168 radio sources
compiled from the literature in such a way so as to minimise selection bias.
From this historic sample we conclude that there is some evidence for a
correlation between HI and soft X-ray absorption outside of peaked spectrum
sources, but that the selection bias towards these sources makes further
analysis difficult using current samples. We discuss this in the context of the
SEAFOG project and how forthcoming data will change the landscape of future
absorption studies.
