NY Times Columnist David Brooks Promoted Facebook-Funded Project in Columns, Didn’t Disclose Second Salary: Report
New York Times columnist David Brooks is drawing a salary work he is doing for the Aspen Institute, Buzzfeed News reported Thursday.
“The Aspen Institute declined to say how much it pays Brooks, but confirmed that ‘as chair of the Weave project, he is a staff member at the Aspen Institute,’” the Buzzfeed report said.
In 2018, Brooks created Weave: The Social Fabric Project, a nonprofit that supports “hyperlocal community builders.” It is affiliated with the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit think tank, which has confirmed to Buzzfeed that Weave had received funding from Facebook, as well as other donors.
“The amount and timing of Facebook’s funding, which had not been previously reported, combined with Brooks’s promotion of Weave in the Times, has raised questions about the columnist’s conflicts of interest,” the Buzzfeed piece said.
Buzzfeed first reported on Brooks’ possible conflict of interest on Feb. 26, when Brooks penned a blog post for Facebook’s corporate website, praising online communities, such as Facebook Groups. In the post, Brooks said that Facebook Groups have a “tendency to subvert social hierarchies” and “create opportunities especially for … people who might feel uncomfortable walking into an in-person meeting place.”
Brooks also said that Facebook Groups have created a new type of “online community leader,” the administrators who monitor the groups.
According to Buzzfeed, Facebook donated $250,000 to the Weave project in 2018. The project was also funded by the various foundations and individuals, including a $300,000 donation from Miguel Bezos, father of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and a trustee of the Aspen Institute.
According to an Aspen Institute report, funding for Weave in 2018 totaled more than 1.3 million. Facebook’s $250,000 was not included in the report, and the Aspen Institute told Buzzfeed that Facebook has not given additional money to the project.
“In Dec. 2018, Facebook earmarked a $250,000 gift to the Aspen Institute for the project,” Buzzfeed reported. “Three months later, Brooks introduced Times readers to his concept of ‘Weavers,’ which he described as people who fight social isolation by ‘building community and weaving the social fabric’ across the U.S.”
As Buzzfeed reported, Brooks appears to have first mentioned Weave in his Feb. 18, 2019 column for the Times, and has mentioned it in multiple columns since then.
“But he was less forthcoming about the financial status of his second job and its connection to Facebook,” Buzzfeed reported. “In 2019, as Weave pursued a project with Facebook funding, Brooks peppered columns with mentions of [Facebook founder Mark] Zuckerberg, Instagram, and Facebook, but didn’t disclose that the company was actively funding Weave — and, by extension, his own salary.”
In April 2019, Brooks discussed the project on an episode of PBS NewsHour, where he is a regular commentator.
“We’re in the process of reviewing David’s relationship with the Weave Project and the Aspen Institute, and what disclosures, if any, should be added to David’s columns going forward,” a Times spokesperson told Mediaite.
