New York Times columnist David Brooks failed to disclose his financial ties to social media giant Facebook, according to a report from BuzzFeed News.
Brooke’s project at the Aspen Institute, titled “Weave,” is defined as a “cultural movement renewing America’s social fabric, which is badly frayed by distrust, division and exclusion,” according to its website. The Aspen Institute, a non-profit organization based out of Washington, D.C, received a $250,000 donation for the project from Facebook in 2018, according to the BuzzFeed News report.
NEW: NYT columnist David Brooks draws a second salary for leading an Aspen Institute project funded by Facebook, Jeff Bezos’ dad, & others. He didn’t disclose this to readers. The Times refused to say if the paper was aware of Brooks’ second salary: https://t.co/7WN3zrtrKp
— Craig Silverman (@CraigSilverman) March 3, 2021
Several of Brooks’ columns in The New York Times have mentioned his project by name, as well as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the social media company itself. Still, Brooks failed to disclose that he was earning a second salary from his Facebook-sponsored project, according to the report. (RELATED: BuzzFeed Wants You To Fear Facebook’s Algorithms)
Eileen Murphy, the senior vice president of corporate communications for the Times, told BuzzFeedNews, “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.”
The BuzzFeed News report also noted that Miguel Bezos, father of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, donated over $300,000 to Brooks’ Weave project.