Buzzfeed: NYT "Obama Republican" David Brooks Took Money from FaceBook Then Wrote Positively About FaceBook Without Disclosing His Financial Reliance on the Monopoly Corporation

He also took money from Jeff Bezos' father, so I'm pretty sure I know what's going on here.

Another corporate fake-conservative on the payroll of mega-monopolies.

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:

Facebook Helped Fund David Brooks’s Second Job. Nobody Told The Readers Of The New York Times. The New York Times columnist has been using his perch to promote the Weave Project -- without disclosing his potential conflicts of interest to his readers. buzzfeednews.com

Facebook gave $250,000 in 2018 to help fund Weave, Brooks' project at the Institute. A few months later Brooks began promoting Weave in the Times. He never disclosed the FB money, his salary, or other funders. Weave received just over 1.5 million in 2018, the latest $$ available.

Along with columns about Weave, Brooks published Times columns that mention Facebook, its founder Mark Zuckerberg, and the company’s products without disclosing his financial ties to the social networking giant.

"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," said Eileen Murphy, the SVP of corporate communications for the Times.

A strange thing we found is that in 2019 Brooks wrote *sponsored content* for an event that he appeared at that year. Who did he share the stage with? A Facebook employee. This came at a time when Weave was funded by the social media giant:

The Work of Weaving Old Power and New

In trying to foster a grassroots movement, New York Times columnist David Brooks finds that elite institutions need to give up their power -- while taking on the supporting roles of illuminators....

ICYMI last week we revealed that Brooks wrote a blog post for FB's corporate site that gave a a very positive view of FB Groups.

Last week I noted that FaceBook was now sponsoring National Review. National Review has yet to respond to this, or explain why it is now taking money from another organization it covers. (National Review has long, long taken money from Google.)

It would seem that these monopolies understand that Republican voters are now considering enforcing anti-trust laws against them, so they're pouring money into the pockets of fake-conservative "thought leaders" and influence-peddlers.

So don't expect National Review to ever say "boo" about one of their paymasters' censorship/thought control operations:

As with all whores: They sold their virtue cheaply.

posted by Ace at 01:02 PM

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