Thread by @CraigSilverman

BREAKING: David Brooks has resigned from his position at the Aspen Institute following our reporting — and new revelations — about conflicts of interest between the star NYT columnist and funders of a program he led for the think tank: buzzfeednews.com/article/craigs…

Something new we discovered: On March 15 of last year Brooks appeared on Meet The Press and said: "I think people should get on Nextdoor, this sort of ‘Facebook for neighbors.’”

Left unsaid: Nextdoor, a social network for neighborhoods, had donated $25,000 to Weave, his project.

A day before his appearance on the nationally televised NBC program, Brooks also tweeted to his nearly 250,000 followers, “If you know someone who lives alone, ask them to join NextDoor.”

Another new revelation: Last month, Brooks appeared in a Walton Family Foundation video and did not disclose that the organization, run by the family that founded Walmart, also funds his project.

Aspen finally sent me a list of Weave donors late last night. Walmart is on it too.

Aspen told me Facebook's funding of Weave ended in 2019. But FB is listed as a financial supporter of a project Weave helped run in 2020, “#WeavingCommunity During Crisis.” This suggests FB had a connection to Weave/Brooks when he blogged for the social media giant’s website

Facebook did not immediately respond to Qs about #weavingcommunity. We will update if it does. Aspen declined to comment on that project.

Brooks has never responded to us.

Here's the full comment from New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy about Brooks resigning.

Here's my thread from last night when @nytdavidbrooks went on @NewsHour and made false statements about what information had been disclosed about Weave's funders. Those are his only public comments to date. He misled viewers & misrepresented our reporting.

https://twitter.com/CraigSilverman/status/1368001209567690755

This doesn't need to be said but gonna say it anyway: I don't have strong personal opinions about Brooks' work. I don't read him. Weave seems like a good and valuable project. Our reporting revealed serious ethical concerns and those concerns have been completely validated.

We just updated our story about David Brooks resigning from the Aspen Institute with the full list of funders for the project he led there. It includes billionaires, financiers, and companies Allstate, Facebook, M&T Bank, Walmart, and Nextdoor.
buzzfeednews.com/article/craigs…