taggit Summary
Brooks’ resignation comes after BuzzFeed News discovered further evidence of conflicts of interest and entanglements with corporate and billionaire donors to Weave, a project Brooks launched at the Aspen Institute in 2018. BuzzFeed News first revealed Brooks never disclosed to Times readers that he takes a full-time salary for his work on Weave, or that its funders include Facebook, the father of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and other wealthy individuals and corporations. Asked about his failure to disclose that Facebook helped fund Weave, Brooks said that "we totally did disclose it because everything is public.” The Aspen Institute has only publicly posted a list of Weave donations from 2018. Nick Massella, a PBS NewsHour spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News the program was “aware David was working with the Aspen Institute on this project but not of its funding nature.” Massella did not respond to a request for comment about Brook’s false statements on the program.