New York Times columnist Brooks resigns from think tank amid conflict-of-interest controversy
"New York Times columnist David Brooks resigned from a think tank that had paid him to lead a project he has promoted in his columns, ending a relationship that had raised conflict-of-interest questions about him and the newspaper.
More > . . .Brooks’s resignation appears to resolve the primary conflict-of-interest and nondisclosure issues first raised by reporting in BuzzFeed News. But questions about Brooks and the Times remain.
The Times’ statement said the columnist’s paid relationship with Aspen was approved by his previous editors, but his current editors were unaware of the arrangement. That suggests the Times was at one point comfortable with Brooks using his column to laud a project for which he was being compensated without telling readers about his financial ties, a clear conflict of interest and breach of traditional media ethics.
The statement also makes no mention of why the Times changed its mind, though its actions follow a spate of unfavorable news articles about Brooks, a veteran journalist. . .
More questions surround Brooks’s public statements about the issue. During an appearance Friday on NewsHour, Brooks told host Judy Woodruff that he has been transparent about the matter. “We did totally disclose it,” he said. “Everything has been public.”
In fact, neither Brooks nor the Times has previously mentioned to readers that Brooks was compensated by Aspen and that Facebook was financing it. In an appearance on “Meet the Press” last March, Brooks favorably commented on the social media site NextDoor, without revealing that NextDoor is also a Weave donor, BuzzFeed reported.
Brooks also told Woodruff that he hasn’t “meaningfully written about” any of Weave’s donors in his Times column or mentioned them in his NewsHour commentaries. “It hasn’t affected my journalism,” he said.
While this is accurate about his Times and PBS work, Brooks has written guest columns for Facebook’s corporate website praising the social media giant.
A column he wrote for Facebook last month seemed to absolve the company of fostering Russian election disinformation, antisemitism and hoaxes — all of which have been documented by Times journalists. “My takeaway” from social-science research into Facebook’s role, he wrote, “is that it’s not social media that’s the problem, it’s the ideas and behavior of the people who use it.”
Brooks has not responded to requests for comment since Thursday."
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Hizzoner John Giles: Cover-Boy
The Times Media Group Publisher Steve Strickbine featured an image of himself flashing a hard copy (the pulp-fiction print edition) of Mesa Mayor Jiving John Giles in full frontal exposure on the front page for a re-launch of the now corporate-owned namesake The Mesa Tribune - in the northeast Mesa edition.
WHOA! Could there ever be a more telling image of the unholy alliance between the mayor and spoon-fed media to deliver only the good news???
. . using the mayor as click-bait
"for the many people still want to hold a thick newspaper in their hands come Sunday. . ."
Let's go there and ask: THICK WITH WHAT????
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Corporate publisher Strickbine is in a profit-bind when it comes to attracting paid advertisers in online publishing, so now he's clearly aiming efforts for turn profits in the community news business. . . what he says is a new approach > to connect advertisers to would-be customers and clients.
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Here's a more iconic real-life size bronze statue in front of 111 West Main Street >
< Take a look at the headline: it reads TRUTH
Hmmm...
would Hizzoner also consent to pose with this bronze public art on Main Street?
TRUTH gets lost in the "unholy alliance" of a media group and a politician, Hizzoner John Giles.Nothing is more clear than that - for the second blatant time - when the publisher of The Times Media Group just happens to be the featured mystery guest on taxpayer-funded and city-owned Mesa Channel 11 in a 5-minute segment of Mesa Morning Live uploaded on February 19th.
The "Guest Host": John Giles
Mesa Morning Live Mystery Guest: Steve Strickbine
Right away there is no mystery about what's going on here - just in time before an upcoming election in their re-invented and newly-minted version of the original Mesa Tribune.
> Publisher Strickbine needs advertising dollars
> Mayor Giles wants a political pay-off
The distribution area target for their pulp fiction rag is northeast Mesa with 40,000 copies dropped in driveways.
Northeast Mesa is the political stronghold for Giles who has declared his intention to gain a second term in-office, realizing he faces opposition in what could be a closely-contested campaign and has to knock-off any strong challengers in the Primary Election.
Hizzoner was on The Cover-Boy on the Front Page >
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