More on the Origins of TheRoot
Posted on January 30th, 2008 in Uncategorized | 19 Comments »
The Times covers Skip Gates’ new venture, TheRoot.com, and its odd connection to the genetic testing company he co-founded, AfricanDNA.
The third major part of the new site, titled âRoots,â will have online tools for people to build their family trees, link to or add information to other peopleâs trees and construct maps showing their ancestral trails. It will also urge people to have DNA testing, which can help them trace their backgrounds to specific ethnic groups and parts of the world. It will offer links to companies that do the testing.
One such company the site will direct people to, www.AfricanDNA.com, is co-owned by Mr. Gates, a relationship that would be prohibited at some publications.
âI donât see a conflict of interest,â he said, because The Root will fully disclose his roles and will link to every company that does the DNA testing.
I find this all very odd. There is an entire section of TheRoot devoted to DNA testing; the very name of the publication is connected to genealogy; and frankly, there seems much more care devoted to the DNA testing part of the site than there is to the actual online magazine part of the site.
Is this a real magazine, or just a front to drum up business for Skip Gates’ new company?
Moreover, TheRoot doesn’t link to every other company that does DNA testing. It links to some of themâsort of.
When you click on a box labeled “DNA testing,” a small “Disclosure” form briefly pops upâfar too quickly to be readâ then goes away and is replaced by a video promoting genetic testing. If you stop the process (for me, holding my space bar did it), you can actually read the box, which says,
Though TheRoot.com has a business relationship with AfricanDNA.com, which was co-founded by Henry Louis Gates Jr., there are many other companies that offer DNA testing services. Among those that you can choose from are RootsforReal.com, OxfordAncestors.com, The Genographic Project ( www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic ) and Ancestry.com .
Companies aimed specifically at African Americans include AfricanAncestry.com. Prices and services vary by company.
In type that is about twice the point size, the disclosure form then provides a link: CONTINUE TO AFRICANDNA.COM.
Given that Skip Gates is all over the site, and that his affiliation with AfricanDNA.com is probably a selling point, and the site is designed to funnel traffic to AfricanDNA.com, which genetic testing service do you think most readers will go to?
In another video, with the author Bliss Broyard, Gates hands Broyard a piece of paper and says, “For you, with our special test…” The paper discloses that she is 17.2% black.
As the Times points out, TheRoot.com is co-founded by Don Graham, publisher of the Washington Post. Graham should know better than to permit this kind of arrangement in a publication that defines itself as a magazine. It’d be akin to him devoting the entire editorial page of the Washington Post to a company in which he was a primary investorâevery day.
Should the entire “Roots” section of TheRoot.com be considered an advertisement? (Yes.) Should the details of Gates’ business relationship with AfricanDNA be disclosed? (Yes.) Should the exact nature of the site’s “business relationship” with AfricanDNA.com be disclosed. (Well, obviously.) Can you trust the “editorial” of TheRoot? No.
I look, for example, at the first two stories on the site, which are both about Kenya, and I think, Are they there because of all the turbulence going on in Kenya? Or are they there to further the readers’ mental and emotional connection to Africa, so that they will start to think seriously about investigating their genetic origins?
The idea of an online magazine devoted to black issues is a great one. It’s unfortunate that this magazine is fundamentally compromised from its inception.
19 Responses
1/30/2008 10:38 am
Isn’t Oprah’s magazine just a big advertisement for her TV show?
Or is it the other way around?
I think as a media figure you oughta check out the beams in your own industry’s eyes before you start pointing out academia’s motes again.
Is MSNBC really a news site? Or is it a moneymaking venture? Do the good people at Politico care about policy or are they making a buck? Who funds the Weekly Standard? Is Al Gore’s TV station legit or a massive ad campaign for liberal policies? How much of Tom Brokaw’s onscreen persona has always been about selling his silly pop-sociology books about Generations? And what could be more pathetically obvious than Tom Friedman’s yearlong blitz of columns about globalization on the heels of his tract of gibberish, _The World Is Flat_?
Don’t get me started. I can do this all day.
Signed,
Hazel Motes
1/30/2008 12:42 pm
It’s true that Friedman slips into every column, somewhere, a sentence like “Because now the world is flat…”
But there’s no contributor’s bio on the page that mentions his book; there’s no link on the NYT website to Amazon to buy a copy. The “cross-marketing” or whatever it’s called is absent. And The Root is a Washington Post venture, so comparisons with how the Times handles things seems pertinent.
So in details if not essence, there’s a difference, I’d say, Herr Stehenden Adler.
1/30/2008 1:46 pm
Silly response for many reasons, Hazel.
First, argument by analogy introduces more vagary than precision, particularly when your analogies are so ill-chosen.
Second, even ifâespecially ifâall your points were meaningful, two wrongs don’t make a right.
Third, my post was not about academia. It was about journalism, of a sort.
Fourth, your facts are all wrongâTom Brokaw, for example, didn’t write books until decades into his career. Tom Friedman turned his columns into a book; he was writing about globalization long before TWIF came out. Is Al Gore’s TV station a massive ad campaign for liberal policies? Um…no. Is Oprah’s mag a big ad for her TV show? Somehow, I think the TV show (which came first, anyway) would survive without the magazine.
I could do this all day….
1/30/2008 3:19 pm
And please do.
eayny
1/30/2008 4:19 pm
But nice reference to Flannery O’Connor, Standing Eagle. RB obviously did not get it.
1/30/2008 4:20 pm
Typical. White people get upset because black people might actually make a living. Unbelievable.
1/30/2008 4:33 pm
true dat
1/30/2008 5:16 pm
To Think Twice and 3:33,
That is ridiculous. By being racially paranoid, you are missing the point. Now THAT’S unfortunate for you. You may not agree, but this is not a race issue.
eayny
1/30/2008 5:49 pm
Okay, peopleâsomeone is actually trying to use race to stir the pot here, which is pretty ugly, and not something I’ll allow in these comment boards.
Let’s be clear about one thing: Criticizing a magazine that’s really a means of pushing a separate business venture has nothing to do with race.
It is about the standards with which journalists (some of us, not all) try to practice their craft, so that readers can get information that is as accurate as possible.
If anything, the racism comes in holding a magazine aimed at African-Americans to a lower standard. Could one imagine a magazine or newspaper aimed primarily at whitesâsay, I don’t know, Slateâso compromised? If it were, no one would take it seriously.
1/30/2008 5:53 pm
For God’s sake, isn’t it obvious 3.20 and his pal True Dat are kidding around? Leave it to eayny to miss all irony —
1/30/2008 5:59 pm
Sorry if you took offense. All I’m saying is that it is extremely difficult for African Americans to find out about their family history, and white people tend to not fully appreciate that, and therefore don’t appreciate what Skip has done. And so what if he makes a living out of it? Everything doesn’t have to be IF Stone, for chrissakes.
1/30/2008 6:00 pm
I miss irony.
eayny
1/30/2008 6:32 pm
Actually, that exchange was a little ironic.
eayny
1/30/2008 7:32 pm
I have to agree with anon 4:59. “Fundamentally compromised” seems a bit strong. Lighten up, Rich.
James Bennett
1/30/2008 9:29 pm
I had the misfortune to read 4:59’s deleted comment earlier. It contained a vicious personal attack against Richard and his family. It was way out of line. Glad to see it got deleted.
1/30/2008 9:39 pm
4:59, as a University Professor he already makes an OK living ($400,000 p/a/ for teaching, research and service). It will be interesting to see over time whether altruism or wealth-amassment is driving here. RB’s assessment of the jounalistic blurring seems to suggest the latter is not uninvolved.
1/30/2008 10:54 pm
Hmmmm. How about just “compromised,” then?
First, if that really is James Bennettâwhich I sort of doubt, but on the other hand, why would someone impersonate James?âthen welcome to the site, and thanks for posting.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on why HLG’s conflict of interest is less problematic to you than it is to me.
Surely in The Atlantic, you wouldn’t allow an editor or writer to do double time in a way that subverts the credibility of the journalism therein.
Again, let me reiterate that I think the idea of an online mag for African-Americans is a really good one.
I also think that the idea of African-Americans pursuing genealogy is also a good one. It’s a pretty understandable interest.
What does trouble me is the idea of an online mag that’s really a business front for the editor’s genealogy company.
Again, *if* this is Jamesâyou used to work at the Times, and you know that the Times wouldn’t permit that kind of conflict of interest from one of its editors in a million years…..
1/30/2008 10:56 pm
Oh, and yes, I plead guilty to not catching the Flannery O’Connor reference. It’s been a long time since I read “Wise Blood”âabout 20 yearsâand tragically, I’m at the point in life where I forget whole books that I’ve read……
1/30/2008 11:01 pm
Seems unlikely it’s the James Bennett you’re thinking of, since that name is spelled Bennett. Of course, it’s quite possible that the editor off the Atlantic doesn’t know how to spell his own name.