Neri Oxman’s plagiarism claim: Business Insider stands by its reporting about Bill Ackman’s wife

CNN
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Business Insider and its parent company, Axel Springer, announced on Sunday that Neri Oxman, a prominent former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and wife of billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, plagiarized her doctoral dissertation. He announced that he supports the report. .

Business Insider CEO Barbara Penn said in a memo Sunday morning that the company spent several days reviewing its coverage after Ackman’s public complaint. Penn said the review found that there was “no unfair bias” and that “the process we followed to report, edit and review the article was sound.”

Mr. Penn said two articles published by the outlet earlier this month that said Mr. Oxman had plagiarized the work of other scholars and excerpted more than a dozen entries from Wikipedia were “accurate.” She described Oxman as a “fair subject” who “has a public profile as a prominent intellectual and is also the subject and participant of media coverage,” including coverage related to Ackman’s recent activism. refuted Ackman’s complaint that he should have been spared.

“At Business Insider, we support and empower our journalists to share newsworthy, fact-based stories with our readers, and we do so with editorial independence.” he writes. “We stand behind our newsrooms and our reporting, and that will continue.”

In response to the report, Oxman admitted that he had not properly cited some of it. her work. “We regret these mistakes and apologize,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter). Ms. Ackman has since disputed the veracity of Business Insider’s report, and she said Mr. Oxman has hired a lawyer. A representative for Mr. Ackman did not comment to CNN on Sunday.

Business Insider announced last week that it had forced Axel Springer to review a report alleging that Oxman had plagiarized her work, sparking questions and criticism of the parent company’s decision.

The article was published after Ackman helped spearhead the campaign to oust Claudine Gay as president of Harvard University. Ackman relentlessly pressured Harvard to expel Gay, first criticizing the school’s response to her anti-Semitism and then criticizing her plagiarism, the latter of which ultimately led to her expulsion. Ta.

An Axel Springer spokesperson told CNN on Sunday that the German publishing powerhouse was satisfied with the review completed by Business Insider.

“We stand behind Business Insider and its newsroom,” a spokesperson said.

Business Insider staff members were wary of the multi-day review, saying it would set a precedent for a hard-hitting news organization known for its aggressive coverage of the rich and powerful. I was worried that there might be. A staffer told CNN earlier this week that journalists at the store were upset about the “chilling effect” that Axel Springer’s actions could have on the organization.