Axel Springer launches investigation into Business Insider reporting on Neri Oxman

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by Shannon Saylor

Axel Springer, the parent company of Business Insider, questions billionaire Bill Ackman’s motives behind reports that his wife Neri Oxman plagiarized her MIT dissertation in 2010. The company said it was investigating the media’s “processes” in response to the incident.

Axel Springer said it would take “several days” to “review the process” regarding two Insider articles related to Oxman, a spokesperson for the German media giant told the Post.

“While the facts of the report are not being discussed, questions have arisen over the past few days about the motives and process that led to the report, and we take these questions very seriously,” the company said in a statement.

“We remain transparent without drawing conclusions,” added Axel Springer.

The German media giant, which also owns Politico, also said in a statement that “our media brands operate independently.”

Oxman, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumnus who served as a tenured professor at the university from 2017 to 2021, was the subject of two Insider reports published Thursday and Friday, totaling She claims there were at least 32 instances of plagiarism in her doctoral dissertation and other papers.

In response, Ackman took aim at possible motives behind Business Insider’s coverage of Oxman, claiming the article’s editors were “known anti-Zionists.”

“The editor of Business Insider’s investigative group who is leading the attack on my wife is John Cook,” Ackman said. Posted in X on sunday.

“He is known as an anti-Zionist. My wife is Israeli,” added the billionaire founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management.

“That may explain why he was willing to lead this attack and why he turned down sources when other news organizations were looking for them,” Ackman wrote about the plagiarism allegations. Ta. The insider pointed to pages in Oxman’s 330-page paper and said they were “virtually identical.” ” can be found on various Wikipedia pages.

Insider’s global editor-in-chief, Nicholas Carlson, later shared an internal memo saying he supported the two articles in question.

“It is my responsibility to publish fair, independent and newsworthy journalism. I called for both of these articles to be published. I support our story and the work that has gone into it. “I know our processes were sound. I know our newsroom is motivated by truth and accountability,” Carlson wrote in a letter to staff. This was conveyed through a screenshot of the shared note.

Cook declined to comment, calling Ackman an anti-Zionist.

Mr. Ackman, who was a vocal critic of former Harvard University President Claudine Gay during her plagiarism allegations, bashed Insider magazine for similar allegations against his wife, and said the magazine’s investigation was based on MIT insiders. He even suggested that it may have been caused by.

In the same post on Sunday, Ackman attacked Insider for breaking “the sacred law that you can attack the main character all you want, but not his wife or children.”

“You would never go after someone’s family to go after a businessman,” Ackman added, suggesting that the investigative reporters behind the explosive allegations were trying to oust him.

All the while, Mr. Ackman has been calling on MIT to fire its president, Dr. Sally Kornbluth, who attended controversial Congressional testimony in Washington, D.C., on December 5, 2023. The doctor was accused of “implying demands.” In some circumstances, the genocide of Jews may not qualify as bullying or harassment under MIT’s Code of Conduct. ”

Representatives for Pershing Square’s Mr. Ackman and Mr. Oxman’s latest venture, biological and materials engineering company OXMAN, did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.

Oxman himself has not yet responded to Insider’s new claims, but Insider said the claims are “closer to the more common definition of plagiarism, which involves taking someone else’s words as if they were your own.” be used without giving any indication that it is fraudulent.”

Following Thursday’s release of Insider’s initial report on four inappropriately cited passages in Oxman’s paper, Ackman also said Oxman would be investigated because it “struck a chord.” It was suggested that this may have taken place.

“When they go after your wife, in this case my love and life partner @NeriOxman, you know you feel empathy,” he said. shared by On Thursday, just minutes after Mr. Oxman admitted that he had not accurately cited four paragraphs of his 330-page doctoral thesis, which fall under MIT’s definition of plagiarism.

Mr. Ackman, who has one child with Mr. Oxman, attributes the fund’s success to their marital union, but despite bashing former Harvard University president Claudine Gay for similar accusations, he is accused of plagiarism. He called his wife a “human being” after admitting to four of them.

Last week, after it was revealed that Gay would no longer be president of Harvard University, but would remain on the Ivy League faculty and maintain a salary of nearly $900,000, Ackman said that Gay had “serious plagiarism issues” at X. For this reason, he said he should quit Harvard University altogether.

“Students are forced to leave school at a much lower cost.” I have written Ackman was accused of “bullying” a gay man into leaving his alma mater. “Rewarding her with her well-paid faculty position sets a very bad precedent for Harvard’s academic integrity.”

Ackman, 57, whose net worth is listed by Forbes as $4 billion, married a 47-year-old Israeli-born academic in 2019.