Axel Springer, the company that owns Business Insider, is launching an investigation into the outlet’s reports on plagiarism allegations involving the wife of a prominent critic of Harvard University, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.
Ackman led the charge to oust former Harvard President Claudine Gay over plagiarism allegations amid controversy over Gay’s response to pro-Hamas protests on her school’s campus.
According to a report by Semafor, leaders of Axel Springer, the German parent company of Business Insider, are at odds about two news stories from the outlet alleging Neri Oxman, Ackman’s wife and a former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had plagiarized portions of her dissertation.
Some at the German company are concerned about whether the Oxman stories were fair and if they might have been motivated by antisemitism, given that Oxman was born and raised in Israel.
“Questions have been raised about the motivation and the process leading up to the reporting — questions that we take very seriously,” Axel Springer spokesman Adib Sisani said in a statement to Semafor. “Our media brands operate independently, however all Axel Springer publications are committed to journalism that meets rigorous editorial standards and processes.”
“We are going to take a couple of days to review the processes around these stories to ensure that our standards as well as our journalistic values have been upheld,” he added.
The announcement of an investigation came after Ackman defended his wife on X and raised questions about Business Insider investigative editor John Cook, whom he called a “known anti-Zionist.”
“That might explain why he was willing to lead this attack and others turned down the source when they were looking for a media outlet,” Ackman said.
The hedge fund manager also posted to X on Monday that there was “no due process” in the Business Insider story, saying that Oxman was only given 90 minutes to respond to a “7,000-word plagiarism allegation” prior to the outlet’s publication of its story.
Ackman is currently engaged in an effort to expose potential plagiarists in higher education by calling for the use of artificial intelligence tools to scan the published works of MIT leaders and faculty.
In a message Sunday to employees regarding the announcement of Axel Springer’s review, Business Insider Global Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Carlson said he would “welcome” the inquiry but ultimately defended the stories about Oxman.
“I made the call to publish both these stories,” he said. “I stand by our story and the work that went into it. I know that our process was sound. I know our newsroom’s motivations are truth and accountability.”
Axel Springer’s investigation also comes as the company’s CEO, Mathias Döpfner, requires its German employees to sign a statement supporting Israel’s right to exist, among other things. Döpfner also ordered the flying of the Israeli flag outside his company’s building in 2021 in solidarity against antisemitism, stating that those uncomfortable with it should leave the company.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I’m being very frank with you: A person who has an issue with an Israeli flag being raised for one week here, after antisemitic demonstrations, should look for a new job,” he said in 2021.
Business Insider declined to comment on a request from the Washington Examiner.