Axel Springer, Business Insider Stand By Plagiarism Coverage On Bill Ackman’s Wife: ‘The Stories Are Accurate and the Facts Well Documented’

AP Photo/Richard Drew

Business Insider and its parent company Axel Springer are standing by the organization’s reporting — which raised plagiarism accusations against the wife of billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.

Ackman has been on a social media warpath ever since Insider reported that his wife, former MIT Media Lab Professor Neri Oxman, plagiarized part of her doctoral dissertation. While Oxman has admitted to her lack of citations and apologized for it, the revelations drew the wrath of Ackman — who was one of the most vocal advocates for the ouster of Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard who resigned earlier this month amid numerous plagiarism accusations.

Ackman slammed Insider’s reporting on his wife, even suggesting it was driven by anti-Semitism.The hedge fund titan has publicly and privately pressured Axel Springer to take punitive actions against Insider, and the company last week announced an investigation of Ackman’s claims.

That probe has now concluded. The Wall Street Journal obtained an internal memo from Insider CEO Barbara Peng, which said “There was no unfair bias or personal, political, and/or religious motivation in the pursuit of the stories.”

“The stories were newsworthy and Neri Oxman, who has a public profile as a prominent intellectual and has been a subject of and participant in media coverage, is a fair subject,” the memo continued. “The process we went through to report, edit, and review the stories was sound, as was the timing. The stories are accurate and the facts well documented.”

Axel Springer gave its own affirmation to the Journal, saying in a statement “We stand by Business Insider and its newsroom.”