Business Insider is being accused of engaging in unethical behavior after it published articles accusing hedge fund manager Bill Ackman’s wife of plagiarism.
Ackman had been vocal in calling for the resignation of former Harvard University president Claudine Gay following her testimony on antisemitism on college campuses before a House committee and revelations that she may have plagiarized passages in her 1997 doctoral dissertation and other scholarly articles. Gay resigned last Tuesday, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Journalists at Business Insider subsequently wrote articles accusing Ackman’s wife, former MIT professor Neri Oxman, of committing similar acts of plagiarism in her own dissertation. In one article, the author characterized both Gay and Oxman’s actions as “citation inadequacies.”
Ackman took umbrage.
“A reporter was attacking my wife yet again, a woman who is totally uninvolved in my advocacy on higher education, but they thought attacking my family would cause me more pain,” he wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Even the mafia operates with more dignity and respect for family, and I apologize to the mafia for the comparison. Business Insider gave us no time to respond and acted with actual malice and bad faith. … In my 36-year career, I have never had the experience of a journalist and their employer attacking the life partner of a subject of any story, even a big one.”
Columnist Karol Markowicz took to social media and seemed to suggest the articles essentially comprised a political hit job.
“You dared take a position against the left. That’s it. That’s all it takes. It’s a cultural revolution and dissenters will be punished. There are no rules,” Markowicz posted on X.
Ackman has since claimed to have discovered that multiple news outlets were pitched the story about his wife but declined to write on it.
“I learned today that at least four or five other media companies rejected the plagiarism story before it was accepted by Business Insider. Think about that. The story did not meet the standards for accuracy, evidence and/or ethics of the other media companies they approached. … How does this story fit into the parameters of a media outlet called Business Insider? Where is the inside business scoop in this story? Why did they choose to publish it when no one else was willing to do so?” he pressed.