Benzinga.com is a financial news website in Detroit, Mich. operating since 2010. The Detroit-based company employs an editorial staff of around 30 people and publishes hundreds of stories per day, including numerous paid promotions written by a dedicated team. Benzinga charged $5,750 for a promotional package, including videos and what it described as “review style press release article �� according to the

Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its contents include news and media industry trends, ana ...

in 2021. Benzinga founder Jason Raznick, has said the web site had more than 25 million monthly visitors as of 2021. The company, which had a history of ethically questionable journalism as well as plagiarism, "Is Benzinga a front for plagiarism?

/ref> provides investment advice and analysis as well as services to several brokerage companies. Beringer Capital acquired Benzinga in 2021 in a private transaction valued at "more than $300 million," according to Raznick, although this amount was never independently confirmed.

Awards and Highlights

Raznick, who has said he favors "rule breakers, dreamers and doers," received a 2022 award for "disrupting financial media" from the Michigan Venture Capital Association, which describes itself as "the voice of Michigan's investment community."

Failed Crypto-Currency Investment

Also in 2022, Raznick was among the seven largest unsecured creditors of crypto-currency broker Voyager Digital. Benzinga didn't disclose Raznick's relationship with Voyager in its coverage of the company at the time. This coverage included a June "Exclusive" in which Voyager's CEO claimed that its customers' assets "are safe." A few weeks later, Voyager sought bankruptcy protection. The Federal Reserve and the FDIC in July 2022 jointly ordered Voyager to "cease and desist" from making false or misleading representations about its deposit insurance status "directly or by implication."

'Pump and Dump'

In 2017 Benzinga was implicated in two separate civil lawsuits filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning illegal stock promotion schemes. Benzinga, not a defendant in either complaint, said it was "a victim, not a culprit" and unaware of the multiple fraudulent articles it published during a nearly four-year period that were purportedly written by "outside contributors." Related to these lawsuits, the SEC issued an "investor warning," noting that: "Articles on an investment research website that appear to be an unbiased source of information or provide commentary on multiple stocks may be part of an undisclosed paid stock promotion." The allegedly fraudulent articles numbering in the "hundreds," were also published by similar web sites including "Wall Street Cheat Sheet" as well as SmallCapNetwork.com, InvestorVillage.com, Fool.com, InvestorsHub.com, Investing.com and others according the SEC, which didn't accuse the web sites of wrongdoing, although it pursued civil complaints against eight people. At least one of the defendants who agreed to an SEC settlement in 2018, continued to provide Benzinga with news items as of August 2023 through her financial communications company.

Plagiarism

In 2011 Benzinga plagiarized an entire op-ed essay written for the Wall Street Journal by Berkley law professor

Orin Kerr Orin Samuel Kerr (born June 2, 1971) is an American legal scholar and professor of law at the UC Berkeley School of Law."Faculty , UC Berkeley School of Law"Orin Kerr faculty profile/ref> He is known as a scholar in the subjects of computer crim ...

. Benzinga.com published this work under the byline "Patrick Harvard." Kerr's essay was published separately around the same time by

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

.com under the byline of Benzinga CEO "Jason Raznick," who was among more than 1,000 unpaid Forbes "contributors" at the time. Benzinga told Kerr it fired an employee because of the incident. Kerr said subsequently of the plagiarism that he was "more amused and intrigued by this than annoyed or upset."

Awards and Highlights

Failed Crypto-Currency Investment

'Pump and Dump'

Plagiarism

References

Further Reading