Forbes has cut off its association with a prolific contributor after he wrote a number of articles about Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Forbes recently removed Adam Andrzejewski, founder and CEO of OpenTheBooks.com, as a contributor.
Prior to the action, Andrzejewski had multiple stories on information that he and his group obtained regarding Fauci’s financial situation.
Fauci, the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is the highest-compensated federal employee, one article revealed. Another detailed how difficult it was to obtain certain details on Fauci’s job and finances. A third outlined aspects of disclosures released to Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.).
Shortly after the last article, Caroline Howard, an executive editor at Forbes, wrote to Andrzejewski about his choice of topics.
“I see this is your third article on Fauci in 3 weeks. Huh,” Howard wrote, according to a copy of the email published by Andrzejewski.
Howard said one or more articles contained errors and warned the contributor against “straying into advocacy” and to “steer clear of opinion, distortion, speculation, exaggeration, bias, carelessness, half-truths, and deceit.”
Andrzejewski describes himself as a transparency advocate who has solely written about government transparency since starting as a columnist at Forbes in 2014.
The following day, a spokeswoman for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the parent agency of the one Fauci heads, informed Andrzejewski and an editor about “incorrect information” in one of the reports, alleging it was not correct to say Fauci and his wife, a bioethicist at NIH, “‘collected’ $8,100 to attend three galas.”
“Rather, Dr. Fauci accepted invitations for himself and his wife to attend three virtual events during 2020. He never ‘collected’ any money for these events,” she wrote.
The NIH also contested the description of Fauci receiving “travel perks” from McGraw-Hill, writing that Fauci was merely reimbursed for travel to editorial board meetings.
Andrzejewski responded to the first requested edit as “a difference without a distinction” and said he replaced the word “collecting” with “reported,” in addition to adding more details about Fauci’s position with McGraw-Hill and the reimbursements.
Within 24 hours of the NIH email, Randall Lane, a Forbes editor who often worked with Andrzejewski, allegedly called the columnist and told him to stop writing about Fauci. He also said that all topics going forward would have to be pre-approved.
About 10 days later, on Jan. 28, the column was terminated—the same day Forbes published a piece about how Fauci’s portrait will hang in the Smithsonian.
“National Institutes of Health came down hard on Forbes. Forbes came down on me. I told the truth. They pulled the plug,” Andrzejewski told The Epoch Times in an email.
“The size, scope, and power of the government at all levels has grown so substantially over the last 20 years that government bureaus feel empowered to pressure national media organizations. Unfortunately, Forbes folded quickly, which only fuels more government pressure on media,” he added.
Before the column ended, Andrzejewski had published over 200 articles on the oversight probes he and his group carried out, garnering nearly 17 million views.
This is an excerpt from The Epoch Times.
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