Published SourceCutting / Usage Record

Business Insider Report On Benny Johnson Plagiarism Shows BuzzFeed’s Own Copying Problem

This archived screenshot preserves a Business Insider report titled “Buzzfeed Cans Editor After Uncovering ‘40 Instances’ Of Plagiarism”, about BuzzFeed firing viral politics editor Benny Johnson after finding repeated plagiarism in his work. The screenshot is significant because it forms part of the wider evidence chain on BuzzFeed’s editorial culture before and around the CEN investigation: Ben Smith initially defended Johnson as “one of the web’s deeply original writers”, before BuzzFeed later reviewed and corrected more than 40 instances of plagiarism, adding apology notes to the affected articles. The item matters because BuzzFeed later adopted a highly moralised tone towards CEN, viral news and the alleged misuse of source material, while its own newsroom culture had blurred the line between remixing, copying, aggregation and news. Read alongside the wider BuzzFeed/CEN material, the screenshot helps document the double standard between BuzzFeed’s public role as a critic of online fakery and its internal history of traffic-driven content practices, loose attribution and editorial failures involving copied material.

Source

Part of Central European News & Mike Leidig v BuzzFeed (US Second Circuit Libel Case) – Archived Web Screenshots

Europe Media newsX CIC Published 3 May 2026 at 13:59 Source: 16 July 2016

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Business InsiderBuzzFeedBenny JohnsonBen Smithplagiarismcopied materialWikipediaattributionviral politicstraffic-driven journalismremix cultureeditorial standardsBuzzFeed cultureCENMike Leidigsource useonline publishingmedia ethicshypocrisyarchived web screenshotsource evidencelibel case evidence

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Credit: newsX

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File SCREEN - Buzzfeed Cans Editor For Plagiarism - Business Insider - [web.archive.org].pdf · 580.9 KB Download

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