Benzinga

Benzinga.com is a financial news website in Detroit, Mich., which sells promotional "news" packages for $5,750, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. Benzinga's editorial staff of about 30 people published hundreds of stories each day, including the paid packages it said were produced by a "dedicated team," according to the CJR report in 2021. [2]

Benzinga
HeadquartersDetroit, Michigan[1]
Founder(s)Jason Raznick
URLBenzinga.com
LaunchedMay 18, 2009

With its claim of 25 million monthly visitors and checkered history,[3][4][5] Benzinga sought additional revenue by sponsoring conferences on crypto-currency and marijuana for small investors, as well as from premium subscriptions and its catalog of Benzinga stock-trading courses that promise to "aim for" six-month returns of up to 500%.[6] It also provided unspecified services to the brokerage companies Robinhood, TD Ameritrade and Fidelity Investments.[7]

Beringer Capital of Toronto acquired Benzinga in 2021 in a private transaction that "valued Benzinga at more than $300 million," according to Benzinga, although this assertion was never independently verified.[8][9][10]

Awards and Highlights

Benzinga founder and chief executive Jason 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 described itself as "the voice of Michigan's investment community."[11] [12][13]

Crypto-Currency Investor

Also in 2022, Benzinga's Raznick was among the seven largest unsecured creditors of crypto-currency broker Voyager Digital.[14] This relationship was undisclosed in Benzinga's Voyager news coverage, including its June 13 "Exclusive" in which Voyager's CEO claimed that its customers' assets "are safe." [15] Within weeks of this, two federal agencies jointly ordered Voyager to "cease and desist" from false statements about its deposit insurance status "directly or by implication."[16][17] Voyager had suspended operations July 1.

'Pump and Dump'

Although not a defendant, in 2017 Benzinga was implicated in two separate civil lawsuits filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning fraudulent stock promotion.[18][19] The SEC charged 27 firms and individuals in the two suits,[20] in which defendants ultimately paid individual fines ranging up to about $61,000. [21]

Related to this action, 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."[22].

Benzinga said it was "a victim, not a culprit" in the fraudulent stock promotions, and unaware of problems with articles at issue with the SEC that Benzinga published during a nearly four-year period. [23] The purported news items, numbering in the "hundreds," were also published by SmallCapNetwork.com, InvestorVillage.com, Fool.com, and several other comparable websites, according the SEC, which didn't charge any of the sites with wrongdoing.

At least one of the defendants who agreed to an SEC settlement in 2018 [24] continued to provide material published by Benzinga as of August 2023, through her financial communications company.[25]

Plagiarism

In 2011 Benzinga plagiarized an entire op-ed essay from The Wall Street Journal written by Berkeley law professor Orin Kerr. Benzinga published this work under the pseudonymous byline "Patrick Harvard." Kerr's essay was published separately around the same time by Forbes.com under the byline of Benzinga CEO "Jason Raznick," who was among more than 1,000 unpaid Forbes "contributors" at the time. [4][26] Kerr said subsequently of the plagiarism that he was "more amused and intrigued by this than annoyed or upset."[27]

Further reading
  • Wade Cook
  • Pershan, Caleb. "When bullish finance stories are not exactly what they appear". Columbia Journalism Review. Oct. 20. 2021*
  • Kerr, Orin, Sept. 16, 2011 "Is Benzinga.com Just A Front for Plagiarists?" Volokh Conspiracy (law blog)
  • Benton, Joshua, Feb. 9, 2022 "An incomplete history of how Forbes.com became a platform for scams, grifts and bad journalism" Nieman Journalism Lab, Harvard University

References
  1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-26/benzinga-ceo-sees-growth-after-beringer-takes-majority-stake?leadSource=uverify%20wall
  2. https://www.cjr.org/analysis/when-bullish-finance-stories-are-not-exactly-what-they-appear.php
  3. SEC Case No. 17-cv-2541, pages 10 & 15
  4. "Is Benzinga a front for plagiarism?"
  5. SEC Case No. 17-2540, pages 11 & 21
  6. "Get Benzinga Pro"
  7. "Benzinga to stay in Detroit after sale". Detroit Free Press. October 25, 2021. Retrieved January 28, 2022.
  8. Reyes, Max (2021-10-26). "Benzinga CEO Sees Growth After Beringer Takes Majority Stake". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2023-04-25.
  9. "Benzinga CEO Jason Raznick on Beringer Capital acquiring majority stake". Squawk Box. CNBC. October 25, 2021. Private equity firm Beringer Capital is acquiring a majority stake in Benzinga.
  10. Galea, Irene (2021-10-27). "Beringer Capital buys majority stake in news outlet Benzinga". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2023-04-25.
  11. raznick quote from his linkedin page (aug. 2023)
  12. Benzinga.com press release
  13. "About MVCA"
  14. "Benzinga CEO Jason Raznick Among Bankrupt Voyager’s Largest Creditors, Court Documents Show" Decrypt, July 20, 2022
  15. "EXCLUSIVE: Voyager Digital CEO Says 'Customer Assets Are Safe' Amid Crypto Collapse" by Adam Eckert, Benzinga, June 13, 2022
  16. "July 28, 2022 FDIC and Federal Reserve Board issue letter demanding Voyager Digital cease and desist from false statements about its deposit insurance status.
  17. Ackerman, Andrew (28 July 2022). "Bankrupt Crypto Brokerage Voyager Ordered to Cease False Promises About U.S. Banking Insurance". Wall Street Journal.
  18. SEC Case No. 17-cv-2541
  19. SEC Case No. 17-2540
  20. CALEB PERSHAN (October 29, 2021), "When bullish finance stories are not exactly what they appear", Columbia Journalism Review
  21. SEC "Final judgment Thomas Meyer" https://www.sec.gov/files/Judg17-cv-02541Meyer.pdf
  22. U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Litigation Release No. 23802 / April 12, 2017 Securities and Exchange Commission v. Lidingo Holdings, LLC, et al., No. 1:17-cv-02540 (S.D.N.Y filed April 10, 2017) Securities and Exchange Commission v. CSIR Group, LLC, et al., No. 1:17-cv-02541 (S.D.N.Y. filed April 10, 2017)
  23. Benzinga says it was among victims in pump-and-dump schemes Walsh, Dustin. Crain's Detroit Business; Detroit Vol. 33, Iss. 16, (Apr 17, 2017
  24. https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr-24102
  25. (See contact name at bottom of benzinga press release at
  26. "How publishers-turned-platforms pay their amateur contributors". 9 April 2014.
  27. https://volokh.com/2011/09/16/is-benzinga-com-just-a-front-for-plagiarists/
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