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.
Shortly after the last article, Caroline Howard, an executive editor at Forbes, wrote to Andrzejewski about his choice of topics.
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.
Fauci did not respond to a request for comment.
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.
A Forbes spokesman confirmed that Andrzejewski is no longer a contributor.
“Forbes regularly removes contributors (note: he wasn’t an employee so he wasn’t fired) who don’t meet our high editorial standards,” the spokesman told The Epoch Times in an email.
Andrzejewski’s “numerous articles on Dr. Fauci’s finances” are still available on the Forbes website, he noted.
Andrzejewski said he plans to keep reporting on Fauci in the future.
“Subject to our federal lawsuit, NIH owes us 1,200 pages of Fauci financial documents, and each page is a potential national news story,” he said. “The agency also owes us 3,000 pages of line-by-line royalty payments. Just think about the treasure-trove of stories coming down the pike soon.”
