Three years ago, journalists at Sports Illustrated were worried that the venerable magazine’s new owners and operators were drastically lowering its standards. On Monday, the science and technology publication Futurism reported that Sports Illustrated had published product reviews under fake author names with fake author biographies. “If true, these practices violate everything we believe in about journalism,” the union representing Sports Illustrated journalists said in a statement after the report was published. “We deplore being associated with something so disrespectful to our readers.”The Arena Group, which publishes Sports Illustrated under a complicated management structure, blamed a vendor, AdVon Commerce, for the situation. Sports Illustrated licenses product reviews from AdVon, and AdVon assured the Arena Group that “all of the articles in question were written and edited by humans,” said Rachael Fink, an Arena Group spokeswoman.

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Persons: AdVon, ”, Rachael Fink, “ Organizations: Sports Illustrated, Sports, Group, AdVon Commerce, Arena Group