On January 16, 2023, Business Report published the story "I was almost scammed by Darren Russell - the alleged Cape Town Airbnb swindler".
Business Report, and by extension IOL, has taken the decision to retract the story and issue an apology to Darren Russell for any harm that he may have suffered as a result of the publication of the article.
The article was incorrectly labelled as "news" when in fact it was written as a comment piece about one reporter's personal experience – one which was largely positive – which was then augmented using supplementary sources published by other media companies.
We let ourselves down in not subjecting the article to the usual journalistic rigour we apply to all our other reportage.
Business Report and IOL unreservedly retract the article, and apologise to Mr Darren Russell for any harm that may have arisen by the article's publication.
There was no malicious intent behind the publication of the article. Remedial action will be taken internally, and our processes reviewed to ensure it does not happen again.