The mystery of the Jewish Chronicle
JVL Introduction
The open wound that is the Jewish Chronicle continues to fester.
Recall September 2024 when the JC published fake stories from a dodgy source, echoing points from a Netanyahu hymn sheet, in what looks suspiciously like a black ops affair.
Exposed as totally phoney by Israeli journalists, the JC attempted to shrug it off claiming it “maintains the highest journalistic standards”. No worries then!
Four Jewish columnists—David Baddiel, Jonathan Freedland, David Aaronovitch and Hadley Freeman – refused to have anything more to do with the JC
All this in a context where nobody knows who own the Jewish Chronicle. Remember, it was bought out by a consortium fronted by Sir Ronnie Gibbs, Theresa May’s former communications chief appointed to the BBC Board by Boris Johnson, calling that body’s impartiality sharply into question, especially after the recent right-wing attack on the BBC.
In an overview of the whole sordid history Alan Rushbridger lists a dozen questions and more that any serious enquiry into the JC and its shadowy ownership would pose. The utterly toothless regulator IPSO appears to have asked none of them.
As its last report delivered in April makes clear, it sees no problems at all, welcoming “the assurances it has received from the Jewish Chronicle’s [new] Editor of his commitment to high editorial standards and his desire to work closely with IPSO to maintain improvements.”
RK
This article was originally published by Alan Rushbridger's Substack on Wed 10 Dec 2025. Read the original here.
A crisis at the Jewish Chronicle shows the toothlessness of the press watchdog
The country’s longest-standing Jewish newspaper ran fabricated stories that have prompted a widespread inquiry in Israel. But at home, the press regulator has show little interest in holding the title
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erm… This seems to be saying the JC was a respectable paper before the new undisclosed owners took over? Cue derisive laughter. Those four columnists themselves have been guilty of so much partisan writing re Israel and Jewish identity, not just in their JC columns but in many different outlets including their own (in some cases racist) blogs.
The ‘community’ leadership of all kinds has been of such low calibre for years. I add, that the preposterous but probably influential Jewish Leadership Council is unelected and unaccountable. NB this JLC was founded specifically in 1967 after the 6-Day War, to counteract possible damage to Israel’s international reputation in the wake of the conquest and occupation.
be prepared, antizionism will soon be as permissible as Palestine Action
https://www.timesofisrael.com/anti-zionism-is-a-new-chapter-of-jew-hatred-that-must-be-confronted-head-on-say-activist-academics/?utm_campaign=most_popular&utm_source=website&utm_medium=article_end&utm_content=3
£5m for 2k pages. Like £2250 per page then.
Blimey!
It must have been really – really – bad, if those four, named, decided they couldn’t go on working for the JC.
Another five million quid of our money, down the drain, but let’s have Leveson2, eh. Throwing good money after bad.
Let’s have another round of the ‘great and the good’, with their faux humility, mea culpa and sincerity. Just the distraction we all need, in a new year.
Austin, eh? Tch!
Thank you for (re) publishing this valuable article by Alan Rushbridger, the former editor of the Guardian.
There are two issues here – who owns and controls the Jewish Chronicle and then the broader issue of how poorly the people of these islands are served by our “free” mass media.
I agree that the readers of the Jewish Chronicle are entitled to know who owns it, but the name is less important than the fact it is obviously controlled and published in the interests of Israel.
In the longer term, the more important issue is how we can develop a media which serves the people as a whole rather than serving the interests of a foreign power and a privileged minority in Britain. Holding the mass media to account is something which the Labour Party has consistently ducked – witness the fact that between 1945 and the late 1970s we had three Royal Commissions to grapple with the problems of concentration of ownership ( which has steadily got worse), and accountability.
I represented the National Union of Journalist on the Press Council for two years in 1978/80 and finally decided that it was a fraud perpetrated on society at large. I campaigned for the NUJ to pull out, and the Press Council eventually collapsed. But the present system is simply another confidence trick perpetrated on the British people.
For example….the present chair of IPSOS, Lord Faulks, was one of 40 peers who publicly objected to British recognition of a Palestinian state. Interestingly, the principles of IPSOS state that: “Independence is critical to IPSOS credibility and must be evident in all aspects of IPSOS governance and operations.” That did not inhibit Lord Faulks in the slightest……which may help to explain his reluctance to get tough with the Jewish Chronicle.
Brilliant. Looking for his substack
Long missed although praise for his old journalists (and DB!) is a moot.
Who can fail to impressed by the inclusion of Lord Austin7 as one of the directors of the New, Improved JC? He who selflessly dehydrated himself during his memorable, mild-mannered one-way conversation with the other JC in the Palace of Westminster. What a guy!